and are freezed. – Verkhovsky sighed. – Several people so on imprudence of hands lost. Gangrene – also cut off fingers, and even all brush. Of course, we began to build wooden teplyak at once. But there was not enough tree. Here again remembered ice. Light board or plywood тепляк water you will pour – and it is ready. Does not pass heat. And then and entirely learned to build of ice. “The plant of ice casting” was opened. From thin sheets of iron of forms made a large number. Water of a form you will pour, on a frost you will expose – it is ready. Froze. Then in the warm room you will bring them that walls a bit thawed, and take out freely. Here to you an ice column with grooves. Here to you ice board of any size and thickness. You will start an ice board in a groove of an ice column, water you will flow – and it was soldered without the slightest crack. But with water without habit too stories left. Water on a frost – that fire. To one worker naked hands poured, they in ice ingots addressed at once. It was necessary to thaw carefully. Incidentally from a hose warm water poured over another. It turned into an ice statue. It is good that the face was not filled in. Speaks, even laughs, to it it became even warmer under skins, and cannot set either a hand, or a leg. And to the earth froze. It was necessary to cut down it from an ice pedestal, in тепляк to carry and there to thaw.
Gradually seized also ice production. For teplyakam warehouses for provisions began to do. In the summer of geese, ducks we will fill; polar bears – all the year round shoot. And in ice warehouses. On ice columns ice regiments, an ice roof, ice fences… With these fences the funny thing at us left. We built them above human height and thickness in a quarter of meter. The bear should not get (our warehouses stand on the suburb). And products began to vanish. It is visible, bears managed. And lighting electric did not save, even electrograggerses did not help. We began to watch. And what you think? Bears sapped. Both breathe, and lick, and scrape claws ice and eventually will do a manhole. It was necessary to do then more thickly ice walls and with a slope. Couple of bears was hit on the crime scene. Then their marauding came to an end. After all and now alien bears still get, go around warehouses. And local we are known. Close are not shown. Like border now at us: we see them, they – us, and they do not cross the border.
After warehouses we undertook construction of ice roads for a snowmobile. Beauty! One hundred and fifty kilometers per hour you fly. Arrow.
– Snow the way does not sweep up?
– Yes in these latitudes in general rainfall is not enough. The cloth of the ice road is a little raised that wind blew off snow. No, does not stir snow.
– And bridges?
– Wow! And bridges ice. By all means sweep. Well, here. The ice sculpture came for the ice industry. Verochka Kolosova was the real sculptor. In free time it began to cut busts from ice. Made a polar bear. Beauty. And I suggested a thought to it – to make a metal form. Found clays, it molded Lenin and Stalin’s big busts, cast a compound pig-iron form that did not break off, and began to fabricate busts from ice. Now these busts in each polar settlement, in each reindeer-breeding collective farm, in each reserve.
Also the ice recreation park is remarkable.
– Park? – mistrustfully Ignat asked.
– The park – Verkhovsky confirmed. – And when only children managed to build all this?! Funny. Ice fantastic trees. Ice towers. Inside – the course upward, and on a cone surface, from top to down, the screw, a spiral – an ice path for the sledge. Ice roller coaster and what! You will move down down – and there some more kilometers from dispersal you rush. Skating rinks with catapults for skaters. Catapults are, of course, not ice. Palace of miracles. The right, the real palace, to three floors, with halls inside and intricate turrets outside! And in each hall – the fancy things made of ice. Both statues, and animals, and even woods. Furniture is ice, on walls bas-reliefs. With electricity it is lit, you will enter in the evening – beauty. Magic. The fairy tale from “Thousands and one night”. A miracle which you will not find and you will not create in the warm countries.
Think, it is only water, the frozen water. Here what does a frost!
No, whatever you may say, a frost – it is remarkable piece. How it at Pushkin?.
…mighty winter,
As the vigorous leader, conducts
On us shaggy teams
The frosts and snow…
Or at Nekrasov: “Moroz voivode a patrol bypasses the possession”. Of course – the voivode. With it do not joke. But if was able to undertake it, then and he from the voivode in our servant will turn back. Here we will build the temperature station and a frost to the public, in heat, we will turn into work.
– And all your ice city with a spring will thaw as the Snow Maiden – Ignat told.
– Will thaw – Verkhovsky as if he also really was Father Frost mourning death of the kingdom heaved a deep sigh! – Will thaw. As you will think of it is melancholy will take. Whether you trust, at me begins to suck in the pit of the stomach when the sun for the summer turns and because of the horizon is shown. No, the right, is a pity. Here this short summer to anything. It is not enough from it joy.
– Or perhaps will also not thaw! – suddenly he shouted and derisively looked at Ignat.
– Whether you read about such project: to arrange among the Atlantic Ocean the artificial island airport from ice? In warm climate, in the warm sea! Ice should be done artificial there – refrigerators, keeping it under heat insulation… And freezing of the soil at large earthwork? Here, eventually, only energy is necessary. We will be rich with it soon, and then, I think, we will keep on all the year round our many ice constructions.
– To you to move to the South Pole. There ice does not thaw also in the summer.
– Let’s reach also Youzhny, give term. There, likely, for us still such riches under an ice cover are hidden about which we also do not dare to imagine.
Here and tea is ready, here fresh bear’s flesh. Excellent piece. We killed this bear last year, and watch what fresh meat.
– But in the summer your refrigerators thaw – Ignat was surprised.
– And we, smart guy, store only such stock of provisions which is necessary to us for the winter in them. By then, as begins to grow warm, and warehouses become empty. And we store all other stocks in permafrost. There meat at least thousand years fresh will lie. Heard about the mammoth found in permafrost? Its meat so well remained that wolves and dogs of its fir-tree. They say, and some scientist tried mamontyatina. Here and permafrost on something was useful though it also causes many troubles to our Verochka.
– And there is a lot of it, this permafrost? – Jim asked.
– Whether there is a lot of? Perhaps, Florid about one hundred will get. The southern border of permafrost goes from Mezen through Berezov on Turukhansk, goes out of the USSR, appears at Blagoveshchensk again, turns on the South, small Hingan bends around, creeps to the southern parts of the Sea of Okhotsk…
– Why such broken border?
– Depends on the different reasons: from thickness of snow cover, from the soil, humidity, from height above sea level.
Skins at doors began to move.
