Zimnik is a road that can exist only in winter. Moreover, where in other seasons there are no hints of roads at all (in other words, in most of the northern territories of Russia).
For almost the entire expedition to Tiksi, we drove along winter roads. You won't see them in the Moscow region. Zimnik is not just a road with crushed snow, it is a whole road story with its own rules and technology, worthy of the closest attention...
Winter roads appear where there are only swamps in summer, and hundreds of rivers cover the landscape with a fine grid. In the summer they move on the water, and the best winter road is the one that passes through the ice. It is straight and more or less straight.
To "set up" a camp for the night, it is enough to move a little off the road. Pay attention to the dish on the roof of the car - this is an excellent Amtel-connection satellite Internet, which did not let us get bored on cold evenings:
3. 
At night, the temperature dropped to -50, however, we never photographed these indicators on a thermometer. Still, when you get out of the car in the dark on business, the last thing you think about in the cold is about filming:
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Early in the morning had fun with a mug hot water. If you throw boiling water into the air in a hard frost, it will instantly turn into snow:
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A cloud of steam rises overhead and falls to the ground in snowflakes. The main thing is to take pictures against the sun:
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Because on the other hand, it doesn't look so impressive:
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Zimnik - the official road, which is prepared according to a special technology. Accordingly, there are often bases of road workers along the way. We stopped at one of these and looked at how men live:
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Their life, to put it mildly, is not so hot:
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A winter road by land is less convenient than a river road. A lot of holes and bumps:
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As soon as we entered it, the speed dropped catastrophically. At all, average speed traffic in the taiga fluctuates around 25-30 km per hour. Whatever car and suspension you have, don't expect to go faster:
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Pit on the pit:
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Sometimes there are relatively flat areas, and you can accelerate to 50-60 km per hour. In this case, the car begins to "dust" with snow and it is necessary to keep a distance between the cars:
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The road builders seem to have some kind of norm on the number of signs for a certain section of the road. True, all of them are concentrated in pockets of several pieces, between which there are tens of kilometers of emptiness:
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"Beware of bumps!" - the funniest sign that can be on a winter road at all. For good, you can put it once at the beginning of the road - all the same, the bumps do not stop:
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The workers have these signs, like a fool candy wrappers:
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Who rides in the winter? Passenger cars we hardly saw. Only truckers drive trucks:
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Truckers drown in the cabin, as in a steam room and sit all the way in T-shirts and slippers. The heat is such that they jump out into the street without getting dressed:
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Hills began to grow on the horizon:
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On the tops of the snow-covered Christmas trees:
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After that, the winter road "divided" into two roads: one short, but on land with pits, the other long, but on the ice of the river. In the second option, there was still a risk of ice, due to which cars periodically go under water.
What we chose and how we got there, I will tell in the next post. Stay Tuned!
24. 
ZIMNIK, winter road, husband. 1. The road, which is used only in winter, which cannot be traveled in summer (reg.). “Here he is riding a winter road along the river ... with a cart to the mill.” Saltykov Shchedrin. 2. Toboggan path (region). 3. A peasant who comes to the city for the winter for ... ... Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov
ZIMNIK, a, husband. A road cut straight through the snow for driving in winter. | adj. winter, oh, oh. Explanatory dictionary of Ozhegov. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 ... Explanatory dictionary of Ozhegov
Exist., number of synonyms: 10 winter road (1) wind (262) December (8) ... Synonym dictionary
Drive. Kar. Walk in search of money, earnings. SRGK 1, 365 ... Big dictionary of Russian sayings
winter road- Temporary road laid in winter on virgin snow, river or lake ice. Syn.: snowy icy road… Geography Dictionary
M. 1. The road, which is used only in winter. ott. Sleigh path. 2. A small warm hut in which they live in winter. 3. Dugout or building for the overnight stay of lumberjacks, hunters, fishermen, etc. (usually in winter time). Explanatory Dictionary of Ephraim. T.F... Modern explanatory dictionary of the Russian language Efremova
The winter road is a road with carriageway built from
ice, frozen in layers, or from compacted snow and ice, as well as
laid along frozen ice rivers and lakes.
So, for many residents of remote and hard-to-reach
settlements of Yakutia, winter roads, the length of which is more than 16
thousand km - this is the real road of life, which has been operating for almost
half a year. During the closing period of navigation, food products are delivered along winter roads,
fuel, Construction Materials and other life-supporting goods.
There are winter roads not only in Yakutia, but in other regions: on
Chukotka, Kamchatka. TASS correspondents learned how and under what conditions
winter roads are laid and how such roads differ in different regions.
Warm weather is a threat to winter roads
This year, abnormally warm weather in the north led to
disruption of the delivery of winter roads not only in Yakutia, but also in Chukotka, where
construction snowy track from the urban district of Pevek to the village of Bilibino
Chaunsky district.
"Traditionally, the winter road opened on January 15, but now
the construction of the winter road takes place in difficult conditions. This year is different
three previous strong wind loads and atypical for the Chukchi winter
positive temperatures. Western winds, ice on the rivers, snowstorms complicate our
work on the winter road. Often you have to return to already finished sites,
to clean everything up again,” said the deputy director of a separate
divisions of the Chukotka Mining and Geological Company in Pevek Alexander
Slobodian.
In Yakutia, today the difficult weather situation has developed in
Kolyma group of districts, where, due to the lack of winter roads, there is a shortage
diesel fuel for power plants. At the moment, the winter road is being laid
to the village of Andryushkino, where more than 800 people live, which is located 450
km from the regional center of the Nizhnekolymsky district of Chersky. The decision was made to punch
the road from the neighboring Srednekolymsky district of the city of Srednekolymsk,
which is located 240 km from Andryushkino. Until the beginning of February, road equipment
must reach the village, where, to save diesel fuel, every two hours
rolling blackouts are carried out, the temperature regime is lowered by 10 degrees
in the residential sector.
At the beginning of January, the same situation developed in another
settlement - the village of Kolymskoye, but by the efforts of the municipality and road workers
managed to break through the winter road in the shortest possible time and start uninterrupted fuel delivery
and food to the village.
According to the road workers of Yakutia, the reason that led to
late opening of winter roads, there was abundant snowfall in the northern and
Arctic regions in early November, exceeding the monthly norm by 4-5 times, which
greatly complicate the work of the road workers. Snow thickness ranges from
1.2 to 1.8 meters. The difficult situation was complicated by the fact that under the snow cover
numerous unfrozen rivers flowed, which made it difficult to travel
all-terrain and road equipment for punching avtozimnik.
"In the difficult natural and climatic conditions of Yakutia
The weather plays an important role in the life of every local resident. That is why
each contracting organization assigns to its section of the road
duty all-terrain and road equipment for emergency cases", -
road builders note.
Features of the Yakut winter roads
On the technology and features of laying a winter road in Yakutia TASS
told CEO Road Administration of the Republic of Sakha Nikolai Sivtsev.
"Winter roads are mainly laid in November-December
month, taking into account the actual state of the ice and weather conditions. Today, despite
these weather challenges, the coordinated work of our experts, together with
contractors allows you to carry out work in accordance with
schedule for punching and cleaning of winter roads. Generally Men at work
carried out without delay from the calendar schedule," he said.
Winter roads in Yakutia are designed mainly for 5 months
operation depending on weather conditions, the maximum tonnage is
from 3 to 40 tons.
If we talk about distinctive features winter roads in
different regions of the republic, it can be noted that, depending on the area,
each district has its own specific features in terms of destination
structures and construction methods of winter roads.
For example, when arranging winter roads passing
across the Lena River, where in places there are
areas with ice formations and non-freezing rivers, make detours for safe and
uninterrupted traffic.
In the Bulunsky district, where the winter road passes through the tundra
the area and the Laptev Sea, snowfalls or strong winds fall asleep very quickly
road, making it completely indistinguishable from the surrounding snow fields. After
every snowfall on winter roads goes a large number of road technology,
mainly tractor K-700 ("Kirovets"), which are dragged along
special shovel for clearing or compacting snow.
For the convenience of technology, as well as for transport,
moving along an uncleared winter road, the road is marked with special
poles with reflective tapes, thanks to which even a swept road
easy to read, and all-wheel drive vehicles can move without the threat of getting lost
out of the way.
The main Chukchi winter highway: Pevek-Bilibino
In Chukotka, where about 1,200 km
winter roads, soon state acceptance of the longest
winter road Pevek-Bilibino with a length of about 300 km, which delivers
the largest amount of cargo. This highway will operate until the end of April.
Now it is being built by two mobile teams at once, which compact the snow.
special heavy drags.
Also in Chukotka there is an intensive freezing of ice for
opening of ice crossings. “Usually an ice crossing across the Anadyr estuary
opens in early February, but this year, due to a thaw, there is still
open water. It is expected that the crossing on the estuary will open no earlier than the second
half of February,” said the spokesman for the Ministry of Emergency Situations in the region.
In winter, the Anadyr estuary passes ice road between
the city of Anadyr and the airport "Coal". In total this year in Chukotka since February
By March, the 31st ice crossing should be put into operation.
Between Koryakia and Kamchatka
On the territory of the Kamchatka Territory there is one winter road from
from the village of Anavgay, Bystrinsky district, to the village of Palana in Koryakia, with a length of
about 500 km. The winter road connecting the north and south of Kamchatka is
the only land transport artery between settlements
Koryaksky district and the former Kamchatka region, which since 2007 are
united Kamchatka region.
It is divided into two sections - an extended winter road and
winter road. The first section runs from the village of Tigil to the village of Palana and is
about 200 km. This is a gravel road, with bridge crossings, it operates
year-round. But in winter they do not clear it, but roll a rut along the highway. Second
section - from the village of Anavgay to the village of Tigil - 240 km. This winter road works with
end of January - beginning of February to April.
"Currently, ice crossings are being frozen
and compaction of snow ruts with heavy equipment. In particular, thanks to
established frosts, freezing of the largest ice crossing in
that area - across the Tigil River 20 meters wide, 230 meters long.
The carrying capacity of the ice passage across the river will be 20 tons," the statement said.
TASS in the press service of the government of the Kamchatka Territory.
WHAT IS ZIMNIK
For many regions of Russia, winter roads or winter roads are the only means of communication with remote settlements. This is due to the fact that the tundra and swampy woodlands of the Russian North in the warm season is an insurmountable obstacle for wheeled vehicles.
Usually winter roads begin to function in November and the movement on them continues until May, until the soil finally freezes. This is what happens in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, with a slight amendment. In April, heavy snowstorms begin and road work on winter roads stops. In this regard, in April, movement on winter roads is prohibited.
Some winter roads are departmental and have restrictions on the movement of private vehicles. Many of them have barriers and checkpoints. Since such roads are built and maintained by private companies (usually oil or gas), the owners have every right to restrict traffic on them. But private vehicles still drive along these roads, though not every car is able to move along snowy highways, only SUVs can do it. The fact is that no matter how well they monitor the condition of the winter road, after each snowfall, a well-packed road turns into a section off-road sports. The surface of a winter road is usually below the level of the surrounding snow cover. And snowfalls or strong winds cover the road very quickly, making it completely indistinguishable from the surrounding snowy fields. After each snowfall, a large number of road equipment enters the winter roads, mainly tractors K-700 (Kirovets), they drag special drags behind them, which, depending on the shape, clear or ram the snow. For the convenience of equipment operation, as well as for vehicles moving along an uncleared winter road, the road is marked with special markers equipped with reflective tapes. Thanks to them, even a marked road is easy to read and all-wheel drive vehicles can move without the threat of going astray.
The length of winter roads varies from tens to hundreds of kilometers. On long winter roads, every fifty to one hundred kilometers, bases of road equipment are being built from which vehicles go out daily to work to maintain the winter road. Often, at such bases, rest points for drivers are arranged, consisting of several caravans. There you can spend the night, eat and make light Maintenance. Also, these bases have radio communication and drivers of cars moving along the winter road are noted in special traffic logs, as well as similar logs in without fail available on checkpoints located at the entrances and exits of winter roads. The northern region is harsh, bad weather and frosts, constant companions of a harsh winter, sometimes in a matter of minutes can turn a calm movement along the winter road into a battle for life, and therefore it is very important to know the location of traffic participants at any time. The more car depots and rest points on the route, the easier it is to calculate the location of the car in trouble.
Movement on winter roads is usually carried out in dark time days. In the headlights, the white road takes on relief due to the play of light and shadow, while in the daytime, opposite, the road merges with the surrounding snow and you can easily slide onto the loose roadside.
Features of winter roads
Snow is the most difficult and unpredictable surface of all. It's not so much that the even cover hides the relief and masks the hillocks and ditches, its main danger lies elsewhere. Japanese scientists who are closely involved in the study of the properties of snow have counted about seventy (!) of its varieties in Russia. Depending on the temperature and density, the snow cover is able to change its properties to the opposite. So, for example, at temperatures close to zero Celsius, snow is very sticky and heavy, while its rolling resistance coefficient is so high that it is not inferior to loose dry sand. As the temperature drops, the properties of snow change. Minus ten to twenty degrees, coupled with high humidity, typical for such temperatures, turn it into "semolina", snow freezes into small granules and becomes a serious obstacle for wheeled vehicles, cars skid on level ground - they have nothing to catch on. At temperatures below minus thirty, moisture freezes out, the snow changes its properties again, now it is the smallest snow dust. Packed with a strong north wind, it looks like a real highway; an adult can easily move along it without even leaving traces. But the apparent hardness is deceptive, as soon as the wheel is turned, the snow partes and the car, having fallen through, is immobilized, with virtually no chance of getting out on its own. But that's not all the surprises that snow brings us. When the temperature changes, a crust is formed. The more often the mercury of the thermometer jumps, the more layers of crust freezes. Snowfalls and weather changes turn the snow cover into a layer cake. Usually the crust is not thick enough to support the weight of the car, so it breaks, the car finds itself in the situation of an ice-bound steamer. The only way to get out of such a trap is to gouge the crust around the car and pull it back to a solid place.
Strong northern winds pose a great danger when moving along the tundra. The fact is that during the construction of winter roads in the tundra, the highway is laid on hills, where the soil is drier and freezes faster, but this is a problem, since the road as a result is open to all winds and a heavy wind, and it is a common occurrence in the North, raises snow and sweeps it across the road. Firstly, barriers are formed that interfere with movement, and secondly, visibility drops to several meters, which makes movement at a speed (required to pass the barriers) impossible. But you can’t stop either - a standing car is instantly swept up in snow. If you cannot continue driving, you should stay in the car and wait for help if your movement on the winter road is known road services or wait for the end of the blizzard to go for help. In no case should you go on foot in a snowstorm - it is life threatening.
Equipment moving on winter roads
Mostly all-wheel drive trucks, Urals and KamAZ trucks. Often meets tracked vehicles, it poses the greatest danger to passenger vehicles. While driving in the cab of a caterpillar all-terrain vehicle, it is very noisy and drivers use anti-noise headphones. The lighting technology of such devices also leaves much to be desired, and they develop a very decent speed, so there is a considerable chance that you simply will not be noticed, especially if your car light color and headlights covered with snow. During last year's automobile expedition to Naryan-Mar, we almost died because we realized late that the all-terrain vehicle rushing towards our stationary car was not going to turn to the side. We were able to leave at the last moment. Seeing the headlights (before that, our car was facing the side of the all-terrain vehicle), the GTT stopped and the driver who jumped out of the cab turned to us with next question: "Guys, where did you come from?". He just didn't notice the white Defender on the white snow.
On the winter roads of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug you can often meet the Khanty and representatives of other small ethnic groups of the North. Usually they move on snowmobiles, they prefer the domestic "Buran" to all brands, for its maintainability and unpretentiousness in terms of fuel. They almost always drag behind snowmobiles homemade trailers(large plywood boxes) with frozen fish or ... passengers. A common occurrence on the winter road "Buran" in the trailer of which six people are sitting that way. Typically, such trailers protrude significantly beyond the dimensions of the snowmobile itself and are not equipped with parking lights. Therefore, when meeting with such vehicle on a night winter road, you should be extremely careful.
Passenger transport is extremely rare, usually such cars are coupled with trucks or tractors, or after driving through a hard cleared area on their own, they stop at the crossing and wait for a passing all-terrain vehicle to hitch on it to go through the wretched area.
I would like to talk a little about the relationship between drivers on winter roads. Last year, traveling along the winter roads of the Nenets Okrug, I was quite surprised that the participants in the movement did not help each other at all. Then I realized that the main reason for this attitude lies in the fact that the lion's share of drivers are guest workers from the nearest foreign countries. For them, the North is just a place where they came for a "long ruble", which is why they behave accordingly: a person is a competitor to a person (read wolf). This year, having driven several thousand kilometers along the winter roads of the YNAO, I first of all noticed that here people behave in a completely different way. It is considered normal to stop at an oncoming car and ask each other about the state of the road further, how many cars have passed, etc., and to help pull out a stuck car or provide any other required assistance is the law. It's nice to realize that people in the Tyumen region have not forgotten how to help each other.
Traffic rules winter roads
When driving on winter roads, all traffic rules must be observed. Special attention it is worth paying attention to traffic signs, believe me, somewhere, and on winter roads they are installed far from just like that. There is such an expression "The rules of the road are written in blood", and so it is especially true on such roads as winter roads. Therefore, I strongly recommend that you follow their recommendations. Also, winter roads have their own rules, for example, on the rise, the car moving up has the advantage. And if you, having approached the descent, saw a car approaching from below, stop, leaving room for maneuver at the exit and wait until the oncoming car finishes climbing and passes you, only then continue driving. After all, climb the slippery snow covered road far from just especially heavy truck and if, due to the fact that you, without thinking, drove out to meet him, he loses speed, then a rather dangerous situation can arise in which a truck that is standing on a slope can tip over backwards.
Also, you should never drink and drive. I understand that the road is long, we drive slowly, there are few cars, why not have a drink? I'll tell you why. Driving a car in difficult road conditions is in itself a serious test and not every driver is able to cope with driving a car even when he is absolutely sober and concentrated, not to mention drunk. If the rules of the road and my comment did not convince you, then I will add that traffic police crews are usually on duty at the exits from winter roads, waiting for just such lovers of oar riding. And then you should not count on indulgence. Another interesting fact: traffic police inspectors of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, for the most part, do not take bribes, so they will have to answer according to the law.
Practical Tips
Driving on winter roads requires certain skills. The main rule is not to go beyond the restrictive milestones or, if there are none, do not move off the rammed canvas. As soon as one wheel of the car catches soft snow, the car is instantly pulled off the road and it falls through. Getting out without outside help is very difficult. Even if a winch is installed on the machine, this does not change much, since there is absolutely nothing to hook the hook in the tundra. Therefore, you should not travel alone on winter roads, traffic on the northern roads cannot be called intense, so you can spend several hours waiting for help. Ice crossings are also a great danger. Despite the fact that they are usually specially frozen so that they can withstand the weight of heavy vehicles, caverns occur on them, often drivers of heavy heavy equipment they do not pay attention to the signs at the crossings with limited tonnage and heavy vehicles break through the ice with their wheels. Therefore, if the ice crossing is not visible under the snow or due to uneven terrain, it is better not to regret a couple of minutes, get out of the car and carefully inspect the place where you are going to drive, believe me, this can save you a lot of time and nerves. If a pole sticks out at the crossing in the middle of the road, this means that the ice in this place is broken and you should not pass near this place.
Also, when driving on a winter road, you should understand that fuel consumption in difficult road conditions increases many times over, so you should stock up on them, because in the harsh conditions of the Russian North, combustibles are life. Even if you expect to spend a couple of hours on the road, there should be a supply of water and food in the car, this is exactly the case when God saves the safe. The car must have a good shovel and reliable tow rope. Skis or snowshoes will not be superfluous at all.
If the winter road is very noticeable with snow, it makes sense to lower the drive wheels, the contact patch will increase, and the rolling resistance, on the contrary, will decrease, the car will slip less and be better controlled. If your car has slipped off the road in loose snow, do not rush to shift gears and put pressure on the gas. To begin with, it’s worth getting out of the car and seeing how deep it has fallen, believe me from the outside it can be seen much better than from the inside. Before you sit back and try to drive out, it is worth digging the car, removing snow from under the bridges and the bottom. Regardless of whether you are trying to leave on your own or the car is pulled out on a cable, you need to get out back, along your own track, this is the easiest and most effective way. When driving on a winter road covered with freshly fallen snow and when passing the crossings, try to prevent wheel slip, if you feel that the car is losing speed and it is still far to the end of the snowy area, it is better to stop, carefully back out, get out of the car and measure the depth of the snow cover. Then make a decision already based on the situation. Never be lazy to go out and look, it does not take much time, it takes much more to eliminate the consequences of rash actions.
Preparing the car for driving on winter roads and off-road
Behind Last year I spent several extreme road expeditions including three winter ones. During these trips, we had to drive several thousand kilometers on winter roads and without them, so our cars were prepared accordingly. Having experience in bringing cars to extreme use and also taking into account the constant interest of the reader in technical training SUVs, I want to talk a little about how to build a “rogue” out of a standard all-wheel drive car that can easily move around in winter off-road.
main guarantor high cross are special mud wheels large dimension with deep tread. According to the jeep club "Tundra" from Novy Urengoy, American tires Super Swamper Irok with a dimension of 38 * 14 inches are best suited for the winter roads of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. For achievement maximum effect the pressure in the wheels is reduced to 0.3-0.5 atmospheres. In order to put such wheels on the car, a slight modification of the body (lift and cutting of the wings) and significant changes in the suspension and transmission are required, with the help of a lift kit, other springs or springs or special spacers, the suspension travels increase and the car itself becomes much higher. Because the wheels bigger size increase the load on the vehicle transmission change gear ratios(by installing other main pairs in bridges).
The body kit also undergoes major changes. In place of standard bumpers, special load-bearing structures are installed that can withstand a blow to an icy parapet or a tree. At least one winch with electric, hydraulic or mechanical drive is installed on the vehicle. The air intake to avoid engine water hammer when passing fords is displayed on the roof of the car. For uninterrupted operation engine under conditions low temperatures installed autonomous stove(working on the main fuel of the car) for heating the coolant. Also to maintain comfortable temperature an autonomous stove is installed in the car interior.
Additional lighting equipment is installed on the machine to ensure sufficient overview in conditions of poor visibility. Also, a set of equipment for satellite navigation and radio communications are installed in the car.
Before the trip, each car is supplied with the most complete set of the most important spare parts, a complete set of tools, a set of off-road equipment, including a jerk tow rope, a high rack jack, a winch cable extension, a bark protection sling for winching, ladders for passing through ice cracks. Also, each car is equipped with canisters so that the total off-road cruising range is at least five hundred kilometers.
All of the above is vocational training and it is not at all necessary, but often it is not necessary for driving on winter roads. The main thing is to clearly calculate your strength and capabilities of the car. By driving the car with intelligence and caution, you have every chance to drive through the winter road on a completely standard four-wheel drive vehicle. And if any unforeseen difficulties happen, drivers of passing cars will always help you. Helping your neighbor is the law for Siberia, and God forbid that it will continue to be so.
At first glance, the idea of going to Nadym through the reached Salekhard looks strange: from the simplest geographical map it follows that both cities are at dead ends, and if the railway from Moscow to Salekhard is generally straight, then to Nadym along the rails and the highway you need to make a giant detour through space of Siberia. Between them, there are three hundred kilometers of forests and swamps, which, it would seem, can only be flown over ... but not quite. Between Salekhard and Nadym, I first got acquainted with such a specific essence of the Far North as ZIMNIK - this is a road that is built in winter on frozen ice and rolled snow. There are many winter roads in Russia, and Salekhard-Nadym is a natural highway among them - even the locals call it a "highway".
And it passes along the Dead Road embankment - perhaps the most unusual of the many Russian railways. Its mound on the title frame is visible on the left, but about it - in the next two parts, for now I’ll tell you about the winter road as it is: device, nuances, equipment, meetings along the road, including with the Nenets who came to Nadym. Here is a completely different life.
In the morning, having crossed the frozen Ob on a minibus, I met Maxim at the Salekhard airport raven_ptitsa and daring, but correct, like a Cossack, Nadym resident Misha, who came for us at night in a black Pajero. Having twirled around Salekhard, having bought several whitefish tails in the "Gifts of Yamal", we headed east along the asphalt road. The winter road in our time is "no longer the same", out of 300 kilometers a third (from Salekhard) is asphalt, a third (from Nadym) is dumping, and only a third in the middle remains the actual winter road, which becomes limp in a thaw and impassable in a snowstorm, and even in ideal weather - windless strong frost - this third of the way eats up two thirds of the time. Previously, in a good scenario, the journey from Nadym to Salekhard took 12 hours, now it takes 5-6 hours, but in a bad scenario, now that you could travel a day and eventually get stuck somewhere waiting for the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The asphalt road passes by turns to and Aksarka - the only neighbors of Salekhard on the right bank of the Ob, and where it leads can be seen at least from oncoming cars, whether it be a convoy of trucks with road construction equipment:
Or wheeled all-terrain vehicles. For example, we met two Petrovichs in a row - these have been produced in Tyumen since 2011, and the manufacturer of Xpen, on which a couple of weeks later to me, jokingly called them "premium all-terrain vehicles".
An hour on asphalt - and we ran into a barrier: this is the beginning of the winter road itself. Depending on the actual weather, it is sometimes closed - sometimes for the heaviest and most impassable cars, and sometimes for everyone. Trucks and passenger cars are the first to be cut off, the last ones are jeeps with a high seating position, like our Pajero. At the posts at the barriers, all passing cars are marked so that in case what it was clear who to look for:
Basically, the winter road looks something like this - packed snow, under which there is a layer of ice, the quality of the road is "death to the suspension":
The fact is that ice is not asphalt or even clay: the winter road is “alive”, and every thaw, every snowstorm changes it pretty much. Now it got warmer and streams broke through the ice, soon frozen in bumps and slippery spaces; here the "Ural" passed and squeezed out the ruts and potholes, but the wind blew and chalked up the lines. In addition, in cross section, the winter road is a slab with a hard middle and soft shoulders, driving on which one side is likely to get stuck in the snow. They don’t go on a winter road without a cable and a shovel ... or rather, of course, they go, but purely at their own peril and risk.
There are various collisions here - for example, while I was sitting in Nadym, a truck that fell on its side across the road blocked the winter road for more than a day. A typical plot - two trucks are trying to pass and both get stuck at the side of the road, and only a caterpillar all-terrain vehicle that can crawl to the place for half a day can pull them out. And this is even now, when the winter road is rolled and wide: Misha said that until recently two cars could not pass on it. Here is an example of local ethics: you walk in a convoy of 5 cars, a convoy of 7 cars meets you, which means you lost - all five cars turn from a solid middle and fall into the snow. But this is not because the strongest survive - it's just that after driving seven cars, pulling back five cars is much easier than vice versa.
Here on the way back (there I was driving with an opportunity on the "Niva") we tried to overtake the truck and flew into the snow with wheels. The truck stopped immediately, the driver of the "Niva" found a cable and the car was safely pulled out. We also got bogged down on the Pajero, but we managed it ourselves - Max and I got out of the car and hung on its running board to shift the center of gravity while Misha taxied out of the snow ditch.
I have heard that a lot of burned-out cars are buried in the snow near the road - this is a common Siberian story: here you are stalled on the road in the bitter cold, and no one is driving past. To keep warm, the driver first burns some things, then chairs or tires, and in the end it remains to burn only the car itself, and God forbid if this is enough until help arrives. To be honest, I didn’t see a single burnt skeleton, except that the skeleton of a snowmobile was lying around near the Stalinist camp "Shchuchy":
The main equipment on the winter road is trucks like "Urals" and "Kamazov": equipment in the North is mostly domestic, because the reverse side of its unreliability is the ability to repair on the knee and get spare parts in any hole. There are also cars, and in principle the movement here is very active - once every half an hour something will pass.
But the winter road serves almost more equipment than it passes through - here and there there are bases of road builders in the form of a scattering of beams (residential trailers), a considerable part of the trucks carry tractors or excavators, it is not uncommon to meet a bulldozer clearing snow or a tractor with drags:
Actually drag, popularly "balalaika" or "guitar" - this is how snow is thrombosed on the roadway:
Nearly military tracked all-terrain vehicles"Vityaz" developed in the 1980s (considered almost the most passable car in the world) at the lapel to the Yarudeyskoye gas field - I don’t know if they serve it or the winter road itself:
Every now and then there are mountains of snow-swept sand - for backfilling, which in some places is dark and dense, resembling shredded asphalt:
Do not forget about the markings - they stand along the winter road road signs, signs, kilometer posts, wooden poles with reflectors (in case of low visibility; visible on the introductory frame), and perhaps it is not possible to make markings on the surface:
And there are so many water barriers along the road that everyone didn’t have enough names, so at ice crossings and bridges it is often written simply “Stream”:
The capital bridge is also not accidental - now the construction of a year-round road is in full swing, which is promised to be completed by 2018:
Many bridges, especially closer to Nadym, are already open for traffic, but some have to be admired from the ice crossings:
And if earlier the winter road was the only thin thread, now the first and last dozen kilometers, it pretty much branches - here are the embankments of the road under construction, partly already open to all travelers, and partly not, here are reinforced winter roads for heavy equipment road workers, where outsiders are usually not allowed, and the Salekhard and Nadym forums are full of advice on how and where to "jump" there and where the most convenient "jump" is.
Most of the winter road passes first along the right bank of the Poluy upstream, then again along the right bank of the Yarudey River downstream - the first flows into the Ob, the second into the Nadym River. And in the middle, on their watershed, gently raised a little higher - respectively, a little stronger than the wind, and therefore the forest does not grow very willingly. This is the so-called Russian field, where evil winds most often sweep the road or blow off the snow cover from the ice, the most difficult part of the path:
And again, diving into the forest, you should not be surprised at this sign:
In a warm windless place in the middle of the road, a natural cafe was formed, where on the same "Niva" we brought up a drunken road builder. Moreover, after 20 kilometers there is also a gas station, and the prices do not differ much from ordinary roads I don't know anything about quality though.
I don’t know how legal this cafe is, but the folk trail does not overgrow here, and when the year-round road opens, Uncle Vasya will be its king:
And along the entire length of the winter road, jumping now to the right, then to left side the Dead Road stretches - a noticeable embankment, in the snow of which rails, bridges, spillways rest. Sometimes its buildings are very capital:
But in addition to all sorts of bridges, semaphores, railway houses at the sidings here and there in the forest, silhouettes of barracks, fences and towers of Stalin's camps flicker. The abundance of history is the main difference between this winter road and any other. There will be separate posts about this.
"The raven will not peck out our eyes from the sockets, Because the raven is not found here ..."- sang Vysotsky, but of all the living creatures on this winter road, we came across only a black raven:
And among the numerous road signs of the winter road and the northern roads in general, these are the most unusual:
We really met deer on the road not far from Salekhard:
"So that's what you are, a reindeer" - surprisingly, I saw these animals for the first time. However, the deer are very shy, and only seeing the car, they quickly pulled into the sparse forest. I never had time to see if there were white deer among them - one such, as an inviolable guardian, should be in every herd.
Pay attention to how the snow is dug up - they hoof, that is, they get food from under the snow. Later, there was a thaw, followed by frost again, and a powerful frost bound the earth - that's why this herd remained the only one I saw for almost a month: they left somewhere in search of food. But let's take a look at the riding deer.
After all, where there are deer, there are, therefore, reindeer herders: stocky Nenets in baggy belted malitsa and fur boots, kisAh, which are attached to the belt. A snowmobile trail stretches parallel to the winter road, along which they rush one after another on "Burans" and "Yamahas", only in some sections they go out onto the winter road itself.
Hey!
-Let's jump, just quickly, hurry!
- I wanted to take a picture of you!
- Oh, take a picture, take a picture!
Maxim said that such felt hoodies, apparently for lack of their own deer, are worn by "fishers", that is, fishermen and hunters, and at least on the Reindeer Breeder's Day I really did not see such clothes. However, I had the following dialogue with this comrade:
- Excuse me, are you a fisherman?
Are you looking for poachers?
- Well, I heard that fishermen go in such clothes.
-No, reindeer herders too.
But perhaps he mistook me for fish supervision and therefore did not expand on this topic. By the way, for some reason, all representatives of indigenous peoples in Nadym are called Khanty, although in fact only Nenets roam in its vicinity.
And they drive along the snowmobile trail not only on snowstorms. But when a sled with a couple of deer appeared from behind a turn in the road, which a Nenets in a malitsa urged on with a long trochee stick, Maxim and our fellow traveler, who had lived most of her life in Nadym, were more surprised than me - like me, a newcomer to these parts, they saw this first.
I went to the winter road 4 times in total (twice - from start to finish, twice - with Maxim on the objects of the Dead Road), and the Nenets met me every time, and there were more and more of them. This is the specificity of their work, because of which they were the only people among the peoples of the USSR who managed to maintain a nomadic lifestyle: the fact is that the reindeer is not tamed, and their gardens essentially remain wild, they go from century to century along their own paths and in due time, in winter, going south from frost, and in summer, north from gadflies, and people only look after these herds so that they are not killed by diseases and wolves do not fight. From March, the migration begins - that is, the migration of people after the herds, and the Days of the reindeer herder in a particular village are held when the deer themselves want, in other words, when the most reindeer herders accumulate near the village. Well, Nadym is so located on the deer paths that the capital of the Reindeer Breeder's Day is it, and not Salekhard. Here, in an open field, loaded sleds are a sure sign of swaying:
And on the eve of the Reindeer Breeder's Day, we met such an elegant team on a snowstorm with a trailer - they were going to a holiday in which they were going to actively participate: the woman introduced herself as "the mistress of the plague." Here, pay attention to the three main types of Nenets winter clothing - on the left is a male malitsa, on the right is a female yagushka (it differs in that it is oar to breastfeed children on the job), and in the middle a sovik, juice or just a "goose" - the warmest clothes, worn over a malitsa: they say that in a goose you can wallow drunk in a 40-degree frost and wake up without signs of frostbite. All these clothes are sewn from two deer skins with fur out and in, only malitsa and yagushki are made from autumn calf fur, and the owl is made from winter fur of adult deer. The disadvantages of this clothing is that at temperatures above -20 it is already hot in it, and it cannot be stored in the city, starting to rot quickly and smell bad. But for life in the tundra, more perfect clothes have not yet been invented ...
Women's adornment - a hat with amulets and plaques, passed down from generation to generation. A similar decoration for men is the "reindeer herder's belt", where tools and amulets hang, including the obligatory bear fang, and I will show such ones in a post about the Reindeer Herder's Day itself.
But among the Nenets, not only clothes are unusual, but also the body itself - after all, in the tundra they do not have the opportunity to wash themselves, even in the summer they do not swim, and therefore they smell ... no, not old sweat, but for some reason resin. I heard that their skin is self-cleansing with some special secretions, and giving this resinous smell, or maybe it just smells like worn-out clothes made of deerskin. The smell of reindeer herders is unmistakable.
Immediately on the eve of the Reindeer Breeder's Day, a whole camp grew up 6 kilometers from Nadym. , though the village, I was back in August under, there I talked about the origin, culture and just impressions from communicating with this amazing people. The impression has not changed since then: the Nenets, of course, are on their minds, but they have a very solid inner core, and at least when sober (I have not yet met heavily drunken Nenets, contrary to stereotypes), they hold themselves with rare dignity - this is rare in post-Soviet Russia, a people that has retained its essence.
One day we noticed a Nenets in a sled with four reindeer driving 30 kilometers per hour on a snowmobile. Of course, we quickly overtook him:
And then we turned to the remains of the Stalinist camp, and soon he overtook us and slowed down. The deer, having removed their red tongues, immediately began to lick the snow, and Maxim, without thinking twice, offered the nomad tea from a thermos and biscuits for tea: in principle, it is not customary to go to the Nenets without a gift. So on a snowmobile there was a meeting of two worlds, equally distant from each other and therefore interesting to each other - the reindeer herder made a halt, and we sat down on his sled with a seagull. He was from Yar-Sale, a village and tundra beyond the Gulf of Ob, and a fellow countrywoman met on the Day of the Reindeer Breeder immediately identified him from photographs and even said his name - Gosha Khudi:
I asked him why he rides reindeer when there is a snowstorm (all the more fuel for nomads is subsidized by the state), and Gosha replied that reindeer need to train to withstand mowing. By a wide margin, the largest deer population in Russia in the Yamalo-Nenets district, about 600 thousand heads, is approximately equally divided between state farms and private, and Gosha Khudi is a private owner. A few years ago he had a pestilence, and (here I did not understand) either a third of the herd survived or died out, which, however, he treated philosophically: nature culls, leaving the strongest for posterity. Some of the deer were then lost, and he found one of them in the state farm herd near Nadym and went there to pick it up, and I think it’s not surprising that the reindeer breeder recognized his “bull” (adult sledding male) by sight.
Deer are small, the size of either a donkey or a pony - lower, but more authentic. However - very powerful, natural lumps of muscle and tendons under the skin with unusually dense fur. If malitsa and plagues are perfect things for the local realities, then the reindeer is the perfect animal for the nature here. And for the Nenets, he is food, clothing, building materials, and transport. Only he is very shy - not every deer in a team can even scratch behind the ear, but these ones did.
Chorea tip. At its other end in the old days there was a point - if necessary, the trochee turned into a spear, because like any nomads, the Nenets were born warriors.
Well, as it seemed to me from communication, the Yar-Salin people are the most nenei-nenech (“real people” - this is how the name “Nenets” is translated into Russian), in the sense of the truest among reindeer herders. Gosha Khudi said that they were oppressed - and it seems that on the one hand, we know that nomads are paid benefits, subsidized fuel, satellite communications, medicines and food, and on the other ... For example, Gazprom built the most northern railway in the world, but did not equip it with passages for deer, and of course, for reindeer herders, this is not only serious problem, but also just a slap in the face, from which every Nenets beyond the mouth of the Ob decided that building roads is bad. Rather, as explained sibir79 , since then this problem has been solved, although not without errors, but, as they say, "the sediment remained."
After drinking tea, Gosha asked where he could see the photos, and Maxim replied that he would send them by e-mail without any problems. Gosha quickly realized that in Yar-Sale he has either a son or a nephew (I already forgot this), who is friends with the computer, which means you need to get to where the network catches and call him to find out the address Email. And although all hundreds of kilometers of the winter road are uninhabited, somehow the terrain still picks up signals, and those who travel here all the time know such places. So Gosha told us where to wait for him about 20 kilometers from here, and we went there. While they were waiting, Maxim took out an army individual food set - it’s not a problem to buy such ones on the Internet now. Quite edible and even tasty, that's just goulash with a taste of khaki metal:
Gosh, we waited, God forbid, 15 minutes, surprised at such a speed. At some point, distant piercing cries were heard from behind the hill - the musher drives the deer not only with a trochee, but also with his voice, and as I understand it, everyone has his own cry. Reindeer team on big move- the spectacle is impressive, the deer's pink tongues dangle in trains, and they puff like a small steam locomotive.
Establishing a connection with Yar-Sale. By the way, notice that the faces of the Nenets are usually sad:
We consider kitties and a belt. This is again about who the "natives" are here - the proud reindeer herder and us, staring in surprise at his equipment.
“The village Nenets are not real. If the Nenets have lost reindeer herding, it means they have lost their essence,” Gosha told us, but he rushed on, turning off the winter road somewhere on his own path. The Nenets tundra seems to be the last place in Russia where the concrete Russian cities are surrounded by the land of nomads.
And somewhere near the winter road (I won’t say where) there is a sacred tree - a larch with a long horizontal branch, twined and hung with colored ribbons. Perhaps this is a "tree of desires", something akin - a tied ribbon means some kind of request to the spirits and gods. Once, passing by this tree, we saw how two Nenets were bowing to him - probably praying. Somewhere in more secret places there are both altars and idols, but the Nenets set up their temples so that a random person could not find them, and they say that they give them out first of all from the hills of deer antlers left over from the sacrificed animals. And in a post about the neighborhood of Antipayuta (where there is a camp), I also showed a halmer - a Nenets cemetery, unlike anything we are used to.
The winter road runs from December to May with breaks of several days for the weather, the Nenets are frequent guests here in February-March, but with or without them it is a whole world, like a subspace, a parallel dimension that separates two rich cities. Here you can find a lot - for example, in Nadym I saw such a poster, from which both me and Max were a little uncomfortable.
Ahead, at some point, the lights of a TV tower appear, and Nadym's high-rise buildings stand up behind the parted forest:
Nadymsky barrier and exit from the city along a narrow path among garages and beams:
But I'll tell you about Nadym later. And in the next part - about the remains of the Dead Railway accompanying throughout the entire winter road.
P.S.
I apologize for the "two posts a day" mode - this is necessary in order to have time to post the entire series (and this is a dozen posts) in a row.
