Oleg Bundur towards a polar bear. I saw a whale

* * *

Assignment

I'm going to the North Pole. On the nuclear icebreaker"50 years of Victory". I suppose you envy? Yes, I envy myself and still don’t believe it ...

So, I was going to the Arctic, I thought there would be a farewell ...

But they did not see me off in any way and no one saw me off. Alyona's wife was on duty at the hospital, and Kesha opened one eye, wiggled his tail: they say, bye. And about a good journey and an early return - no meow!

I came with a heavy suitcase to the site behind the house, I was standing, waiting for the bus. Acquaintances - no one. It is understandable: five in the morning, friends are sleeping. And strangers are sleeping too ... I looked, a seagull, so close sank. Sits on the pavement and looks at me. It’s not just that she sat down next to me and looks, it’s she who says hello to the Arctic seagulls! Apparently, with my bird's flair, I realized that I was going to the Arctic. Probably, and she is from there. Or maybe her mother or grandmother?

Then, in the Barents Sea, I stood on upper deck icebreaker and suddenly saw a seagull. She flew very close. There was no one on deck, and I shouted loudly:

- Greetings to you from our White Sea gull!

And this other seagull understood me! She flew alongside for a long time, parallel to our course, then flapped her wings and turned sharply to the side.

I'll return home, go out to the landing behind the house at five in the morning and wait for the tea. And she will certainly arrive - she will feel that I have returned. And I will tell her that I fulfilled her request.

Only there would be no acquaintances at this time. And then they will think God knows what, when they see me talking to a bird.

Sole

I thought that I knew Russian well. There were no troubles with him at school, and my library is full of various dictionaries, and I often use them ...

Senior mate Sergei escorted me to the room where I will live. It was hot, and I asked him:

- And how in room window opens?

- In your cabin porthole opens in the same way as in others. - And he showed how.

I felt embarrassed.

“We must be careful,” I thought.

Having arranged things on the wardrobes, he climbed the steep stairs to the bridge and asked the captain:

- A stairs cool - to save space?

The captain looked at me closely:

- It’s you at your dacha climbing the stairs into the attic. Here ladder... Roll on your mustache.

Yeah, of course, I wound it.

We have already entered the open sea, the wave was small, but the floor trembles under our feet. I again to the captain:

– Floor trembling underfoot from work motors or from the wave?

- Not gender, but deck trembling from work machines... Did you get it?

Truncated. Again, it means I got into a mess. Oh, how inconvenient ...

I approached the navigator. Well, here, I think everything is in order.

- How fast sailing? how many kilometers at one o'clock?

- We let's go at a speed of eighteen knots.

A knot is equal to one mile.

Well, even though we are going to the sea, and the water is all around, but I sat in a puddle.

I saw the helmsman in a high chair. He holds the steering wheel with one hand and binoculars with the other.

- It's hard steering wheel turn?

– Steering wheel easily turns. You can do it with one finger.

All right, I'm leaving here. What a shame! Gotta figure out where catering unit And How cooks name is.

– Galley on the first deck, and coca name is Nikolay.

Terrible! Whatever the question, then by. I should ask the captain if there is a nautical dictionary. But he didn't ask, suddenly something was wrong again.

Then I found out that almost all nautical terms came from the Dutch language, from Dutch sailors. So I know Russian!

Not a hare

What is the name of a person who rides a bus without a ticket? That's right, hare. So I am a hare too. Because on this tourist flight on the icebreaker I am without a ticket, that is, without tourist vouchers... And since we are walking on the sea, then I am a sea hare.

Yes, but the bearded seal is a seal. So I'm a seal? No, I don't want to be a seal.

And then, I'm here on a creative business trip. And everyone knows about it.

I walk on the icebreaker and pester everyone with questions, I'm probably tired of it already. Yes, I would not bother, but I will have to tell later what kind of Arctic it is and what kind of ship the nuclear icebreaker is.

In general, I am not a hare. By the way, there will be no hare and sausage with mustard, as I am now!

Infinity

The sea attracts me - I don't know why. Probably its infinity.

In the city we walk, staring at our feet, do not notice how the buds swell, then the greens curl, then the leaves turn yellow.

From the windows of my apartment on the fourth floor you can see above the houses, but there you again come across hills. From all sides of the hill.

There is no space for gaze in the city, and the soul, as in a cage, rushes between the walls of houses. Whether it's the sea! Whichever way you look, there is no edge to the water. You look up - the sky is endless. And the sea below seems bottomless - it is difficult to imagine a depth of four kilometers.

And here the soul flies with the seagull - either above the waves, then, soaring above the foremast, soars on motionlessly outstretched wings, catching the flow of air.

And there is no end to the sea, nor the sky, nor my thoughts. Fly, seagull, fly!

Heart and brain

Before you do something, you think, right? Think with your head. And your head is on your shoulders, well, on your neck. In short, at the top.

And the icebreaker has a head and a brain. He's upstairs, too, on the bridge. There are people, sophisticated instruments, computers. People, looking at the readings of the instruments, decide where and how the icebreaker goes.

And the atomic icebreaker, like ours, has a heart - an atomic reactor. Even two. They are hidden inside the icebreaker behind such powerful protection that they are not afraid of anything. And they are not afraid of anyone.

The reactor contains a special substance - uranium. Like everything else in the world, uranium is made up of atoms. The atoms split, release energy, and it propels the icebreaker. Clear? Probably not. Let's do it differently.

Do you like pomegranates? Just imagine that a garnet is an atom. If you start to break it down into grains, what will happen? Delight! You ate this deliciousness, strengthened your strength and ran for a walk.

Likewise, an atom in a reactor splits and releases a lot of heat. The heat heats the water, the water turns into steam, the steam makes the engine work, the engine turns the shaft on which there are huge two-meter blades. The blades rotate, as if repelled from the water, and the icebreaker moves.

To move such a whopper as the icebreaker "50 Years of Victory", you need seventy-five thousand horses. Can you imagine? And nuclear reactors can do it together. Well, somewhere like that ... I saw atomic reactors, but, to be honest, I did not fully understand how they work. Maybe you will grow up, become nuclear physicists and explain to me.

From summer to winter and back

On the day we departed from the Murmansk pier, there was an unprecedented heat - twenty-six degrees. Well, for you, this may be the usual temperature, but for the northern city, which stands near the freezing Barents Sea, it is a lot.

Well, we moved away from the pier. And at first I went on deck in a shirt with short sleeves, then I began to put on a pullover, then a sweater on a pullover, then a warm jacket with the inscription “Rosatomflot” on the back. Such jackets are worn by all members of the crew of an atomic icebreaker.

When you lie on the hot sand south sea in a thirty-degree heat, you want coolness.

So, more than once, suffering from the heat, I asked:

- Oh, at least a little snow fell. Oh, I can't take it anymore ...

Now on deck, snow is sweeping me, the wind is piercing. I would like to go into the cabin, into the warmth. I went in, my cheeks were burning from the snow and wind, my hands were numb, I couldn't hold the handle. I am writing this after a hot shower and tea.

When we return home, I will first take off my jacket, then my pullover, I will go down to the pier in a shirt with short sleeves ...

And now I know for sure: if I get hot again, I will never wish to be snowed with snow. Winter will come by itself. And summer flies by quickly, especially here, in the Far North.

Mathematics

Tell me, how can you measure the distance? You answer: kilometers. Someone will remember: by miles. That's right, well done!

And if you hear: the North Pole is twenty degrees north of Murmansk, you will probably think that the North Pole is twenty degrees colder than in Murmansk. Well, actually, of course, it is colder, but here we are talking about the fact that the North Pole is twenty degrees farther from Murmansk.

Like this? Let's figure it out. Draw a circle, it will be like a globe. Above is the North Pole, and below is the South Pole.

Draw a straight line from pole to pole. And through its center - the second line. This will be the equator. Well, you know that the hottest equatorial belt runs in the middle of the Earth. Bananas grow there all year round. Stop! We will not talk about this.

You see, there are four right angles on your circle. Take, for example, the upper right corner, one side of which faces the North Pole, and the other goes along the equator.

I remember from school that the right angle is ninety degrees. Do you understand what I mean? If ninety rays are drawn from this angle through equal distances, they will come to the surface of the earth and divide it into ninety equal parts, or degrees. Zero degree will pass along the equator, and the ninetieth will reach the North Pole. Here! And our Murmansk is at the seventieth degree.

The British came up with it. They are tricky! The first time to measure the distance from the equator to the pole - these 90 degrees, and it turned out to be equal to 5400 miles 1
The British measured this distance by their nautical miles. 1 nautical mile is 1852 m, but their land mile is only 1609 m.

Is one degree equal to 5400? 90 = 60 miles.

But we use kilometers! While the cunning Englishman overcomes one mile in a rowboat, we, together with you, on our boat, will cover one kilometer, eight hundred and fifty-two meters, or 1852 m during the same time.

And now I'm interested in this. If you know that there are 20 degrees from Murmansk to the North Pole, you know that one degree is equal to 60 miles, and one mile is equal to 1852 meters, can you calculate how many kilometers from Murmansk to the North Pole?

I counted in a column, I got 2,222 kilometers. But you will probably calculate more precisely ...

See, it's simple.

And now, if you suddenly get sick and the temperature rises to 38.6, do not go to school, but call your teacher and say:

- Marivanna, my temperature jumped two hundred and twenty-two kilometers!

The teacher, of course, will believe that you are ill. A healthy student would say: two degrees!

School hobby

On the trip, I took with me a geographical map of the Arctic. You've probably met this one. It looks like from above: in the center is the Arctic Ocean, covered with a white patch of ice, around the blue water of the seas, and further - the land: the north of our country, Canada, Greenland.

In general, from childhood to geographic maps I am in awe. At home I hung over the table big map the world. I get tired of teaching, I start to travel. Where have I never been! I still remember seas and oceans, states and capitals.

Here, on the icebreaker, I asked the navigator questions, delved into his navigational charts and even told him about the drift of Nansen's ship "Fram". The navigator looked at me respectfully.

So it was in vain that my mother told me several times during the evening, while I was preparing my lessons:

- Look in the textbook, not the map!

If I had not looked at the map, I would not have been standing on the bridge of the icebreaker heading to the North Pole!

Scientist

Aha, it's me about myself! And that's why.

I am friends with our Kandalaksha nature reserve, and he is friends with me. Of course, the reserve itself is not friends - it is huge, there are dozens of islands in the Kandalaksha Bay Of the White Sea, islands in the Barents Sea. The scientists who work there are friends with me.

When I was going to the North Pole, the scientists asked me to write down the coordinates of the places where I would see seabirds and animals along the way.

Such an assignment flattered me very much: I, too, seemed to become a scientist, at least for a while, but a scientist!

It was simple with the coordinates: there is a navigator on the bridge, and it determines latitude and longitude from satellites.

The information that scientists asked was needed to find out how migration, that is, the movement of sea animals and birds, is changing as the Arctic is being explored.

So, the further we went north, the more attentively I looked around, pressed the eyepieces of the binoculars to my eyes and thought that I would not see anything. Can you see anything in such spaces from horizon to horizon. But still I saw it! I saw a blue whale and its fountain, I saw walruses and seals and seals. And of course, polar bear, polar bear and polar bears!

Only now, with seabirds in the Franz Josef Land area, difficulties arose. There were so many birds and they changed their coordinates so quickly that there was only one entry in my diary: there were a lot of birds!

Coordinates

So I told you that I determined the coordinates, that is, latitude and longitude. Do you know how it is? Remember, we drew the Earth, so 90 degrees from the equator to the North Pole is the north latitude. And 90 degrees from the equator to the South Pole is the south latitude.

Every degree is crossed by a circle parallel to the equator. They are called parallels. The longest is at the equator, the shortest ones turn into points at the poles.

The distance around the Earth through both poles is 360 degrees. How many it is in miles and kilometers, you can now calculate yourself.

And around the Earth along the equator is the same distance - forty thousand kilometers rounded, or the same 360 degrees.

And if we divide the equator into degrees and draw lines from pole to pole, these will be meridians. At the poles, they also converge at the same points. Well, just like a striped watermelon: all its strips converge into a nose and a tail. Only the watermelon has fewer strips.

Latitude is counted from zero degree, or from zero parallel at the equator.

In longitude, the meridians are also counted from zero. It passes through the capital of England, or rather, through the suburb of London - Greenwich and is called the Greenwich Meridian. So, meridians. It turns out very simple. To the east, to the right of the Greenwich meridian, there will be 180 degrees east longitude. To the west, that is, to the left of the Greenwich meridian, 180 degrees west longitude. And in total - 360 degrees!

And now the ship will never be lost in the sea-ocean. If the navigator shows 81 degrees north latitude and 50 degrees east longitude, the navigator will look at the map, and there are all parallels and meridians on the map, and he can easily find the intersection point of the 81st parallel and 50th meridian. Here is our "Victory", in the area of Franz Josef Land.

And you can easily find this place on the map!

I saw a whale

I just saw him in the Barents Sea. To tell the truth, I did not see the whale itself, but the fountain that it releases.

I looked: suddenly a fountain of water! What do I think? And then I realized - a whale. He has a hole on his head, a blowhole, through it he breathes and at the same time blows out fountains of water. Do you think he is having fun? No. In nature, everything is thought out. The whale takes a mouthful of water, passes it through the whalebone, and then releases it along with the exhalation.

So I said a whalebone, and you probably thought: such a whale is swimming in the sea, and its mustache hangs down from under its nose. We thought, we thought. I thought so myself, until I found out that the whale has no whiskers. He doesn't even have a nose. And in the mouth of the whale there is a dense lattice of thin horny plates. They are called: whalebone.

The whale passes water through these plates, it comes out like a fountain through the blowhole, and all sorts of crustaceans remain in the mouth. The whale feeds on crustaceans. Such a big whale - such small crustaceans. This is how many crustaceans do you need to strain to get enough? Horror…

In general, I have seen whales before - beluga whales. Beluga whales - because they are silvery white.

In summer, shoals of White Sea herring enter our Kandalaksha Bay of the White Sea. And behind her are seals and beluga whales.

At this time, whales, seals, cod, catfish, and the non-lazy inhabitants of our region are eating delicious white sea. And what about the lazy? Lick themselves!

Warm flow

Before reaching the ice fields of the Arctic Ocean, you must first cross the Barents Sea, which does not freeze even in the harshest winter.

Such a northern Arctic sea does not freeze! Do you know why? Because it is heated by the warm current of the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is like a river, only the river is huge, enormous. Its width from the Kola Peninsula to Franz Josef Land is a thousand kilometers. And the depth or thickness of the current - bless you! It does not flow over the surface of the Barents Sea, but at depth.

The Gulf Stream comes to the Barents Sea from the west, from the warm Atlantic Ocean. It walks slowly along the Scandinavian Peninsula, along the Kola Peninsula, to the Kara Sea, and there it dissipates, cools down.

Generally speaking, the Gulf Stream is happiness for the Scandinavian countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland. And for our Kola Peninsula too. Happiness because the Gulf Stream warms not only the water of the Barents Sea, but also the air above it and over the Kola Peninsula. That is why in our Murmansk region it is not as cold as in Greenland or Chukotka.

And the Murmansk port in the Kola Bay of the Barents Sea does not freeze all year round. It can send and receive ships all year round.

And for any northern country ice-free port - great happiness!

So I say everything: warm current, warm current ... Do you think it is so warm that you can bask in it, like in a bath?

Aha! Try to dive into it - pop out with a cork! Ice water! And the seals - there are many of them here - will giggle and point at you with their flippers.

So it’s not that warm and this warm current. But still, its warmth is enough to keep from freezing The Barents Sea.

Iceberg

Here's another one floating by! Huge, with jagged blue walls sparkling in the sun.

In this place - between the islands of Franz Josef Land - there are many icebergs. Some islands are completely covered with ice - glaciers.

For hundreds, thousands of years, snow kept falling, falling, covering the islands, compressed into ice. This ice blanket sometimes forty - fifty meters thick, under its weight slowly, maybe a centimeter a year, slides down to the sea.

The water washes away the glacier, washes away, and now a hefty piece falls off from it, but what a piece - lumps the size of many stories! This block is set free to float in the Barents Sea and moves westward to Atlantic Ocean... And this is already an iceberg.

As soon as the ice breaks away from the glacier, it becomes an iceberg. And the moment of the birth of the iceberg is called the calving of the glacier. The cow has calved too! She has a calf, and the glacier is like a calf. But a meeting with such a calf for a ship - oh, how dangerous!

I love icebergs! Especially this one passing by.

The captain's word

You, of course, guess that the most important person on the ship is the captain. He controls everything and everyone and is responsible for everything and everyone.

The orders of the captain are carried out without question, that is, without objection. Otherwise, what would have happened?

For example, the captain gives the command:

- Slow down to six knots!

And the navigator to him:

- Yes, here it is possible faster, the ice situation allows.

And the assistant too:

- Why slow down, there is an open water channel ahead.

And the helmsman himself:

- Let's slow down, let's slow down, I'm a little tired!

The bazaar will turn out. And it will not be an icebreaker, but a vessel. Not a crew, but just a group of people. Therefore, the captain's word is law!

So I said: the captain's word is law, and you probably thought that the captain is such a stern, unapproachable person, and it's scary to approach him. No…

The captain and I talked, joked, and even argued.

I counted the islands in Franz Josef Land on the map and say that there are 34 of them on this archipelago.

And the captain:

- More!

I went to count it again, it turns out the same - 34.

And the captain again:

And then I looked at the reference book anyway. It turns out, yes, more. Franz Josef Land includes 192 islands. But this, including small islands, which are not even mapped. We passed such.

So, it really comes out: the captain knows what he is talking about. Therefore, his word is true.

Archipelago

This is the name of a group of islands, for example, Franz Josef Land. There are 192 large and very small islands. This is where you can take a walk! Yes, you don't really take a walk, because some islands are covered with glaciers, others - with wild flat rocks - the Arctic.

Once upon a time, Austrian sailors stumbled upon part of the islands and named them after their emperor Franz Joseph. The Austrians loved him very much.

Then the Americans, British, Danes discovered other islands. I suppose you've heard of Nansen? Here he was a Norwegian. On one of the islands, he even wintered for more than six months.

Everyone who found new islands called them by their proper names, and the islands were added to Franz Josef Land.

And Russian hunters sailed to these islands for a long time and did not even think to give them names. It was only in 1912 that Russia announced that it wanted to own these islands, Franz Josef Land, and in 1929 our former state, Soviet Russia, confirmed this desire.

And so it happened that the archipelago is called by a foreign name, almost all the islands bear foreign names, and Russia owns them!

Therefore, now we are on an atomic icebreaker and ride between these islands and admire them!

Here is an introductory snippet of the book.
Only part of the text is open for free reading (restriction of the copyright holder). If you liked the book, the full text can be obtained on the website of our partner.

pages: 1 2 3 4

Oleg Bundur

Towards a polar bear

* * *

Assignment

I'm going to the North Pole. On the atomic icebreaker "50 Years of Victory". I suppose you envy? Yes, I envy myself and still don’t believe it ...

So, I was going to the Arctic, I thought there would be a farewell ...

Then, in the Barents Sea, I was standing on the upper deck of an icebreaker and suddenly I saw a seagull. She flew very close. There was no one on deck, and I shouted loudly:

- Greetings to you from our White Sea gull!

And this other seagull understood me! She flew alongside for a long time, parallel to our course, then flapped her wings and turned sharply to the side.

Only there would be no acquaintances at this time. And then they will think God knows what, when they see me talking to a bird.

Sole

I thought that I knew Russian well. There were no troubles with him at school, and my library is full of various dictionaries, and I often use them ...

Senior mate Sergei escorted me to the room where I will live. It was hot, and I asked him:

- And how in room window opens?

- In your cabin porthole opens in the same way as in others. - And he showed how.

I felt embarrassed.

“We must be careful,” I thought.

Having arranged things on the wardrobes, he climbed the steep stairs to the bridge and asked the captain:

- A stairs cool - to save space?

The captain looked at me closely:

- It’s you at your dacha climbing the stairs into the attic. Here ladder... Roll on your mustache.

Yeah, of course, I wound it.

We have already entered the open sea, the wave was small, but the floor trembles under our feet. I again to the captain:

– Floor trembling underfoot from work motors or from the wave?

- Not gender, but deck trembling from work machines... Did you get it?

Truncated. Again, it means I got into a mess. Oh, how inconvenient ...

I approached the navigator. Well, here, I think everything is in order.

- How fast sailing? how many kilometers at one o'clock?

- We let's go at a speed of eighteen knots... A knot is equal to one mile.

Well, even though we are going to the sea, and the water is all around, but I sat in a puddle.

I saw the helmsman in a high chair. He holds the steering wheel with one hand and binoculars with the other.

- It's hard steering wheel turn?

– Steering wheel easily turns. You can do it with one finger.

All right, I'm leaving here. What a shame! Gotta figure out where catering unit And How cooks name is.

– Galley on the first deck, and coca name is Nikolay.

Terrible! Whatever the question, then by. I should ask the captain if there is a nautical dictionary. But he didn't ask, suddenly something was wrong again.

Then I found out that almost all nautical terms came from the Dutch language, from Dutch sailors. So I know Russian!

What is the name of a person who rides a bus without a ticket? That's right, hare. So I am a hare too. Because on this tourist trip on the icebreaker I am without a ticket, that is, without a tourist ticket. And since we are walking on the sea, then I am a sea hare.

Yes, but the bearded seal is a seal. So I'm a seal? No, I don't want to be a seal.

And then, I'm here on a creative business trip. And everyone knows about it.

In general, I am not a hare. By the way, there will be no hare and sausage with mustard, as I am now!

Infinity

The sea attracts me - I don't know why. Probably its infinity.

In the city we walk, staring at our feet, do not notice how the buds swell, then the greens curl, then the leaves turn yellow.

From the windows of my apartment on the fourth floor you can see above the houses, but there you again come across hills. From all sides of the hill.

And here the soul flies with the seagull - either above the waves, then, soaring above the foremast, soars on motionlessly outstretched wings, catching the flow of air.

And there is no end to the sea, nor the sky, nor my thoughts. Fly, seagull, fly!

Heart and brain

Before you do something, you think, right? Think with your head. And your head is on your shoulders, well, on your neck. In short, at the top.

From summer to winter and back

When you lie on the hot sand by the South Sea in the thirty-degree heat, you want to be cool.