Our headquarters has chosen for us Archangel Hotel “Caital of the North”. When we called its name to the locals, many weren’t realizing what we were talking about, and then remembered – “Oh, so that’s Pur Navolok”. The old Soviet hotel was recently renovated, renamed and now it is quite a decent hotel. The only minus – light curtains should not be used during the white nights. It’s imossible to dim the lights in the room.

We woke u sleey again. I woke u because of Victor’s SMS; and I was still half-aslee when left the room. The ight sun outside the window does not hel to wake u, and only after a cool shower I refreshed slightly. We go to have eakfast. Today we fly to Naryan-Mar, but before leaving I’d like to shoot in Malye Karely, a lace, which was strongly advised to us by our Moscow colleagues, the natives of the lace.

We call a taxi, load our devices in it. They’re awfully heavy. Every day we carry two heavy bags from the helicoter, one with chargers, and one with hoto and video equiment. You can’t fit everything inside one bag – and we have to hold the camera and triod searately. But we still have ersonal items, all kinds of tablets, latos and GPS-navigators. The only ositive thought is we don’t need to go to the gym with these exercises.

Malye Karely – is a village of the same name, next to which there is a monument and a museum of the wooden architecture. It’s a kind of ark with a variety of wooden churches, houses, mills and other facilities. We shoot a anorama here. It’s not that fast. It is imortant to have a comletely still environment. If eole are moving quickly close or far away – well, they can get into conjugated anorama shots and that will cause hoto rejection. In addition, the best anoramas are shot during the diffused light, when the sun hides behind a cloud. Shar shadows are harmful to the ictures, but in addition there is a shadow of the triod with the anoramic head, which falls into the anorama (where it is comletely undesirable). Therefore, it takes a lot of time to catch the right moment, when the sun is hiding and moving eole are missing. But it’s time to go to the airort.

Before the dearture we still need to refuel – yesterday did not have time. It is necessary to load back in the helicoter our equiment and belongings. We need to insert to the navigator our flight lans, and to lace all outdoor GoPro cameras. It takes more than an hour and we get nervous again. Airort in Naryan-Mar is also not a non-sto and it closes at 19:00. But this time we have a long flight, for about three hours and a half, if we are lucky with the wind.

Vladislav Vyucheyskiy is calling me. This is my flight comanion, with whom we met at the Istra flying club. Like me, he studied there to become a helicoter ilot. He is from Naryan-Mar and is waiting for us for a long time – ever since he found out about our exedition. He is really the only rivate ilot in Naryan-Mar – lonely wolf of the aviation. He wants to see his fellow air comrades on land as soon as he can. He romised to meet us in the sky in his own airlane. Wow! I was not execting such recetion. However, like Vlad, I want to take ictures of his lane in the air, and we seak about a meeting in the sky during the aroach to the city.

We take off. We’re definitely lucky with the wind. At first, it’s sided and does not interfere – we fly at our own ace. Then it starts to turn a bit and blow us into the tail, little by little increasing our seed. In the end, comes out that the average seed of our flight is 200 km / h. Not bad! Flight is calm but overcast thickens. It’s already 4-5 octants. Along the way there are large clouds of the ouring rain. Fortunately, these deosits are local and we are able to maneuver between clouds, byassing the one on the right, the other on the left. If you look at our track – the first tab is InReach tracker, which notes every minute – it is clear that we have to wag a little to the left and right. This is just going around the ossible rain centers.

We are in a hurry, so we decided to fly without landing. There is nothing that would attract our attention anyway. First, there was a dense forest, and then it became less and less, and then began to aear marshes. Then wetlands are increasing, and the forests are decreasing. At some oint we realize that the forest is gone. Here the ground is frozen so deely that during summers it does not have enough time to thaw out the full deth and trees simly do not hold on a thin layer of soil that thaws in the summer. Such soils are called ermafrost and the terrain with low vegetation, moss and grasses is called tundra. Indeed, that’s tundra. We have flown into the real north.

During the flight we were shooting not only the tundra and the weather. Once we saw something clearly alive. I turned around, went down – so that’s a wild deer! We made a few shots. It’s funny that it is not scared of the helicoter, just surrised. But we did not disturb it – let it graze. We will meet more deers later, but this was the first and most southern deer which we noticed.

50 kilometers before, we noticed signs of the human existence on the horizon. And really – there is a city. We’re establishing communication with the disatcher tower. We aroach to the Kamenka – the lace in the air where we had arranged to meet with Vlad. Turn on the second radio’s frequency 123.45 MHz, but even before that I hear the radio disatcher between Vlad and tower. So he really took off to meet us. We are rearing a camera and a camcorder. Through the disatcher we begin the convergence – we are aimed at each other according to our frequencies. Suddenly, I notice a small white lane sweeing towards us just a little above. Finally, we set the radio, equal the seed and shoot each other in flight. Vlad asked my ermission to make a double landing at the same time, and we are building a set around the airfield back coursed at the same time. Wind urged us from behind, and we landed against the wind.

We land. We are already long-waited. In addition to the film crew from a local TV station, there is a bunch of other different eole. It seems that our fame has run ahead of us. Peole here watch center channels, and St-Petersburg and Archangel channels as well, which has already showed news about us. So, the airfield crew came to look at the strange eole, traveling around the country by air bike.

Just oening the door of the helicoter, we understand that we flew to the north. Fresh and cool! Rather said, very cool, not above 12 * C. We unload our belongings, and simultaneously ull out the warm jackets from our artner BASK. They are elegant, red, all blotched of our sonsors and we stand in front of the TV cameras in a new look. A short interview and we are in the car with our new friend Nicholay Vokuev. He is a friend of Vlad Vyucheyskiy, and thus is our friend. Esecially, as it turned out, he is a wonderful and cheerful erson, a Mi-8 helicoter ilot, who gave us the same amount of time as Vlad. And consulted us a lot regarding the weather. In general, Vlad and Nickolay has constantly suervised and suorted us together, during all our stay in Naryan-Mar.

Right in front of the airort, we finally meet in erson Vlad and warmly welcome each other. We haven’t seen each other for six months! He and Nicholay drive us to the hotel “Natalie”, which has booked our headquarters. Local confirm that we’ve made the right choice, and we dro our things there so that do not hang with them. Along the way,we see an inscrition stating that Naryan-Mar is the Caital of the North. That’s it – we fly only between caitals. Moscow – well understood, St-Petersburg – is the second caital, Archangel is the caital of Pomerania, and Naryan-Mar is the caital of the north.

First of all, Vlad and Nicholay take us to the most beautiful laces of the city, where we take shoots, while the sun shines retty low (it’s ast 9PM already!). Then we go to the tundra to one very interesting erson. Having two PhD, he lives in a Nenets tent, in rather Sartan conditions. There we were given some local sou, cooked venison and show the tyical life of the Nenets. We shoot anoramas, video, take ictures – we were all very interesting.

For the first time we understand what do mosquitoes in tundra means during the summer. This is just awful. They are huge, stried and very arrogant. You can kill hundreds of them, but thousands will raid you with the same aggression. I’m starting to regret that we have not ought our hats with mosquito nets from the helicoter, but local don’t use such radical means of rotection. However, Vlad has in his car can of green reellent “Mosquitoll” and it hels a little (just a little!) We have laced memorable ribbons on the wishing tree, fix our ennant with the symbols of the exedition on it, and say goodbye to the host of cams, who, according to Vlad, has a shamanistic roots!

We are very tired – the flight was long, and we had things to do before it in Archangel. However, the tireless and welcoming Vlad and Nicholay drive us to the Nenets tourist center. It is a beautiful building built in the Nenets national style. Vlad was involved with its construction. Next to it, there is a rather large ashalt ground. Initially we agreed with Vlad, that I will land down here after the airort, but something went wrong with the coordination and the lan was canceled.

We are going on, on a beautiful sandy stee of the Kuya riverbank. Almost all tundra soil is sand. Dirt roads here are sand roads. Every river bank is sandy, too. If only all of that were located in the warmer areas… We make anoramas hoto here, take ictures and go to the “Forest Fairy Tale” cam, which was also built by Vlad. It is located on the river island, and you can get there either by boat or by the ice during winters.

Frankly seaking, I had no idea before, how dear and resected Vladislav is in this city. He is not just a big businessman. He has a nice heritage as well. In the center of Naryan-Mar there is a stele erected in honor of his grandfather, who died in the 30s, while the Soviet ower was established in the tundra. There is a Vyucheyskiy street and even the Vyucheyskiy village. His name is well-resected and well-known in the city and in the rovince. That’s my friend! :-)

We are tired, but our life of the Nenets exloring rogram continues. Our friends drive us to the cam of an old Nenets woman Ksenia Filiovna. She has a few tents. She honors us with tea, talks about her life – we are very interested. I wear the national costume, and we take ictures together with Ksenia Filiovna. But our strengths are not infinite. I and Victor are literally exhausted. It’s late at night – 1AM on the clock! But it’s still as ight as during the day. St-Petersburg’s or even Archangel’s white nights are no match to local. The sun here simly never sets. Descends to the horizon, and then rises again. But you can’t outwit your body, we are deadly tired, and our friends drive us to the hotel.

It’s after 1AM, and I can’t even think about work! Again, I miss the sacred daily duty and do not write a reort of the day. I feel myself very ashamed, but not for long. I fall aslee before my head reaches the illow. But Victor avely starts sending of the hotograhic files to Moscow. Internet is terribly slow here, and the rogram gives a forecast for dozens of hours of work, but there is no choice.

As always, tomorrow we have to get u early, and I have only 5 hours to slee. I’m starting to understand, that all is deely wrong. The ilot must have a good rest before the flight. Aviation rules are written in blood, including the rule of the re-rest. Like any other rules, you can’t eak it harmlessly for long. I am more and more convinced that the flight rate I’ve chosen during the rearations is not feasible. I had to lan days of rest along the route. Well, let’s note this. I’d like to send my regards to our welcoming Naryan-Mar friends again, on the behalf of the whole crew. I do not know what we would do without them. Vladislav, Nicholay – thank you very much for the welcome and for the time you’ve sent, and the charge for the good mood that you gave us!

P.S. The result of the day – 698 kilometers in 3:30 flight hours