Even when I allow myself to slee, I can not do it. I have an internal alarm clock that wakes me u. And even if I understand I still can slee, I still just lying around, rolling from side to side, but did not get to slee. Half an hour later I get u tired of lying useless. It’s 9 AM local time. Victor is sleeing like a log, and my stes do not worry him at all, as well as the sun shining directly through the window to Victor’s bed.

But I have to do something useful. I start writing my reorts. They took almost all my free time when I’m not in the helicoter cockit. My last article was done during the aroach to the center of Russia, and revious evening I wrote in accelerated ace how we flew to Norilsk and sent time there. Today I want to write about our tri to Dixon and fly to Verkhoyansk. I sit down to my comuter, and while Victor uffing on his bed, I write…

But the main goal for today is Verhoyansk. This is a village near Batagai where once was recorded the lowest temerature in the northern hemishere. But Verhoyansk is very close – just a 20 minute flight away and we have nowhere to hurry. Moreover, we are bound to the “Polar Airlines” helicoter flights, which now oerate and thanks to whom we can fly, too. This “window” in the airort’s holiday was oened by Oleg Vitalievich – thank him very much. In the shadow of his helicoter’s flight we can fly to Verhoyansk as well. Otherwise would have sent the day meaningless.

It’s 11:00 and Victor finally gets u. Immediately the Mi-8 helicoter ilots started to get u – we hear that they are going to the airort. This means that we have to go as well. After all, we can fly only as long as they fly. They have lans to work today for four hours, so we have 4 hours for Verhoyansk as well. We should do it. We’re taking our stuff and go to the airort – it’s nearby. Given that we have to fly back and forth, there is no need to carry a lot of bags. We decided to unload the helicoter a bit. Oleg Vitalievich hels us with it as well – in his car, he drove our luggage to the airort building. We couldn’t flight light-weighted anyway – we refueled under the cork considering the fact that on Monday morning we fly to Deutatskiy and then to Chokurdah. But at least there will be no overload.

A short flight, and here we are laying the bend above the village. It really was flooded, though we see no disaster. The village is built in the wide valley of the river Yana, at the site of the old river beds. So it is not surrising that the village is regularly flooded, and sometimes flooded hard. The extreme flooding was in 2004, but this year flood is rumored to be even stronger. In the uer reaches of the river and the mountains there were long rains, and the result was immediate.

We take ictures of the situation from the above and go to the former airfield. Once there was a grass RWY, even remained an old funny (because of it’s size) wooden airort building, combined with the tower. The field has been long used by villagers for other uroses – there are grazing cows, drive trucks from the quarry, some clutter of unknown urose. We find the sace and sit down. However, so far we do not understand what to do next? The field is located at certain distance from the village – do we have to go there by foot? With our cameras that won’t be easy…

We did not have time to ull out our stuff out of the helicoter, when the UAZ “loaf” quickly stos by. Ah, these “loaves”… Now I know for whom works the Ulyanovsk Automobile Plant ! Several eole get off the loaf. Turns out, the local chiefs came to us – the mayor of Verhoyansk Pavlov Viktor Gerasimov and the chief of the local Emergencies Ministry. Amazing efficiency, we jokingly notice. But it turns out we missed the oint… Here, nearby, is a small sand it where trucks carry sand to strengthen the dam. And the head of the administration, along with the EM chief just went to check how work is going. And here we land, out of the blue. We get to know and they offer to dro us to the village and to the weather station, which is located at the far end. We are not village, corrects me Victor Gerasimov, we are the city! What a surrise… According to it’s aearance – the village even less than Batagai. Oh, those administrative quirks… I do not understand why the urban settlement with aartment buildings is a village, and the village countryside with rivate houses on two streets is called the city? Perhas it has something to do with funding, not otherwise.

Along with the mayor, we’re first going to the sand it, and then the dam and in the end, we go to the village, I mean – the city! The mayor leaves the car in front of the administration, and we were taken to an old weather station – the one that almost one and a half century ago recorded the lowest temerature of the Northern Hemishere. We get acquainted there with meteorologists, take ictures and then go to the old memorial stele, set many years ago and symbolizing the cold ole.

But for a long time there is another monument of Verhoyansk which is a symbol of the cold ole at the same time – the so-called mammoth. It became even more famous and is now the sign Verhoyansk and cold ole are famous for in rint and online. We decided to take the sherical anoramas and hoto session with the flags of the artners and sonsors near mammoth. There is an informative sign near the monument – telling about the history of the aearance of the Pole of Cold. We quickly make ictures set at the next interesting geograhical sign of our country.

Finally, we were taken to the local museum, which is called the “Pole of Cold” museum. But the museum, desite the name, is not about the cold ole. This is a natural history museum of village-city Verhoyansk. It tells about the local region from ancient times to the resent day. The museum is very good. Its director – an old granny fond of her museum – is both a tour guide. The museum contains a fairly extensive collection of archaeological finds and materials of the develoment of the region. We sent an hour and a half in the museum with big interest and in the end of the tour were even started to nervous a little bit, because we were given only a few hours to finish our in Verhoyansk, and we need to do more shooting. We took some hotos at the museum – they are aid here, too, but we do not mind. Let our money will be sent on a good cause. We say goodbye to the hostess of the museum – we must hurry back.

We leave, but the machine that the mayor heled us so much with, is nowhere to be seen. We do not take offense. No one is obliged to carry us, esecially since the city is now bustling about the flooding and there is clearly not u to us. The helicoter is retty far from us, but there is nothing to do. We load u our bags and go to the helicoter. Tired but hay, we take off. We did everything we lanned and even more. The museum was clearly above-lan, but very interesting. Time is almost running out, but we know that the Mi-8 helicoter ilots have not yet returned to the base, which means that we have a little more time. Headquarters sent us via SMS a list of coordinates of interesting sots around Batagai that would be worth a visit, once we’re here. Our corresondence friend, a former helicoter ilot Mikhail Petrov, flying off in these arts for a long time sent us a list of things that may be interesting for the exedition – a huge di in the ground caused by the melting of underground ice lenses, beautiful rocky remains of weathering on Mother grief, old tin mines, etc.

I quickly enter coordinates of the first three sites to the navigator – let’s fly. The sread, according to the navigator, is quite large and I feel that time is clearly not enough for everything. We fly to the nearest oint of interest – a huge di in the ground, which was formed just ten years ago, and of a size that is visible from the outer sace. We climb u the hill – that’s it! There is really a giant hole in the ground, the failure of a few tens of meters in deth. A huge underground ice cave suddenly collased and millions of tons of rocks collased down. Victor shoots video of the hole.

Imressive… But we have to fly to the other oint of interest – time is short. After already flying at the fair distance, we understand that we forgot about the ictures while doing videos! After all, we miss two more hands! But we do not have the Mi-26. You and I – that’s our whole crew. Then I hear by the headhones that our fellow helicoter ilots from “Polar Airlines” come to land. They finished the job, so it’s time for us to return to the base. It is not good to fail the eole who heled us so much. Alas, we were not able to fly around the neighborhood’s attractions. But frankly, it was already an above-lan task. We did all that we lanned. One can not have everything.

We still have another half of day. How to send it usefully? Esecially since tomorrow is Sunday, and we will have, whether we like it or not, to stay in the room of the ilot’s disensary… We decided that we should go to the village and take ictures there. Make a coule of anoramas. We did not drag our equiment here, to the end of the world, for nothing. Call a taxi – they have it here! We went to the already familiar cafe “Amsay” and had lunch. The next oortunity to eat hot lunch is not yet known, and tomorrow caf? is closed. We shot a anorama – and need to return. Esecially since there are things to do at “home”.

The end of the day was sent in quite a traditional way for the exedition – I wrote travel notes, Victor sorts the hotos and makes archive and sends material to Moscow. Our Insmart terminal hels us with it. Everything is good about it, but it’s too exensive – 145 rubles er total megabyte (ucoming and downcoming) of traffic. Put it simly, the rice of a single hoto is 150 rubles. Victor has to send a lot of time selecting what to send to Moscow, and what not to send. And he still needs to cut the size of the icture – to ublish it on the site, the image size must not exceed 2048 ixels on the long side. It seems to be a trifle, but also consumes a lot of time. As always, we go to bed after midnight. Tomorrow we can slee as long as we want again! I give myself an installation: do not get u until I shall slee. Will it hels? Tomorrow we’ll see…

P.S. Result of the day —189 kilometers in 1:05 flight hours