I didn’t even notice how it happened: my first two notes are both dedicated to flowers. Therefore, this time I want to talk about something completely different. What about the largest city above the Arctic circle and the Arctic Ocean? Sounds mysterious and cold, right?
Let me give you an understanding of how cold it was. I visited Murmansk, a Russian city that is only 108 kilometres from Norway and 182 kilometres from Finland, in January. And it was minus 38 degrees Celsius there. So far this is the lowest temperature I’ve experienced in my life. How did it feel? Well, imagine you come home from a walk, you take off a fur coat and several wool sweaters, you step into a shower and open the hot water tap only. And for 5-7 minutes you don’t even consider opening cold water. That’s how it felt.
During this trip there were two occasions where I thought I would lose my nose. First was the night when we were hunting for Aurora Borealis. We spent so much time outside in the night that I couldn’t feel my nose. And the second time was when we were riding snowmobiles and then after we arrived at the destination, all the instructors were terrified because my nose had white spots on it and they thought I had it frostbitten. They made my rub my nose hard till the spots disappeared. I was never so close to lose my nose and I hope I will never be again.
But what I hope to experience once again in my life is witnessing Aurora Borealis. It was indeed a majestic and once in a life-time experience. Though I can’t help mentioning that it was also quite different from the photoshopped pictures you can see across the Internet. But the excitement from this adventure and a possibility to observe raw nature were a generous compensation for the dim Northern Lights.
This part of the world really makes you feel the real power of nature, especially in winter, I guess. Just a couple of days before my trip the mighty waves of the Arctic Ocean washed ashore an old, wrecked ship. The scene was striking, impressive and also scary.
I’ve spent only about 5 days in the Murmansk region but every day I was saying to myself and my friend “this is the first time I see this, that is the first time I do this” and it was in fact one of the most exciting adventures in my life!
Images are by Helen Mak
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