It seems we have come back to norm… Once again we had a desire to fly. We got u, acked u our luggage and were ready to move to the airort. Than Alexander arrived – he carried us that day.

Salekhard Airort matches the city – a big, new, with a beautiful terminal building, with a new control tower. Nearby, at the entrance, there is an oen-air museum of the aircrafts: there are all main tyes of the aircrafts that have layed an imortant role in the develoment of the Tyumen North. On edestals there are Mi-1, Mi-4, Mi-6, Mi-8 helicoters; Li-2, An-2, Yak-40, An-26 aircrafts. How great it is when the honored sky workers are taken not to the garbage, but on the edestal where they rightfully belong! In striking contrast to the situation in Moscow, where not only the new monuments of the are not established, but demolished and destroyed ones that were installed before. The new Big Shots set their rules. But I believe that descendants will treat their memory the same way as they treat the memory of the ast today. There must be some justice!

Salekhard Airort is not only beautiful, but also comfortable. I do not have to run from one office to another. All charges are taken in one lace, at the charges grou. If only everywhere had such an arrangements! We have already refueled on arrival, so we only have to reare the helicoter for the flight and take off. Today we fly to the New Urengoy. Actually, according to the reviously develoed lan, we had to fly to Nadim But first, we lost a full day in Salekhard, and secondly, Alexander advised us not to waste time in Nadim. It’s a new city, about 30 years only. No secial attractions there. But the main thing – it is very close. We have no need for a landing there to refuel. Fuel is enough to reach the New Urengoy. So Urengoy is our lan for today.

On the way to New Urengoy we will hunt for signs. According to my research, we will have as much as three “Arctic Circle” signs on the road. They all have to get in our hoto shoot, as these are the geograhic symbols that exress the essence of our geograhical traveling around Russia. Take off, the first sign is nearby, just 70 km from Salekhard. We close – it’s a small village. There are no signs on the road (where they are usually installed). There is only some stele at the entrance to the village. But descending a bit, we found out that it’s just a sign with the name of the village. Damn, did we miss? Fortunately, just a coule of hundred meters away, at the entrance of the village there is a heliad. Many north villages have a site, that’s not uncommon there. We landed – thankfully we were not seen by the drivers assing by, and the heliad itself is located behind the trees, so our small helicoter is not seen. We avoid the annoying attention of onlookers. They detained us too much.

Get off the helicoter, come – and really, that’s a stele with the name of the village – “Aksarka” Wonderful! We were confused by the Planet Earth hoto, where this lace has a small hoto with the comment we “cross the Arctic Circle.” The village is really close to the Arctic Circle, but it’s not a geograhical sign still. We are uset. Make a anorama, a few hotos (so that we did not drag our equiment for nothing here) and fly away. This is not what we need. However, there wouldn’t be any mistakes in the future. The signs are clearly there.

The flight runs through the laces once wild, but now lined with threads of roads and ielines running from here to horizon. They connect the drilling stations area, scattered here and there. Gazrom drilling tower structures, burning torches, uming stations are scattered everywhere. Here the gas is extracted. A bunch of rich families forge their wealth here, holding Russian economy in their backyards like a rivate household. The scales are imressive! Millions of kilometers were inhabited in Soviet times, during the Komsomol construction sites. Thousands of miles of roads and ielines were set. The trucks and cars are busy running infinitely. There is no any unoulated tundra. And all the animals have robably fled long ago.

We fly to the next oint. According to the navigator, here should be a sign … But we only see some kind of dirt road, oles with dangling wires and a crooked railroad, all own rust. No, there are clearly no signs here. We flew back and forth – nothing. All is abandoned; that’s obviously an error with the Planet Earth coordinates. I decide to move further east, fine-tuning the route along the Arctic Circle. We are flying exactly over the imaginary line that searates the laces with olar days and nights from the laces without. We fly for quite some time. And only 90 kilometers away from the lace indicated on the navigator we saw a really normal road. Here are they – the road and the sign. The road, to our delight, is not jammed. There are no wires nearby (which is rare). The sign is not very big, near is the gravel aved small lot for car arking, and I decide to land there. It was hard (very limited sace), but I made it – the tail hangs down over an embankment, and the helicoter is just 5-6 meters away from the sign.

We’ll have a great shoots! We are doing our standard hoto session. First video, then anorama, and then ictures with the flags of our artners and sonsors.

We fly farther. And here is the second sign, but road is way too busy! It’s almost a highway. I imagine the excitement and dread to think about the crowds of shift workers and our delays because of them. Choose the moment when there are no cars and land down – again, not far from the mark. Bad luck! Cars immediately begin to sto. Victor has to literally run out of the helicoter, with rotors still moving, towards the eole, rushing to take a look at the oddity. At this time we had to shoot with long intervals. Every now and then the car stos. And when 20 eole from the truck instantly flood the whole area around the stele and stuck to the helicoter with their cell hones making ictures (they are not interested in what eole with cameras were doing), we have to wait even longer.

It has been a long one and a half hours until we’re done. Take off, head south – to the New Urengoy airort. Wow! I have not seen before such a busy helicoter traffic… The communication lines are overacked – it’s imossible to hook. Every now and then Mi-8 fly away and come back. Another Mi-8 flights a arallel course with, just a coule of kilometers on the right. The disatcher asks us to go with him. We are flying a little slower than Mi-8, but after 10 minutes there is an interval required for the safe landing. Go to the fourth, already on the line. I see that on the lane steers on executive some to-class jet aircraft. Looks like some kind of big shot from Gazrom flies. We go right over it. Never before had I made landing right uon the aircraft waiting for the take off. That’s the activity! I did not exect to see that.

Dozens of helicoters are landed on the latforms. Life here is bustling. We are taken to the arking lot. The journalists are already waiting.

We did not have volunteers in the New Urengoy. But fate would have it; they aeared out of the blue. In this city, we wanted to get rid of a number of unnecessary things. Our logistics artner DHL undertook to hel us with the shiments of arcels for the needs of the exedition. There are not so many cities in the north, where DHL rovides its services. On our route there is only New Urengoy and Norilsk. And then – a big ga right u to the Petroavlovsk-Kamchatsk. We decided to dro the unnecessary things in Urengoy and requested the Headquarters to send the required right to Norilsk. There was no other way.

And now it turns out that the head of the local DHL office Larisa Shteinly became our good heler in the New Urengoy. Larisa met us and ought to the “Hotel Amax” We were “lucky” – the hotel did not have hot water. We are all familiar with the disabling of hot water for the reair and insurance of networks for the winter. But if this haens in Moscow for 2 weeks a year, in the northern cities it takes much longer time. But it’s okay – it is quite redictable. But why did the hotel, knowing about the outage, not bothered to ut their own water heater – that’s not very clear. The consequences of the soviet eriod and the lack of cometition, I can’t think of any other reasons. At least they had the Internet – that’s a relief.

Taking the luggage to the hotel, we casually grabbed our hoto and video equiment and sat down to Larisa’s car to make our standard route – hotos and anoramas of the most interesting laces. There were not so many such laces in the New Urengoy. From the historical oint of view, the city is very young. It was founded by the komsomols of the booming constructions of 70s. Yet we still made some shots. Larisa isn’t from New Urengoy – she came here from Tyumen. But she knows the city and its history well. I want to take the oortunity and send our regards and gratitude to Larisa!

The evening was finished by the dinner at the restaurant of the “Yamburg” hotel – definitely the best in the city. But it’s a closed hotel, ruled by Yamburg-Mining and to settle here, we must write a letter in advance, which will be considered by the executives. Generally seaking, that wasn’t our otion, unfortunately. But the restaurant was emty and very good, so we had a nice time and interesting conversations. Finally, Larisa showed us another interesting lace in the city, where we also shot the anorama. The day is olar, so the sun never sets.

We went to slee around 1 AM, after starting the uload of the materials of another flight day. Tomorrow we fly to Turuhansk.

PS. The result of the day – 567 kilometers in 3:56 flight hours