Traveler Notes 1 Trip To The Steppe

Once we drove to the field in the zero to prepare a landscape profile in the mountains, the car we rented from geologists, UAZ 3909. The all-terrain vehicle was new, so the trip went without problems. And it was in it that our scientific consultant Daraka remembered one story when he went to the desert field practice in the sixties of the last century. Together with a famous professor from our university, a geomorphologist.

Then students in the days of socialism studied as scientists, and not as we as teachers and engineers. And therefore, substantial money was allocated to them for field practices, they could afford to go for two months, live in tents, eat, engage in field work, and collect materials. Yes, and they had at their disposal two or three trucks, fuel and lubricants, and even the ability to conduct aerial photography! And this is the sixties !!!

One would think that in the nineties or zero, we geographers should, by the logic of things, have even more advanced technologies and research capabilities. But that was not so! In the nineties there was a crisis and only enthusiasm, our schiff allowed us, students, to see what field work, field research is. The faculty did not have a laboratory of physical geography, but still some truncated studies were carried out. The theory was worked out in practice. However, funding was no longer what it was in the sixties. Therefore, our field trips were reduced to three to four weeks, and later even less.

Of course, we could not afford, in the nineties, as students in India, to ride in the field with modern instruments at that time, spectrometers, laser rangefinders, electronic theodolites, global satellite navigation systems, and most importantly with fresh multiseasonal satellite images of the territory under study. In order to practice the theory, draw up interpretation keys for decryption on the ground (the so-called method "With a teacher"). Of course, we had none of this then. Like mobile handhelds, handheld computers with digital maps of the area of ​​the studied area.

While in India on an interns.h.i.+p, he was pleasantly surprised by the equipment of the research inst.i.tute, they had their own fleet of jeeps, buses, trucks - twenty cars, their Sesny with the ability to take aerial photographs of about three aircraft, several drones with cameras. Not to mention a solid park - workstations, one supercomputer, and other computer cla.s.ses, plotters, printers, scanners and other cartographic equipment. Including about a dozen well-known digital mapping software products. An extensive electronic database of satellite images for different seasons and years.

Of course, again, we had none of this. Well, okay, we are slowly approaching the essence of history.

We had to conduct a survey of the historical area, to identify the old ruins. There was no all-terrain vehicle, but there was funding under the grant. Rented a car from geologists. And they had her old, 1974 release. All is already ancient, crumbling right before our eyes.

And so we left the city, three specialists and a driver. UAZ-469. We drove ten hours at a speed of 35-40 kilometers per hour, which was strange to the destination. The car stalled every thirty to forty kilometers. It sometimes had to start with a pen. Sometimes he pushed the tractor.

We arrived, began to collect samples, walked in the mountains for 10 kilometers, but when we first went to the foothill plain and then to the sands, the machine began to stall more and more often.

During the shaking over the b.u.mps in the steppe, where there were dirt roads, the frames on which the UAZ gla.s.s was attached, they broke off the bolts and they fell inside the car. In total, three of them fell, one frame remained on the left, rear side. At the second jump, the leader of the expedition jumped up so that his head broke through the shabby tarpaulin of the roof. In addition, the entire interior was in the dust.

Until once stuck in the sand and a long time to start. Water in one bottle of 5 liters quickly ended, the sun was baking with might and main, and the car did not start in any way!

Ten hours pa.s.sed, the shepherds returned to the farm, they had a tractor, he pushed us, the car started up with difficulty and we started at a speed of 35 kilometers per hour, we got three hours to our base.

In the mountains, the light turns off at nine o'clock. The sky is full of huge stars. Good!

We had only a week for all sampling. But somehow we managed to cope with it. Upon departure back to the city, at 156 kilometer, our UAZ finally became a pillar and more and more it did not move from its place!

We called auto mechanics from the village, which was three kilometers from a busy highway and tried to push with a tractor, but all attempts were in vain.
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It was getting dark. Attempts to stop the pa.s.sing car and tow to the city were unsuccessful. At night, the drivers of pa.s.sing cars were apparently afraid to stop ... Cellular communication in this area for some reason did not work.

Before sunset, hungry mosquitoes attacked us. Their bites were very painful and after them remained large boils, which pa.s.sed only after three months.

As the sun went away, cold fell from the steppe. The driver tried in vain to fall asleep behind a steering wheel; he had no windows. Two older researchers, having pulled out sleeping bags, fell asleep in the car. Well, I wandered around until the morning. At only six, a commercial point of contact opened. I was able to call our laboratory, call a tow truck. A few hours later he arrived. And we went to the city by bus ... and the tow truck brought this mountain to the car only in the evening.