and warmly, both the sun, and tropics. And even to you we will grow up bananas in greenhouses if you without them cannot live. Think whether it is worth undertaking this business? To win against darkness, cold, ices. To move apart in breadth our planet which becomes rather small.
– Dreams – Jim melancholically responded.
Ignat even a fist on a table knocked.
– And electrification of such country, how being Rasey – not dreams? And Dneprogesa – not a dream? Alteration of deserts in gardens – not dreams? Our solar, vetrosilovy installations – not dreams? And you the hands could feel these dreams. And this “Dragon” – not a dream? And “Taiga” on which we with comfort travel – not a dream? And, at last, new people are not a dream? My friend, you did not begin to enjoy this fascinating work yet: to dream immediately to turn a dream into reality. Here is how you will enter this work, so you just will not have time for melancholy. Dreams!. – still Ignat worried. – Here, wait, we will arrive to Chelyuskin, we will look at “The ice city”. You will see one more dream which it is possible to feel hands, the dream created by people. “You give the sun” – you say? Let’s give you the sun. And if I do not keep the promise – you can go to the Florida and to call me the deceiver.
– I will not return to Florida. But I then will go to Uzbekistan.
– You can go also to our Transcaucasia. There you will find the real Florida. Oranges, lemons, cinnamon, carnation, vanilla, pineapples, cocoa. What your tropical soul will wish. But I assure you that you and will find the sun in “The ice city”. And even you will eat oranges. If not homebrew, so imported.
Jim did not answer, only began to touch strings quicker.
– Komrayd Jolie! Companion Jim! – the ringing voice of Anna Fokina was heard suddenly.
Jim all started, lit up, rejected a guitar on a bed and ran out in a corridor.
Ignat looked to him following and murmured as the doctor making the diagnosis:
– Nostalgia – homesickness – complicated, apparently, by an acute heart disease.
And, having grinned, added:
– And I read lectures on economy and sociology to it…
13. The city which is not marked on the map
Again cold wind, a blizzard, zg not to see. As it is not similar to Ignat’s dreams of heat, the sun and bananas!
The searchlight is extinguished. Only the headlights which are hung up below propellers and lighting only small space ahead of the all-terrain vehicle burn. “Taiga” goes slowly. The captain is installed on the bridge and peers into darkness. Ignat notices in the distance the shining spark. It dies away, appears again. Light white, similar to electric. To Chelyuskin not so close. At least days of a way.
The light point begins to blur during the shining fog.
– What for fire? – Ignat asks the captain.
– By my calculations, it has to be the working town where coal gasification is made – Simakov answered.
The shining fog at approach to it broke up to separate points. They stretched a long chain of arc lamps. It was strange to see this line of fires among the lifeless, dead snow desert. Reflections of light laid down bluish spots on the white atlas of a taiga. Between all-terrain vehicle fires, cutting off, some animal quickly moved.
– Look: dog! – with surprise Ignat exclaimed.
– Not a dog, but a polar wolf – was heard басок Gruzdev who approached behind.
– Here wolves are found?
– Not only wolves. If there are wolves, then there has to be also a wolf food. Meat. Here the wild deer comes. And polar foxes are found. And partridges. About polar bears and there is nothing to speak. On the coast their empire was.
– And you and here, Foma, hunted? On bears?
– Where I did not hunt and what animal did not hunt! – Foma answered. – Both on a bear, and on a tiger.
– How many tigers killed?
– How many to you and hares not to kill. Without one tigers killed fifty. From a berdan. In private. To Osmnadtsat alive caught artel – four us in artel was.
Jim approached. Ignat translated it Foma’s story about his hunting feats.
– Here tigers are found? – Jim asked, showing to a hand on a taiga.
Foma grinned:
– To Ussuri are found.
– How you caught them?
– Networks rope. And even just in a blanket.
Ignat translated the answer. Jim laughed, but Foma with offense shouted at him:
– I tell the truth! Now people began to build cunning traps. Caught raccoons and shot. And on Chukotka interrupted polar bears – not to count. Only the animal is intimidated now. Other life begins, not animal.
– Yes, these fires protect new working settlements from wild beasts – Simakov told. – And you know how many to fat inhabitants only of one Chukotka spent for heating and lighting of the dwellings? It is more than four thousand tons per year. Began to deliver them kerosene, and also electric light appears now.
– And skins? – Foma continued. – Inhabitants of the house built of skins. To tell directly, gold houses. A tiger – striped gold. Skins of a polar bear, a seal, a walrus, a deer – the same gold. And in vain vanished. There were I last year on the cape Serdtse-Kamen. Was to Hodyrke-reke, the Vilyuysk district. There now points of supply. Big supply of goods. Both food, and boards, and other construction materials are brought. Change for skins. Yes you will see how now natives began to live. Absolutely other life went.
Behind the line of fires standard two-storeyed wooden houses already distinctly were seen. Their windows were brightly lit. Ignat burst out laughing.
– What you? – Simakov interviewed.
– Trouble now to geographers. Change maps and textbooks of geography nearly every day.
– Yes, now, to know geography of the USSR, it is necessary to fill up the knowledge continuously. Who lagged behind, that will get lost in the USSR.
– And pipes are not visible on roofs. And not to see smoke.
– Electric heating.
– Whether not too expensive pleasure? – Ignat asked.
– Not too – Simakov answered. – However it is time for us “to moor”.
“Taiga” stopped, bells rang out again. All came to the deck and turned to work. Pipes, rotors were lifted, “Dragon” is started.
Wind began to develop
