National Geographic, 12 - 2020, "Arctic Dreaming", pages 108 - 127.
"Wind blown snow swirls past abandoned buildings keeping cold vigil over the empty streets of Dikson.
Once the centerpiece of Soviet dreams to develop the Arctic, the port town was slowly deserted after
the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991." Town had population 5000 in 1980s prime; now abandoned
and interior of buildings looking like Chernobyl. Open books, children's toys, a derelict piano... Dikson
is almost directly below island of Novaya Zemlaya in Kara Sea. Article says Germans attempted to seize
it in WWII - maybe to interdict convoy traffic ?
Also, this photo: weather reporting radio station at Khodovarikha Meteorological Station, a one - person
station still taking measurements. "Outside the station I could hear ice shifting and grinding, and the wind
making the radio wires whistle. Inside it was quiet, with only Korotki's footsteps and a creaking door
marking the passage of time. Every three hours he'd leave, then return, muttering observations to himself...
which he would then report over a crackling old radio to a person he had never seen", in Archangelsk,
500 miles away. This station is on the Barents Sea, approximately across from the bottom of Novaya
Zemlaya island. I recognize the receiver as a "Volna" HF receiver, Russian navy. At one time, many years
back, seeing one in QST, I thought I wanted one. But they are big and very heavy, and not I'm not
interested in owning one now.
I think I would say "No thanks!" to any job offer there.
-Hue Miller