Мурманская миля. 2016, № 3.

ONBOARD THE RESEARCH VESSEL Vatalin is also responsible fo r inte rne t-connection . On the day of our departure from Kirkenes I noticed the young members of personnel appeared on the deck with their pocke t smartphones. During the calls inte rne t-connection is active via Wi-Fi of the port and the signal is weaker inside the vessel. The ship interne t- connection was active offshore and personnel members who wanted to communicate w ith the ir fam ilies constantly gathered around the W i­ Fi tran sm itte r in the dayroom. However the ship WSAT station allowed making telephone calls and the cost per minute was not higher than tha t of the in tracity communication. In case one is calling to the Murmansk landline phone the call cost is none. In October 2014 when the NALIVKIN was far in the East as an experiment I dialed the home number of my acquaintance in Murmansk. “Are you back already? Come over! I’ll step over to the store around here,” he merrily said in reply. “Oh, not yet. I’m still in the Laptev Sea, we are at the longitude of Lake Baikal.” My friend couldn’t believe his ears. The satellite communication link was so good that it seemed to him I was already in the city. The E-mail communication and phone conversations with shore were going non-stop. In early September everything was balled up because of the election campaign of 2014 (the Murmansk citizens elected the Governor and local councilors on 14th September 2014). The election offshore is conducted before time, one week earlier. All personnel members are included in the lists of voters. The election comm ittee onboard the NALIVKIN was headed by the Captain. Viktor Vitalin was appointed the Secretary. The announce board was covered all over with election information, candidate’s biographies and their party programs. The voting onboard the NALIVKIN was conducted in a work-day mode during the breaks between the duties. There was no canvassing but the full freedom of choice fo r everyone. By the evening on the 7th September the results after the ballot-boxes had been opened were transm itted to the shore. “ By the way, Viktor, what were you doing in April 1977? T he g u b e r n a to ria l v o tin g Го л о с о в а н и е на вы б о р а х гу б е р н а т о р а 50 Do you remember?” “ Probably I was working onboard the big fishing trawler ZAKAVKAZYE in the North Atlantic. What huge bass we swept between Iceland and Greenland! Some specimens reached 5 k ilo g ra m s .” Viktor Vatalin was born in a Cossack village in the Krasnodarsky Kray. And in 1970 Viktor being a school graduator was shown an issue of the newspaper POLYARNAYA PRAVDA with an announcement about acceptance fo r studies in the Marine College in Murmansk including the Radioelectronics Department. “ Free uniform and meals. Just imagine! My father died when I was a child, and mother had to work hard to bring up my brother and me,” Vatalin recollected the days of his childhood. “ Is it possible that there will be no old good radio officers onboard the ships?” “You don ’t bother about where the barge haulers are after a ll!” sadly remarked one of the last interpreters from Samuel Morse code in Murmansk. MURMANSK MILE • 3-2016