A letter from a Russian member

Some of you may remember a member called Polarpark who wrote to us once a few years ago. She and I write to each other about once a year and I am forwarding her letter and a photo. She lives very near the Arctic sea in a small town that was built in the Soviet era by prisoners and the "reindeer people" live nearby. She lives in a former Soviet apartment, but hunts and lives mostly like the natives.
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She calls the bird a haselhen and says it is very good with cowberries.(Bonasa bonasia)(Note this is not a small grouse so I am still attempting to learn the identity of this fowl JS)



Hello, Jim.
You are right, I was guiding children ski group and we learned to bild snow wall around tent. This
winter we have abundance snow. Snowdrifts barrier cursory view from windows of ground floor. My
husband prefer to transpose by snowmobile. He is waiting April with hard snow to go on raindeer
hunting.
Our scoolchildren dress high boots and must go to school only along road. Skiing is a school
discipline in winter.
Our wild reindeers are very fearful (shy), I saw them only several time on the mountain passes. They
live in those place where reindeer moss grow. Last Sunday we selebrate reindeers holiday. Reindeers
teams (sleds) competed in speed on the main town street. Reindeer breders sold boots and slippers
from reindeers skin.

Fast spring coming to you.
Natalia

This is their "guide truck"

Very cool, Jim! Please tell her hello from the Forums for us. It is very interesting to get different perspectives from different parts of the globe. Make sure she knows she is always welcome on our Forums.

BF

P.S:
She is a much better speller than you are, by the way

Bigfoot,
I'll write to her soon and ask her to visit the forum again. She might be surprised to see her photo.
BTW she lives in Inta, republic of Comi and the coords of her house east of town are approxiimately
66 03 20 N 60 12 32 E for the google earth users, its a very interesting area, look at all of the lakes north of Inta.
And BF, shes much better looking than you are.
Now I am really consumed figuring out what kind of bird that is, it sure looks like she shot Big Bird.
Jim
P.S. Natalia says the best socks for the Artic region are knitted from spun dog fur. She makes all of her families socks. The best part is when they become worn you can take them apart and knit new ones.

Jim:

Thanks for posting that, and, uh, fast spring coming to you also.

That "guide truck" in that photo sure looks like GM's prototype for their H5 Hummer before they booted Rick Wagoner as CEO last spring.

Man would I like a pair of those s e a l s k i n boots. (my inbox will probably be flooded by PETA nutbars now).
That bird is freaky. It's huge and unknown to me.
The cotton Anorak she is wearing is interesting. Synthetic ends on the sleeves and chest area. Probably used in wet or bloody situations and this fabric would be easier to keep clean and dry more so than the white canvas. Just a guess.

Spun dog fur! Anyone who has met Hysson (see my avatar) knows how much hair he sheds--I've wondered if there could be a use for it! Unfortunately, I have no skills in this direction (I'm a real klutz with my hands), but if anyone wants me to save it....

The smell of wet socks--wet dog plus dirty feet--might be interesting, though!

Thanks Jim. That is a huge bird.

Hi All
A bird friend sent me a link and I also perused a site from a stae college in Komi and it appears to be a sub species of the bird generally called a wood grouse. T. urogallus uralensis, and there are several subspecies due to area and isolated gene pools, which accounts for the red head. The birds get up around 12 pounds for the males and they look like a big grouse or turkey.

I'll write to Natalia and ask her to rejoin us and post about her experiences winter camping and about clothing. She does live amongst the reindeer people - the natives, and we would learn much from their winter skills and dress.

The native people are in general referred to as "Komi" but may be Nenets. The population in the arctic area is 0.2 people per square kilometer.

note the teepee and the lack of antlers on the racing animals.
Jim

Mouse
Coyote and wolf fur, and wolverine, are considered to be the best fur for ruffs on parkas, for a reason I guess. They are frost free furs as I recall. Eskimo use a lot of dog skin with fur in mukluks, perhaps inner boots fur in? and prefer the lower leg section of caribou for the tops of boots as it is the right diameter for human mukluks and probably a caribou leg is pretty well adapted to walking in snow.

I'm not sure how often they change their socks, but not all dog hair smells when wet, it seems to vary between breeds and hair/fur type. Perhaps it puts wool to shame, I mean who ever heard of arctic sheep, even though Icelandic wool is very long.
BTW the record low in Komi is minus 76 degrees F.
Jim

Hey Jim, I do remember her from a couple of years ago. I think that "truck" is an old Soviet armored car of some kind if I remember from one of her old posts. It looks like a Soviet version of the Bradley or one of the Marine amphibs.

Not sure if her pics are still online after the site was redone, but perhaps she could resend some to us.

It sure looks bigger than a grouse. I was thinking it was a Moa:



. . . but that bird I thought was extinct, and the only way it could have flown to northern Russia was on Air New Zeland.

I'd love to see more info from Natalia!

Are the folk she lives among any relation to the Sami (Lapps) of northern Norway and Finland? Looks like similar culture, complete with reindeer! I unfortunately didn't get quite that far north when I was in Norway. My big mistake was scheduling my Scandinavian trip to end just before my flight back to the US (which was at the very end of the 3 months you're allowed to stay in Europe without a visa). Otherwise I would have stayed up there the rest of the summer! I really loved the area above the Arctic Circle, but I was mostly in Norway's Lofoten Islands, a much softer climate.

Of course getting into Russia involves visas and such.

Tom D
I actually have all of her photos in my data base. I will repost them.
real skis with real skins

oops thats my green eyed tiger

a "road"

a village

some locals from the old days note the log construction of the building behind

another view of the truck on the tundra (taiga)

Jim

Jim:

That real skis image is really beautiful.

What about the lakes north of Inta: all are swamp, the biggest are lakes, they are open really 2 month in a year. The world Inta means “ water is everywhere , water is all around” from nenetsky language. But we can use swampy-mobile especially for such place.

Hi Rick:

Anorak I’m wearing is from nylon. It was sewn myself from brake parachute of military flying-machine. Such anorak is very light, breathing and snow strew down from this texture and moreover it quickly dry and it is not hot in summer. For my opinion membrane texture don’t work on frost. Of course we wear warm clothes from fleece or polartek under anorak and need to take down jacket for camping works.

Hi Oregon Mouse.

If clothes from dog’s wool are good washed they don’t smell. However all socks smell after using. During someday sport trip to the mountain we usually have only pair of socks. We wear dry pair tonight, when wet socks are drying above stove.
I have long hair dog, his fur smell only in summer.