Towards the polar bear, book review. Oleg Bundurmeeting the polar bear Oleg BundurMeeting the polar bear

* * *

order

I'm going to the North Pole. On nuclear icebreaker"50 Years of Victory". Are you jealous? Yes, I envy myself and still do not believe ...

So, I was going to the Arctic, I thought there would be a farewell ...

But I was not seen off and no one saw me off. Alena's wife was on duty at the hospital, and Kesha opened one eye, wagged his tail: they say, bye. And about a good journey and a speedy return - no meow!

I came with a heavy suitcase to the platform behind the house, I stand, waiting for the bus. Acquaintances - no one. It is understandable: five in the morning, acquaintances are sleeping. And strangers are also sleeping ... I look, a seagull, it has sank so close. He sits on the pavement and looks at me. Well, it’s not just that she sat down nearby and looks, she says hello to the Arctic gulls! Apparently, with my bird instinct, I realized that I was going to the Arctic. She's probably from there. Or maybe her mother or grandmother?

Then, in the Barents Sea, I was standing on the upper deck of an icebreaker and suddenly saw a seagull. She flew very close. There was no one on deck, and I shouted loudly:

- Hello from our White Sea gull!

And this other seagull understood me! It flew side by side for a long time, parallel to our course, then flapped its wings and turned sharply to the side.

I will return home, go out to the playground behind the house at five in the morning and wait for the seagull. And she will certainly fly - she will feel that I have returned. And I'll tell her that I fulfilled her request.

If only there were no acquaintances at that time. And then God knows what they will think when they see me talking to a bird.

Sole

I thought that I knew Russian well. There were no troubles with him at school, and my library is full of different dictionaries, and I often use them ...

I was escorted to the room where I will live by the captain's senior assistant Sergey. It was hot and I asked him:

- How about in window room opens?

- In your cabin porthole opens in the same way as in others. And he showed me how.

I felt uncomfortable.

“You have to be careful,” I thought.

Having laid out things in the cabinets, he climbed the steep stairs to the bridge and asked the captain:

- A ladder cool - to save space?

The captain looked at me carefully.

- It's you in your dacha climbing up the stairs to the attic. Here ladder. Motai on the mustache.

Yeah, obviously, I got it.

We have already reached the open sea, the wave was small, but the floor trembles under our feet. I'm back to the captain:

– Floor shaking underfoot from work motors Or from a wave?

- Not gender, but deck trembling from work machines. Usyok?

Usyok. Again, that means you got it wrong. Oh how embarrassing...

He approached the navigator. Well, I think it's all right here.

- At what speed sailing? How many kilometers at one o'clock?

- We let's go at eighteen nodes.

A knot is equal to one mile.

Well, even though we are going to the sea, and the water is all around, and I sat in a puddle.

I look, the helmsman is sitting in a high chair. He holds the steering wheel with one hand, and the binoculars with the other.

- It's hard steering wheel turn?

– Steering wheel turns easily. You can with one finger.

All right, I'm out of here. What a shame! Gotta find out where catering department And How cooks name.

– Galley on the first deck and coca name is Nicholas.

Terrible! Whatever the question, then by. I should ask the captain, maybe there is a marine dictionary. But he did not ask, suddenly something was wrong again.

Then I found out that almost all maritime terms came from the Dutch language, from Dutch sailors. So I know Russian!

Not a hare

What is the name of a person who rides a bus without a ticket? That's right, rabbit. So I'm a rabbit too. Because on this tourist flight on an icebreaker, I am without a ticket, that is, without travel voucher. And since we are walking on the sea, then I am a sea hare.

Yes, but a sea hare is a seal. So I'm a seal? No, I don't want to be a seal.

And then, I'm here on a creative business trip. And everyone knows about it.

I walk around the icebreaker and pester everyone with questions, probably already tired. Yes, I wouldn’t pester, but then I’ll have to tell you what the Arctic is like and what kind of ship a nuclear icebreaker is.

In general, I'm not a hare. By the way, there will be no hare and sausage with mustard, as I am now!

Infinity

The sea draws me - I don't know why. Probably its infinity.

In the city we walk, staring at our feet, we do not notice how the buds swell, then the greenery curls, then the leaves turn yellow.

From the windows of my apartment on the fourth floor you can see higher than the houses, but there you again come across the hills. From all sides of the hill.

There is no scope for sight in the city, and the soul, as if in a cage, rushes between the walls of houses. Whether it's in the sea! Whichever way you look, there is no end to the water. You look up - the sky is endless. And the sea below seems bottomless - it's hard to imagine a depth of four kilometers.

And the soul here, together with the seagull, flies - either above the very waves, or, soaring higher than the foremast, soaring on motionless wings, catching a stream of air.

And there is no end to either the sea, or the sky, or my thoughts. Fly, seagull, fly!

Heart and brain

Before you do something, you think, don't you? Think with your head. And your head is on your shoulders, well, on your neck. In short, above.

And the icebreaker has a head and a brain. He is also upstairs, on the captain's bridge. There are people, sophisticated devices, computers. People, looking at the readings of the instruments, decide where and how the icebreaker should go.

And the nuclear icebreaker, like us, has a heart - a nuclear reactor. Even two. They are hidden inside the icebreaker behind such powerful protection that they are not afraid of anything. And they are not afraid of anyone.

The reactor contains a special substance - uranium. Like everything else in the world, uranium is made up of atoms. Atoms split, release energy, and it drives the icebreaker. It's clear? Probably not. Let's do it differently.

Do you like grenades? Imagine that a pomegranate is an atom. If you start splitting it into grains, what happens? Delicious! You ate this deliciousness, reinforced your strength and ran for a walk.

So the atom in the reactor splits and releases a lot of heat. The heat heats the water, the water turns into steam, the steam makes the engine work, the engine turns the shaft, on which there are huge two-meter blades. The blades rotate, as if repelled from the water, and the icebreaker moves.

It takes 75,000 horses to move such a giant as the 50 Years of Victory icebreaker. Can you imagine? And nuclear reactors can handle it together. Well, somewhere like this ... I saw nuclear reactors, but, to be honest, I still did not fully understand how they work. Maybe you will grow up, become nuclear physicists and explain to me.

From summer to winter and back

On the day when we departed from the Murmansk pier, there was an unprecedented heat - twenty-six degrees. Well, for you, this may be the usual temperature, but for a northern city located near the icy Barents Sea, it’s a lot.

Well, we left the pier. And at first I went out on deck in a shirt with short sleeves, then I began to put on a pullover, then a sweater over the pullover, then over all this a warm jacket with the inscription "Rosatomflot" on the back. Such jackets are worn by all members of the crew of a nuclear icebreaker.

When you lie on the hot sand south sea in thirty-degree heat, you want coolness.

So, more than once, suffering from the heat, I asked:

- Oh, at least a little snow sprinkled. Oh, I can't take it anymore...

Now on the deck snow is whipping me, the wind is piercing. I want to go to a cabin, in warmth. I went in, my cheeks are burning from the snow and wind, my hands are numb, I can’t hold the pen. I am writing this after a hot shower and tea.

When we return home, I will first take off my jacket, then the pullover, I will go down to the pier in a shirt with short sleeves ...

And now I know for sure: if I get hot again, I will never want to be sprinkled with snow. Winter will come by itself. And summer flies by quickly, especially here, in the Far North.

Mathematics

Tell me, how can you measure distance? You answer: kilometers. Someone will remember: miles. That's right, well done!

And if you hear: the North Pole is twenty degrees north of Murmansk, you probably think that it is twenty degrees colder at the North Pole than in Murmansk. Well, actually, of course, it is colder, but here we are talking about the fact that the North Pole is twenty degrees further than Murmansk.

Like this? Let's figure it out. Draw a circle, it will be like Earth. Above is the North Pole and below is the South Pole.

Draw a straight line from pole to pole. And through its center - the second line. This will be the equator. Well, you know that the hottest equatorial belt runs around the Earth in its middle. Bananas grow there all year round. Stop! We will not talk about this.

You see, there are four right angles on your circle. Take, for example, the upper right corner, one side of it goes to the North Pole, and the other goes along the equator.

I remember from school that a right angle is ninety degrees. Do you understand what I mean? If ninety rays are drawn from this angle through equal distances, they will come to the surface of the earth and divide it into ninety equal parts, or degrees. Zero degrees will pass along the equator, and the ninetieth will come out to the North Pole. Here! And our Murmansk is at the seventieth degree.

It was invented by the British. They are cunning! They were the first to measure the distance from the equator to the pole - these 90 degrees, and it turned out to be equal to 5400 miles 1
The British measured this distance with their nautical miles. 1 nautical mile is 1852 m, but their land mile is only 1609 m.

Is one degree equal to 5400? 90 = 60 miles.

But we use kilometers! While the cunning Englishman will cover one mile in a rowboat, we will travel one kilometer eight hundred and fifty-two meters, or 1852 m, in our boat in the same time.

And now I'm curious about this. If you know that it is 20 degrees from Murmansk to the North Pole, you know that one degree equals 60 miles, and one mile equals 1852 meters, can you calculate how many kilometers from Murmansk to the Pole?

I counted in a column, I got 2222 kilometers. But you might be more accurate...

See, it's simple.

And now, if you suddenly get sick and the temperature rises to 38.6, do not go to school, but call your teacher and say:

- Marivanna, my temperature jumped two hundred and twenty-two kilometers!

The teacher, of course, will believe that you are ill. A healthy student would say: two degrees!

school hobby

On the trip, I took with me a geographical map of the Arctic. You've probably come across this one. It looks like from above: in the center is the Arctic Ocean, covered with a white patch of ice, around the blue water of the seas, and then - the land: the north of our country, Canada, Greenland.

In general, from childhood to geographical maps I treat with trepidation. At home, I hung over the table big map peace. I get tired of learning lessons, I start traveling. Where I just have not been! I still remember the seas and oceans, states and capitals.

Here, on the icebreaker, I asked the navigator questions, delved into his navigator's charts and even told him about the drift of Nansen's Fram ship. The navigator looked at me respectfully.

So in vain my mother told me several times during the evening while I was preparing my lessons:

“Look at the textbook, not at the map!”

If I had not looked at the map, I would not be standing on the bridge of an icebreaker going to the North Pole now!

Scientist

Yep, that's me! And that's why.

I am friends with our Kandalaksha Reserve, and he is friends with me. Of course, the reserve itself is not friendly - it is huge, dozens of islands in the Kandalaksha Bay of the White Sea, islands in the Barents Sea. The scientists who work there are friends with me.

When I was going to the North Pole, the scientists asked me to write down the coordinates of the places where I would notice sea birds and animals along the way.

Such an assignment flattered me very much: I, too, seemed to become a scientist, at least for a while, but a scientist!

It was easy with the coordinates: there is a navigator on the bridge, and it determines the latitude and longitude from the satellites.

The information that scientists asked for was needed to find out how migration, that is, the movement of sea animals and birds, is changing as the Arctic is explored.

So, the farther we moved north, the more attentively I looked around, pressed the eyepieces of the binoculars to my eyes and thought that I wouldn’t see anything at all. Can you really see anything in such spaces from horizon to horizon. But still I saw it! I saw a blue whale and its fountain, I saw walruses, and seals, and seals. And of course, a polar bear, a polar bear and white cubs!

Only here with sea birds in the area of Franz Josef Land, difficulties arose. There were so many birds and they changed their coordinates so quickly that only one entry remained in my diary: there were a lot of birds!

Coordinates

So I told you that I determined the coordinates, that is, latitude and longitude. Do you know how it is? Remember, we drew the Earth, and so 90 degrees from the equator to the North Pole is the northern latitude. And 90 degrees from the equator to the South Pole is south latitude.

Through each degree there is a circle parallel to the equator. They are called parallels. The longest is at the equator, the shortest turn into points at the poles.

The distance around the earth through both poles is 360 degrees. How much is it in miles and kilometers, you can now calculate for yourself.

And around the Earth at the equator the same distance is rounded forty thousand kilometers, or the same 360 degrees.

And if you divide the equator into degrees and draw lines from pole to pole, these will be meridians. At the poles, they also converge to the same points. Well, just like a striped watermelon: all its strips converge into a spout and a tail. Only the watermelon has fewer stripes.

In latitude, the reading comes from the zero degree, or from the zero parallel at the equator.

In longitude, the meridians are also counted from zero. It passes through the capital of England, or rather, through the suburbs of London - Greenwich and is called the Greenwich meridian. So, meridians. It turns out very simply. To the east, to the right of the Greenwich meridian will be 180 degrees east longitude. To the west, that is, to the left of the Greenwich meridian, 180 degrees west longitude. And just 360 degrees!

And now the ship will never get lost in the sea-ocean. If the navigator shows 81 degrees north latitude and 50 degrees east longitude, the navigator will look at the map, and there are all parallels and meridians on the map, and he will easily find the intersection point of the 81st parallel and the 50th meridian. This is where our “Victory” is located, in the area of Franz Josef Land.

And you can easily find this place on the map!

I saw a whale

I just saw him in the Barents Sea. To tell the truth, I did not see the whale itself, but the fountain that it releases.

I look: suddenly a fountain of water! What is it, I think? And then I realized - a whale. He has a hole on his head, a blowhole, through which he breathes and at the same time blows fountains of water. Do you think it's fun? No. In nature, everything is thought out. The whale draws a mouthful of water, passes it through the whalebone, and then releases it with an exhalation.

So I said whalebone, and you probably thought: such a whale swims in the sea, and his mustache hangs from under his nose. We thought, we thought. I thought so myself, until I found out that the whale has no whiskers. Yes, he has no nose. And in the whale's mouth there is a thick lattice of thin horn plates. They are called: whalebone.

The whale passes water through these plates, it comes out like a fountain through the blowhole, and all kinds of crustaceans remain in the mouth. The whale eats crustaceans. Such a big whale - such small crustaceans. How many crustaceans do you need to strain to get enough? Horror…

In general, I have seen whales before - beluga whales. Beluga whales - because they are silver-white in color.

In summer, shoals of White Sea herring enter our Kandalaksha Bay of the White Sea. And behind it are seals and beluga whales.

At this time, whales, seals, cod, catfish, lazy inhabitants of our region feast on delicious white sea. What about lazy people? Lick them!

warm current

Before reaching the ice fields of the Arctic Ocean, you must first cross the Barents Sea, which does not freeze even in the harshest winter.

Such a northern Arctic sea does not freeze! Do you know why? Yes, because it is warmed by the warm current of the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is like a river, only the river is huge, enormous. Its width from the Kola Peninsula to Franz Josef Land is a thousand kilometers. And the depth or thickness of the current - be healthy! It flows not on the surface of the Barents Sea, but at depth.

The Gulf Stream comes to the Barents Sea from the west, from the warm Atlantic Ocean. He goes, slowly, along the Scandinavian Peninsula, along the Kola Peninsula, to Kara Sea and there it dissipates, cools down.

In fact, the Gulf Stream is happiness for the Scandinavian countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland. And for our Kola Peninsula too. Happiness is because the Gulf Stream warms not only the water of the Barents Sea, but also the air above it and over the Kola Peninsula. And therefore we have Murmansk region not as cold as in Greenland or Chukotka.

And the Murmansk port in the Kola Bay of the Barents Sea does not freeze all year round. All year round can send and receive ships.

And for any northern country, an ice-free port is a great happiness!

So I keep saying: warm current, warm current ... Do you think it is so warm that you can luxuriate in it, like in a bath?

Aha! Try to dive into it - pop out with a cork! The water is ice cold! And the seals - there are a lot of them here - will giggle and point at you with flippers.

So it's not that warm and it's a warm current. But still, its warmth is enough to keep it from freezing. Barents Sea.

Iceberg

Here's another one passing by! Huge, with uneven blue walls sparkling in the sun.

In this place - between the islands of Franz Josef Land - there are a lot of icebergs. Some islands are completely covered with ice - glaciers.

For hundreds, thousands of years, the snow kept falling, falling, covering the islands, compressing into ice. This ice blanket sometimes forty-fifty meters thick, under its weight slowly, maybe a centimeter a year, slides down to the sea.

The water washes the glacier, washes away, and now a hefty piece falls off from it, but what a piece - lumps the size of a multi-storey building! This block starts to float freely in the Barents Sea and moves west to Atlantic Ocean. And this is already an iceberg.

Once the ice breaks away from the glacier, it becomes an iceberg. And the moment of the birth of an iceberg is called the calving of the glacier. The cow also calved! She gives birth to a calf, and near the glacier, as it were, a calf. But a meeting with such a calf for the ship - oh, how dangerous!

I really like icebergs! Especially this one passing by.

Captain's word

You, of course, guess that the most important person on the ship is the captain. He controls everything and everyone and is responsible for everything and everyone.

The captain's orders are carried out implicitly, that is, without objection. Otherwise, what would happen?

For example, the captain gives the command:

“Slow down to six knots!”

And the navigator to him:

- Yes, here it is possible faster, the ice conditions allow.

And the helper too:

- Why slow down, ahead of the channel of open water.

And the helmsman himself:

- Let's slow down, slow down, I'm a little tired!

The market will work. And it will not be an icebreaker, but a vessel. Not a crew, but just a group of people. Because the word of the captain is the law!

So I said: the word of the captain is the law, and you probably thought that the captain is such a stern, impregnable person, it’s scary to even approach him. No…

The captain and I talked and joked and even argued.

I counted the islands on the Franz Josef Land on the map and I say that there are 34 of them in this archipelago.

And the captain:

- More!

I went and counted again, it came out the same - 34.

And the captain again:

And then I looked into the manual. It turns out, yes, more. Franz Josef Land includes 192 islands. But this is, counting the small islands, which are not even put on the map. We went through that.

So, it really comes out: the captain knows what he is talking about. Because his word is true.

Archipelago

This is the name of a group of islands, for example, Franz Josef Land. There are 192 large and very small islands. Here's where you can go for a walk! Yes, you can’t walk very much, because some islands are covered with glaciers, others - with wild flat rocks - the Arctic is the same.

Once upon a time, Austrian sailors stumbled upon part of the islands and named them after their emperor Franz Joseph. The Austrians loved him very much.

Then the Americans, the British, the Danes discovered other islands. Have you heard of Nansen? So he was Norwegian. On one of the islands, he even wintered for more than six months.

Everyone who found new islands called them by their proper names, and the islands were added to Franz Josef Land.

And Russian St. John's wort has long sailed to these islands and did not even think of giving them names. It was only in 1912 that Russia announced that it wanted to own these islands, Franz Josef Land, and in 1929 our former state, Soviet Russia, confirmed this desire.

And so it happened that the archipelago is called a foreign name, almost all the islands have foreign names, and Russia owns them!

Therefore, now we are on a nuclear icebreaker and we are riding between these islands, and admiring them!

Here is an excerpt from the book.
Only part of the text is open for free reading (restriction of the copyright holder). If you liked the book, the full text can be obtained from our partner's website.

pages: 1 2 3 4

Oleg Semenovich Bundur

Towards polar bear

Towards a polar bear
Oleg Semenovich Bundur

We live in Russia
The author of the book, Oleg Bundur, traveled across the Arctic Ocean on the icebreaker 50 Let Pobedy to the Pole itself and back. In a simple and understandable language, he talks about polar bears, seals and northern birds, about parallels and meridians, about the order on the ship, and even explains the design of an atomic engine. This book is for everyone who loves geography, is interested in travel and wants to see with their own eyes the most extraordinary places on our planet.

Publisher's design saved in A4 pdf format.

Oleg Bundur

Towards a polar bear

order

I'm going to the North Pole. On the nuclear icebreaker "50 Years of Victory". Are you jealous? Yes, I envy myself and still do not believe ...

So, I was going to the Arctic, I thought there would be a farewell ...

Then, in the Barents Sea, I was standing on the upper deck of an icebreaker and suddenly saw a seagull. She flew very close. There was no one on deck, and I shouted loudly:

- Hello from our White Sea gull!

And this other seagull understood me! It flew side by side for a long time, parallel to our course, then flapped its wings and turned sharply to the side.

If only there were no acquaintances at that time. And then God knows what they will think when they see me talking to a bird.

Sole

I thought that I knew Russian well. There were no troubles with him at school, and my library is full of different dictionaries, and I often use them ...

I was escorted to the room where I will live by the captain's senior assistant Sergey. It was hot and I asked him:

How does the window open in the room?

“The porthole opens in your cabin the same way it opens in the others. And he showed me how.

I felt uncomfortable.

“You have to be careful,” I thought.

Having laid out things in the cabinets, he climbed the steep stairs to the bridge and asked the captain:

- Is the staircase steep - to save space?

The captain looked at me carefully.

- It's you in your dacha climbing up the stairs to the attic. Here is the ladder. Motai on the mustache.

Yeah, obviously, I got it.

We have already reached the open sea, the wave was small, but the floor trembles under our feet. I'm back to the captain:

Does the floor tremble underfoot from the operation of the motors or from the wave?

- Not the floor, but the deck, shaking from the work of the machines. Usyok?

Usyok. Again, that means you got it wrong. Oh how embarrassing...

He approached the navigator. Well, I think it's all right here.

- How fast are we sailing? How many kilometers per hour?

“We're moving at eighteen knots. A knot is equal to one mile.

Well, even though we are going to the sea, and the water is all around, and I sat in a puddle.

I look, the helmsman is sitting in a high chair. He holds the steering wheel with one hand, and the binoculars with the other.

Is it hard to turn the steering wheel?

- The steering wheel turns easily. You can with one finger.

All right, I'm out of here. What a shame! We need to find out where the catering department is and what the name of the cook is.

- The galley is on the first deck, and the cook's name is Nikolai.

Terrible! Whatever the question, then by. I should ask the captain, maybe there is a marine dictionary. But he did not ask, suddenly something was wrong again.

Then I found out that almost all maritime terms came from the Dutch language, from Dutch sailors. So I know Russian!

What is the name of a person who rides a bus without a ticket? That's right, rabbit. So I'm a rabbit too. Because on this tourist flight on an icebreaker I am without a ticket, that is, without a tourist voucher. And since we are walking on the sea, then I am a sea hare.

Yes, but a sea hare is a seal. So I'm a seal? No, I don't want to be a seal.

And then, I'm here on a creative business trip. And everyone knows about it.

Against the polar bear. Book cover.

Towards the Polar Bear is a book by Oleg Bundur, a finalist of the New Children's Book literary competition, from the series We Live in Russia (Rosmen).

How many of us have been to the North Pole, seen polar bears walking on huge ice floes? And who rode a real nuclear icebreaker? But the author of the book "Meet the White Bear", Oleg Bundur, succeeded. On the icebreaker "50 Years of Victory" he traveled across the Arctic Ocean to the Pole itself and back, and not only looked at everything, but also wrote a book to tell the children about all the amazing things he saw. The author went around the Kola Peninsula on a ship and was three times on an uninhabited island in the White Sea.

This book is a real journey for each of us. Learn about new places, visit the North Pole!

Against the polar bear. “We live in Russia”, Rosman. Moscow, 2016.

In simple and understandable language, the author explains about polar bears, seals and northern birds, about parallels and meridians, about the orders on the ship, and even explains the design of an atomic engine! Yes, it is so clear and interesting that both boys and girls read and listen!

This book will be a great gift for anyone who loves geography, is interested in travel and wants to see the most extraordinary places on our planet.

64 pages, hardcover, book size slightly smaller than A4 (196x255 mm), color illustrations.

An excellent book about Russia - about native expanses. Why do we need fantasy when we have such a country?.. It's great that such books are published. And there are such authors. Excellent language, beautiful and simple style, kind and subtle humor, a lot of information, an informative book that is so interesting to read!

The book consists of many stories-sketches that make up a single single narrative.

Beginning of history.

Children's writer Oleg Bundur - winner of the New Children's Book competition, laureate of the Literary Prize. S. Marshak, winner of the Yellow Caterpillar literary competition, travels a lot and likes to come to places where not every traveler dares to get.

Oleg Bundur bypassed the Kola Peninsula on a ship, sailed along the Northern Sea Route on two nuclear and diesel icebreakers, lived on three uninhabited islands in the White Sea. On the icebreaker 50 Let Pobedy, he traveled across the Arctic Ocean to the North Pole itself and back, taking notes along the way. From these notes, the wonderful book “Towards the Polar Bear” turned out.

With the support of the Amur Tiger Center and the Russian Geographical Society.

See photo for example pages.

Excerpts from the book:

order

I'm going to the North Pole. On the nuclear icebreaker "50 Years of Victory". Are you jealous? Yes, I envy myself and still do not believe ...

So, I was going to the Arctic, I thought there would be a farewell ...

There are spreads without illustrations.

I came with a heavy suitcase to the platform behind the house, I stand, waiting for the bus. Acquaintances - nobody. It is understandable: five in the morning, acquaintances are sleeping. And strangers are also sleeping ... I look, a seagull, it has sank so close. He sits on the pavement and looks at me. Well, it’s not just that she sat down nearby and looks, she says hello to the Arctic gulls! Apparently, with my bird instinct, I realized that I was going to the Arctic. She's probably from there. Or maybe her mother or grandmother?

Book page examples.

Then, in the Barents Sea, I was standing on the upper deck of an icebreaker and suddenly saw a seagull. She flew very close. There was no one on deck, and I shouted loudly:

Hello from our White Sea gull!

And this other seagull understood me! It flew side by side for a long time, parallel to our course, then flapped its wings and turned sharply to the side.

If only there were no acquaintances at that time. And then God knows what they will think when they see me talking to a bird.

Infinity

The sea draws me - I don't know why. Probably its infinity.

In the city we walk, staring at our feet, we do not notice how the buds swell, then the greenery curls, then the leaves turn yellow.

How to become a captain

It’s good on the bridge - you can see far away, not like from my cabin. Although the cabin is on the fourth deck, but the bridge is higher, the view from the cabin porthole is only one way, and here is the view - look wherever you want!

So I look and imagine myself as a captain. I’m standing like this, in a white shirt with naval epaulettes, I have a beard, well, it’s definitely our captain!

Current page: 1 (total book has 4 pages) [accessible reading excerpt: 1 pages]

Oleg Bundur
Towards a polar bear

* * *

order

I'm going to the North Pole. On the nuclear icebreaker "50 Years of Victory". Are you jealous? Yes, I envy myself and still do not believe ...

So, I was going to the Arctic, I thought there would be a farewell ...

Then, in the Barents Sea, I was standing on the upper deck of an icebreaker and suddenly saw a seagull. She flew very close. There was no one on deck, and I shouted loudly:

- Hello from our White Sea gull!

And this other seagull understood me! It flew side by side for a long time, parallel to our course, then flapped its wings and turned sharply to the side.

If only there were no acquaintances at that time. And then God knows what they will think when they see me talking to a bird.

Sole

I thought that I knew Russian well. There were no troubles with him at school, and my library is full of different dictionaries, and I often use them ...

I was escorted to the room where I will live by the captain's senior assistant Sergey. It was hot and I asked him:

- How about in window room opens?

- In your cabin porthole opens in the same way as in others. And he showed me how.

I felt uncomfortable.

“You have to be careful,” I thought.

Having laid out things in the cabinets, he climbed the steep stairs to the bridge and asked the captain:

- A ladder cool - to save space?

The captain looked at me carefully.

- It's you in your dacha climbing up the stairs to the attic. Here ladder. Motai on the mustache.

Yeah, obviously, I got it.

We have already reached the open sea, the wave was small, but the floor trembles under our feet. I'm back to the captain:

– Floor shaking underfoot from work motors Or from a wave?

- Not gender, but deck trembling from work machines. Usyok?

Usyok. Again, that means you got it wrong. Oh how embarrassing...

He approached the navigator. Well, I think it's all right here.

- At what speed sailing? How many kilometers at one o'clock?

- We let's go at eighteen nodes. A knot is equal to one mile.

Well, even though we are going to the sea, and the water is all around, and I sat in a puddle.

I look, the helmsman is sitting in a high chair. He holds the steering wheel with one hand, and the binoculars with the other.

- It's hard steering wheel turn?

– Steering wheel turns easily. You can with one finger.

All right, I'm out of here. What a shame! Gotta find out where catering department And How cooks name.

– Galley on the first deck and coca name is Nicholas.

Terrible! Whatever the question, then by. I should ask the captain, maybe there is a marine dictionary. But he did not ask, suddenly something was wrong again.

Then I found out that almost all maritime terms came from the Dutch language, from Dutch sailors. So I know Russian!

Not a hare

Yes, but a sea hare is a seal. So I'm a seal? No, I don't want to be a seal.

And then, I'm here on a creative business trip. And everyone knows about it.

In general, I'm not a hare. By the way, there will be no hare and sausage with mustard, as I am now!

Infinity

The sea draws me - I don't know why. Probably its infinity.

In the city we walk, staring at our feet, we do not notice how the buds swell, then the greenery curls, then the leaves turn yellow.

From the windows of my apartment on the fourth floor you can see higher than the houses, but there you again come across the hills. From all sides of the hill.

And the soul here, together with the seagull, flies - either above the very waves, or, soaring higher than the foremast, soaring on motionless wings, catching a stream of air.

And there is no end to either the sea, or the sky, or my thoughts. Fly, seagull, fly!

Heart and brain

Before you do something, you think, don't you? Think with your head. And your head is on your shoulders, well, on your neck. In short, above.

Do you like grenades? Imagine that a pomegranate is an atom. If you start splitting it into grains, what happens? Delicious! You ate this deliciousness, reinforced your strength and ran for a walk.

From summer to winter and back

When you lie on the hot sand by the South Sea in 30-degree heat, you want to be cool.

So, more than once, suffering from the heat, I asked:

- Oh, at least a little snow sprinkled. Oh, I can't take it anymore...

When we return home, I will first take off my jacket, then the pullover, I will go down to the pier in a shirt with short sleeves ...

And now I know for sure: if I get hot again, I will never want to be sprinkled with snow. Winter will come by itself. And summer flies by quickly, especially here, in the Far North.

Mathematics

Tell me, how can you measure distance? You answer: kilometers. Someone will remember: miles. That's right, well done!

Like this? Let's figure it out. Draw a circle, it will be like a globe. Above is the North Pole and below is the South Pole.

You see, there are four right angles on your circle. Take, for example, the upper right corner, one side of it goes to the North Pole, and the other goes along the equator.

And one degree is equal to 5400 ÷ 90 = 60 miles.

But we use kilometers! While the cunning Englishman will cover one mile in a rowboat, we will travel one kilometer eight hundred and fifty-two meters, or 1852 m, in our boat in the same time.

I counted in a column, I got 2222 kilometers. But you might be more accurate...

See, it's simple.

And now, if you suddenly get sick and the temperature rises to 38.6, do not go to school, but call your teacher and say:

- Marivanna, my temperature jumped two hundred and twenty-two kilometers!

The teacher, of course, will believe that you are ill. A healthy student would say: two degrees!

school hobby

In general, since childhood, I have been in awe of geographical maps. At home, I had a large map of the world hanging above my desk. I get tired of learning lessons, I start traveling. Where I just have not been! I still remember the seas and oceans, states and capitals.

Here, on the icebreaker, I asked the navigator questions, delved into his navigator's charts and even told him about the drift of Nansen's Fram ship. The navigator looked at me respectfully.

So in vain my mother told me several times during the evening while I was preparing my lessons:

“Look at the textbook, not at the map!”

If I had not looked at the map, I would not be standing on the bridge of an icebreaker going to the North Pole now!

Scientist

Yep, that's me! And that's why.

When I was going to the North Pole, the scientists asked me to write down the coordinates of the places where I would notice sea birds and animals along the way.

Such an assignment flattered me very much: I, too, seemed to become a scientist, at least for a while, but a scientist!

It was easy with the coordinates: there is a navigator on the bridge, and it determines the latitude and longitude from the satellites.

The information that scientists asked for was needed to find out how migration, that is, the movement of sea animals and birds, is changing as the Arctic is explored.

Coordinates

Through each degree there is a circle parallel to the equator. They are called parallels. The longest is at the equator, the shortest turn into points at the poles.

The distance around the earth through both poles is 360 degrees. How much is it in miles and kilometers, you can now calculate for yourself.

And around the Earth at the equator the same distance is rounded forty thousand kilometers, or the same 360 degrees.

In latitude, the reading comes from the zero degree, or from the zero parallel at the equator.

And you can easily find this place on the map!

I saw a whale

I just saw him in the Barents Sea. To tell the truth, I did not see the whale itself, but the fountain that it releases.

In general, I have seen whales before - beluga whales. Beluga whales - because they are silver-white in color.

In summer, shoals of White Sea herring enter our Kandalaksha Bay of the White Sea. And behind it are seals and beluga whales.

At this time, whales, seals, cod, catfish, lazy inhabitants of our region feast on delicious white sea. What about lazy people? Lick them!

warm current

Before reaching the ice fields of the Arctic Ocean, you must first cross the Barents Sea, which does not freeze even in the harshest winter.

The Gulf Stream comes to the Barents Sea from the west, from the warm Atlantic Ocean. He goes, slowly, along the Scandinavian Peninsula, along the Kola Peninsula, to the Kara Sea, and there it disperses, cools down.

In fact, the Gulf Stream is happiness for the Scandinavian countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland. And for our Kola Peninsula too. Happiness is because the Gulf Stream warms not only the water of the Barents Sea, but also the air above it and over the Kola Peninsula. And therefore, in our Murmansk region it is not as cold as in Greenland or Chukotka.

And the Murmansk port in the Kola Bay of the Barents Sea does not freeze all year round. All year round can send and receive ships.

And for any northern country, an ice-free port is a great happiness!

So I keep saying: warm current, warm current ... Do you think it is so warm that you can luxuriate in it, like in a bath?

Aha! Try to dive into it - pop out with a cork! The water is ice cold! And the seals - there are a lot of them here - will giggle and point at you with flippers.

So it's not that warm and it's a warm current. But still, its heat is enough to keep the Barents Sea from freezing.

Iceberg

Here's another one passing by! Huge, with uneven blue walls sparkling in the sun.

In this place - between the islands of Franz Josef Land - there are a lot of icebergs. Some islands are completely covered with ice - glaciers.

I really like icebergs! Especially this one passing by.

Captain's word

You, of course, guess that the most important person on the ship is the captain. He controls everything and everyone and is responsible for everything and everyone.

The captain's orders are carried out implicitly, that is, without objection. Otherwise, what would happen?

For example, the captain gives the command:

“Slow down to six knots!”

And the navigator to him:

- Yes, here it is possible faster, the ice conditions allow.

And the helper too:

- Why slow down, ahead of the channel of open water.

And the helmsman himself:

- Let's slow down, slow down, I'm a little tired!

The market will work. And it will not be an icebreaker, but a vessel. Not a crew, but just a group of people. Because the word of the captain is the law!

So I said: the word of the captain is the law, and you probably thought that the captain is such a stern, impregnable person, it’s scary to even approach him. No…

The captain and I talked and joked and even argued.

I counted the islands on the Franz Josef Land on the map and I say that there are 34 of them in this archipelago.

And the captain:

- More!

I went and counted again, it came out the same - 34.

And the captain again:

And then I looked into the manual. It turns out, yes, more. Franz Josef Land includes 192 islands. But this is, counting the small islands, which are not even put on the map. We went through that.

So, it really comes out: the captain knows what he is talking about. Because his word is true.

Archipelago

Once upon a time, Austrian sailors stumbled upon part of the islands and named them after their emperor Franz Joseph. The Austrians loved him very much.

Then the Americans, the British, the Danes discovered other islands. Have you heard of Nansen? So he was Norwegian. On one of the islands, he even wintered for more than six months.

Everyone who found new islands called them by their proper names, and the islands were added to Franz Josef Land.

And so it happened that the archipelago is called a foreign name, almost all the islands have foreign names, and Russia owns them!

Therefore, now we are on a nuclear icebreaker and we are riding between these islands, and admiring them!

Attention! This is an introductory section of the book.

If you liked the beginning of the book, then full version can be purchased from our partner - a distributor of legal content LLC "LitRes".