Frost? – the Eskimo smiled and pointed to the ice dome differing in nothing from others.
Jim and Ignat approached to the door. It was veiled by cervine skins from within.
– There is no electric call – Ignat told, inspecting a door. – To knock on an ice wall – will not hear. It is necessary to enter without report. – And he tried to raise a skin. But it was densely attached.
– Now I will open – Verkhovsky’s voice was heard. The edge of a skin rose. Having bent, Ignat and Jim entered the dwelling. They were met by the owner, the meteorologist Verkhovsky. Having looked at his big gray-haired beard, Ignat grinned and told:
– You here Father Frost are called. It for your gray-haired beard?
– And not only for a beard – the old scientist similar to toy fir-tree Father Frost answered. – I fight against a frost here and I operate it on a potreba of the person. You sit down, guests you will be, I will tell.
On it there was a jersey, leather trousers and pima. Guests looked round. The interior of the ice house was so original, as well as its appearance.
– As if under a dome of observatory you are – Ignat noticed.
– This modernized “needle” – the Eskimo dwelling – Father Frost told – in a most up-to-date way equipped.
The modern equipment consisted in electric lighting, an electric oven, a plate. On a wooden floor there was a dining table with three chairs. At an entrance door – “kitchen”. Along vaulted walls the table ring having a gap only at a door for pass in the room lasted. On a table – books, meteorological devices, heaps of papers, magazines. Over this infinite table there was an iron rod on which it is possible to move an electric bulb to any place.
– And electric kitchen at you what for? Unless you not in the public dining room have dinner?
– You will sometimes be earned, there is no wish to go, I prepare houses – the meteorologist answered. – Here a ventilation outlet, you see? And light-, and warmly, and air good.
And Verkhovsky told a story of the ice city.
– I arrived with the first party of builders here. It was necessary to live in tents. It was in the summer. We were brought here by the ice breaker. In the afternoon in tents was even hot, at night coldishly. But also in the summer sometimes the snowball dropped out. After us there had to arrive the steamship with food and forest construction material. But jammed it. Our ice breaker went to revenue It made the way through heavy ices very slowly. And the winter was on a nose. It was necessary to undertake something not to appear in tents to winter frosts. But what you will undertake here? The strip of the woods lies far in the south. We had several trucks, saws, axes. Counted – not to manage to cut down, take out, construct. While thought-guessed, the frost knocked. The coast froze, the rivers froze. Here the thought also came to my mind: it is necessary to build houses of ice. – Verkhovsky waved a hand on a ceiling. – As though simple piece, and it is not so simple to put such house. I set our architects – Verochka Kolosova and her assistants – for drawings and calculations. It was necessary to draw precisely a figure of each ice “brick” from which then it would be possible to put these vaulted houses.
For them it was the task like that which was resolved by the famous Italian architect Brunelleski when he projected a dome Florentine “дуомо” – a cathedral. But, however, nothing – coped our Brunelleski. To tell the truth, the first a needle left such that Eskimos, likely, would laugh. It is good that material painfully pliable. There you will chop off, there you will fill in with water, a frost will take – that your concrete. Remarkable material. And here, on our happiness, and Eskimos came. And what you think? This builders! Did of house snow on own arshin – a palm yes a mitten. One Eskimo cuts out a form of bricks on snow, other of these bricks builds the snow house. The house directly in the eyes grows. Whether you trust, for half an hour on the house did. Inside a scraper will scratch, will level – and it is ready. The stove bench snow will be built, on it skins outlined. The door is closed by an ice block. Will light three-four lamps on seal fat – heat will become so that undressed it is possible to go. In the spring when the arch begins to melt, holes thawed patches stop up with new snow bricks.
So we built the first ice settlements and this winter lived the real Eskimos. We had flour, crackers.
But there was not enough meat, fats. And here to us Eskimos and Chukchi helped to hunt an animal. We had guns. Provided with meat, fat of. Also were lit with fat, fat and отоплялись, and ate fat.
However, several people got sick with a scurvy at us without habit to such food. Reported about it on radio. To us on airplanes vitamin medicines delivered. And all patients got on feet soon.
But nevertheless this first winter was heavy.
Brought construction materials in the summer. Them to deliver hard here. Here I also thought: why don’t we use local construction material at all – ice – where it is only possible? Talked to our engineers, discussed this business and developed the real ice industry. Columns support for temporary conducting of electricity were seen? Ice. These houses – a needle – ice. Teplyaki on buildings and some works – ice… It is necessary to tell about these teplyaka separately. Now I will prepare tea.
– Too ice?
– Hot.
– To us it is not cold – Ignat told. – Here even our tropical Jim and that, apparently, does not freeze. You did not freeze, Jim?
– Did not freeze, and hot to tea I will drink – Jim answered, shrinking.
– But tell, please – Ignat asked a question – from internal heat, from your electrokitchen unless ice walls do not melt?
– Of course, melt a little, but an utter nonsense. If on centimeter two in a month melt what it means at a wall thickness in meter? And if thawed more, the trouble is not big. Pour from above water, the new ice layer will accrue. Only also put that by spring your ice izba in an internal cubic capacity will win – will become more spacious. So I wanted to tell about teplyaka.
– Forgive, I interrupt you – Jim told. – Here permafrost moved us from wooden witness marks and destroyed it. And there cannot be it?
– About permafrost there will be a special conversation? So far I will tell only one: the izba was under construction on frozen soil, and a needle is under construction on the ice base. Ice – the bad conductor of heat. It does not allow to be warmed to the soil and to be swollen out. So about teplyaka.
What here, on Far North, we had to fight most of all against? With cold and a gloom. Well, we suffered only the first winter from a gloom. Installed in the summer wind-driven generators which gave us the first energy, and with it and light. Then the station of underground gasification, and further not far off and the temperature station – our main goal earned. Now we have enough light. And it was necessary to tinker with cold. It is impossible to conduct construction on Far North only in short polar summer. So and in two hundred years of everything that we started, you will not build. It was necessary to resolve by all means a question of a year-round construction season. Business as though and not it terrible. In fur clothes warmly. But in it it is difficult to work in the
