Word: arctic
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Forty Pitheads. Vorkuta is a complex of prison camps, situated in the bleak tundra territory of European Russia on the river Vorkuta above the Arctic Circle, about 1,400 miles northeast of Leningrad. A century ago Czar Nicholas I's advisers suggested to him that he make a colony for political prisoners at Vorkuta, but when he learned the conditions, Nicholas decided that it was "too much to demand of any man that he should live there." The Soviets let the native Komi remain there, virtually ignored until 1942, until the invading Nazis captured the Donbas coal mines. Then...
...brigadier's life is worth to try and get any work out of them. Fights are nearly always settled with knife and hatchet. Every year a large batch of more than a thousand blatnye is shipped off to the camps on the island of Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic Ocean. From these camps there is no return...
...does an Eskimo keep himself warm? Arctic Expert Vilhjalmur Stefansson, in Natural History, explains: he fits his jacket tight around his neck and wears nothing but pants underneath. Dressed in clothing that follows this plan, an Eskimo is comfortable at 40° below. A Minnesotan, who wears three times as much clothing, says Stefansson, is rarely happy outdoors at this temperature...
...that stiffens into ice. The Eskimo's body moisture is mostly carried away by the small amount of air seeping up around his face. Stefansson does not know how the Eskimos discovered the principle of warm-air capture, but he is sure they could not live in the Arctic without it. Their houses, whether of snow or earth, are built on the same principle. Their winter entrances slant upward, emerging through the floor. Air warmed by human bodies cannot escape, so it collects cozily under the thick, domed roof. Even when Arctic blizzards are blowing overhead, the body-heated...
...High-Speed High-Latitude Celestial-Navigation Trainer was specially designed by Link Aviation Inc. to simulate the flights of jet bombers over the arctic, where the magnetic compass is practically useless and the sun often out of sight...