Hot Siberian Read Online Free
Author: Gerald A Browne
muscles lost their elasticity, nostrils clogged with ice.
For eleven years, from 1955 to 1966, the Soviets hacked at the frozen ground, grubbed for their diamonds. Many who worked the open-cut mines died from hypothermia. Pneumonia was almost as common as head colds. Frostbite caused casualty after casualty. There were summer instances when men or women or couples strayed too far from camp. Seduced by the sun to remove their clothes, they were literally driven mad by mosquitoes.
Those who fared best in the frigid climate were the Chukchis. Genetically connected to the Alaskan Inuit and in appearance greatly resembling them, the Chukchis came from the easternmost, northernmost corner of the Soviet Union: the Bering Sea coast and Pegiyemel. They were the last natives of Siberia to submit to Russian rule. Fierce fighters, they held off the Russian army for over a century. While other workers at the mines wore fur-lined hats and gloves, the Chukchis went about with their heads and hands bare. It wasnât that their skins were thicker or possessed an extra, anomalous thermal layer. They just thought of the cold differently. It was to them an old familiar enemy they would never totally give in to. The Russians enlisted as many Chukchis as they could to work the diamond mines, and paid them well. The difficulty was keeping them on the job. As soon as a Chukchi had earned enough to buy the number of reindeer or harpoon points he had in mind, heâd head for home, just walk off across the frozen waste as though he had no doubt of getting there.
Despite the many obstacles, the Soviets managed to dig up more than enough diamonds to meet their industrial and technological needs. In 1965, for example, Soviet production was a million carats. But it was, unquestionably, the hard way to go, and there were those high in the government who thought it a shame that fine, gem-quality diamonds were being used on the studded ends of oil-drilling bits.
It was proposed that an expenditure be made in rubles and manpower to improve the mining methods of the Siberian diamond fields. That the country should take full financial advantage of its diamond resources was the contention. The proposal caused some members of the Central Committee to set their jaws and shore up their minds. They were against having anything at all to do with diamonds. Staunch party hard-liners, they argued that diamonds by their very nature smacked of capitalism, that diamonds and exploitation of workers had always gone hand in hand. It would be hypocritical for Russia, in its role of model Marxist state, to be involved in such business. Instead, to meet its needs, could not Russia manufacture synthetic diamonds at a more reasonable cost?
The debate was bitter and drawn-out. The diehards were eventually thwarted. The Secretariat of the Central Committee approved. Next it was up to Soviet engineers.
What the engineers came up with was a solution that could not have been more simple nor more audacious. Inasmuch as the outside cold was such a physical drawback, then mine the diamonds from the inside. Enclose the mine and erect an installation directly above it, one that could house all the various phases of the diamond-mining process, from the excavation and crushing of the ore to the extracting and separating of the precious stones. The installation would also provide housing for the workers and administrative personnel, complete facilities.
It was asked: What about the permafrozen ground? How would that be dealt with?
With the exhaust heat of jet engines. The temperature and texture of the ground could be brought to a point where it would be normally workable.
In the process of recovering diamonds was it not necessary to wash the crushed ore? Where would such a huge quantity of water, a veritable lake of it, be kept without it freezing?
To answer that problem a new recovery method had been developed, one that used X-rays. As the mixture of crushed ore and diamonds
For eleven years, from 1955 to 1966, the Soviets hacked at the frozen ground, grubbed for their diamonds. Many who worked the open-cut mines died from hypothermia. Pneumonia was almost as common as head colds. Frostbite caused casualty after casualty. There were summer instances when men or women or couples strayed too far from camp. Seduced by the sun to remove their clothes, they were literally driven mad by mosquitoes.
Those who fared best in the frigid climate were the Chukchis. Genetically connected to the Alaskan Inuit and in appearance greatly resembling them, the Chukchis came from the easternmost, northernmost corner of the Soviet Union: the Bering Sea coast and Pegiyemel. They were the last natives of Siberia to submit to Russian rule. Fierce fighters, they held off the Russian army for over a century. While other workers at the mines wore fur-lined hats and gloves, the Chukchis went about with their heads and hands bare. It wasnât that their skins were thicker or possessed an extra, anomalous thermal layer. They just thought of the cold differently. It was to them an old familiar enemy they would never totally give in to. The Russians enlisted as many Chukchis as they could to work the diamond mines, and paid them well. The difficulty was keeping them on the job. As soon as a Chukchi had earned enough to buy the number of reindeer or harpoon points he had in mind, heâd head for home, just walk off across the frozen waste as though he had no doubt of getting there.
Despite the many obstacles, the Soviets managed to dig up more than enough diamonds to meet their industrial and technological needs. In 1965, for example, Soviet production was a million carats. But it was, unquestionably, the hard way to go, and there were those high in the government who thought it a shame that fine, gem-quality diamonds were being used on the studded ends of oil-drilling bits.
It was proposed that an expenditure be made in rubles and manpower to improve the mining methods of the Siberian diamond fields. That the country should take full financial advantage of its diamond resources was the contention. The proposal caused some members of the Central Committee to set their jaws and shore up their minds. They were against having anything at all to do with diamonds. Staunch party hard-liners, they argued that diamonds by their very nature smacked of capitalism, that diamonds and exploitation of workers had always gone hand in hand. It would be hypocritical for Russia, in its role of model Marxist state, to be involved in such business. Instead, to meet its needs, could not Russia manufacture synthetic diamonds at a more reasonable cost?
The debate was bitter and drawn-out. The diehards were eventually thwarted. The Secretariat of the Central Committee approved. Next it was up to Soviet engineers.
What the engineers came up with was a solution that could not have been more simple nor more audacious. Inasmuch as the outside cold was such a physical drawback, then mine the diamonds from the inside. Enclose the mine and erect an installation directly above it, one that could house all the various phases of the diamond-mining process, from the excavation and crushing of the ore to the extracting and separating of the precious stones. The installation would also provide housing for the workers and administrative personnel, complete facilities.
It was asked: What about the permafrozen ground? How would that be dealt with?
With the exhaust heat of jet engines. The temperature and texture of the ground could be brought to a point where it would be normally workable.
In the process of recovering diamonds was it not necessary to wash the crushed ore? Where would such a huge quantity of water, a veritable lake of it, be kept without it freezing?
To answer that problem a new recovery method had been developed, one that used X-rays. As the mixture of crushed ore and diamonds
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