
On December 25th Kostya and Alexander went to the railway station to pick up Alexandra, Albina and children who came back home for winter vacation - Yana, Olya, Edeyko and Hasavako.
Next day, on December 26th, Kostya with Alexander on a snowmobile with sledge went to Yar-Sale (about 250 kms from our camp place). They had to bring back some gazoline (one is not allowed to transport gazoline by train) and various gifts and orders for the New year's eve. They travelled for 2 days - because of snowstorm they had spent a night in the Yapticks' chum near the 13th passing place, 90 kms from our chum. Radik, Sveta and Myangcha left for Yar-Sale on December 18th - in their chum there were only dogs left, and we had to look after them.
These days our chum's inhabitants spent doing usual tasks: cut firewood, collected ice in the lake, sorted stuff in the nartas. Albina went to check the herd. In the evenings children and Alexandra decorated the chum: cut snowflakes out of paper, made garlands of colored paper, prepared wishing cards and made pictures.
Kostya and Alexander's road wasn't that easy at all. You might think, it is a lot of snow here in tundra - it's North after all. But it's wrong. The tundra is a huge open space without any trees, so snow don't stay on the ground for long. So now snowstorm ("had"), that lasted for several days, moved all snow south of Yuribey. Tundra looked as in September - broun frozen ground, slightly covered with snow. It's hard and even dangerous to ride snowmobile on this surface, especially hard is's for passengers, who feel all ups and downs.
The men finished all their tasks in Yar-Sale in one day as planned. On December 29th they started back, and the way was much easier - with a couple of stops in other chums for cup of tea - and in the evening Kostya and Alexander have arrived in our chum.
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