Мурманская миля. 2016, № 3.

62 ONBOARD THE RESEARCH VESSEL THE CLIFFY COAST, WE MEET AGAIN! The NALIVKIN was led back within the ice convoy to the Kara Sea by the nuclear-power vessel 50 LET POBEDY. During the last three weeks the ice in the straits along the Taymyr Peninsula had increased and the convoying took three days. I should mention that the convoying to the Laptev Sea with an ice­ breaker had taken us only 24 hours. The fuel left hardly allowed us to reach the Kola Peninsula. It too k five days and five nights fo r the NALIVKIN to get home through the Kara and the Barents Seas in constant storms. A fter a sho rt call to MAGE base in Kirkenes we started the final transfe r around the Rybachy Peninsula towards Kola Bay. It was sunny and fro s ty in Murmansk. As soon as I set my fee t on the berth of MAGE base in M inkino se ttlem en t which was right opposite to the Rosta D istrict, I started to realize tha t our voyage had finished. The reader has the right to ask what the author of these notes was doing in April 1977. I put this question to everyone onboard the NALIVKIN. I was a student of the phylology department of the Murmansk Pedagogical Institute. And I still remember that year because of a small occasion that had happened the day before my son was born. In August 1977 my wife, a student of the Murmansk Musical College, and I had to return from Kursk to Murmansk by plane with a transfe r in Moscow. My w ife was 7 months pregnant then. She was a bit nervous. The check-in had already been announced. I checked my pockets - there were no tickets! I had lost them somewhere or may be I had been robbed. The RV N IKOLAY TRUBYATCHINSKY in K irk e n e s on 6 th N o v em b e r 2 0 1 4 . НИС «Н и колай Т р у б я т ч и н с к и й » в К и р к е н е с е , 6 н о я б р я 2 0 1 4 г. The gate agent told us to wait till the end of check-in. There were only two seats left - ours. She told us to hurry to the booking office and promised to check us in. It was almost impossible to get tickets to Murmansk in late August in Soviet Russia. All people were getting back from vacation. The ticket from Moscow cost 33 rubles. I dipped out all coins - I was 24 roubles down. My wife burst into tears. I appealed to the passengers in the assembly point, - Homies, please, help! I’ll pay back as soon as we return! A man with a beard passed to me a 25 rouble note saying - Don’t panic, fellow! After we finally checked in, we had to run across the airfield to our plane TU-154 with our luggage. Three men from Murmansk d idn ’t let the swearing airstairs driver leave. We hardly managed to get onboard. I caught a taxi in the airport of Murmashy. My wife and I along with the man with the beard got inside. We got acquainted during our trip: “We are students!” “And I’m a seaman,” he said in reply. All the way I thought if my mom had the entire sum of 25 roubles and ten roubles more fo r the taxi. I’ll borrow the money from my neighbors at last. I left my wife in the taxi and hurried home fo r money. When I came back with money there was no taxi and my wife was standing on the pavement with our luggage. “He asked to send his best to the ‘student’,” she said. I had never met that man with a beard ever since. I didn ’t even know what fleet he worked in - the fishing, the navy or may be the shipping agency. 37 years have passed since th a t day. The Soviet sa te llite KOSMOS - 904 tha t had sta rted from space port Plesetsk, bu rn t down in August 2014 above my head, above the NALIVKIN, above the Kara Sea. Today I want to believe for some reason that man was a marine geophysicist. MURMANSK MILE • 3-2016