#for my game art class. she goes with that last environment piece btw

[figofswords]

A member of Earth's severely diminished human population following the onset of the 6th Ice Age and the ensuing mass extraterrestrial migration, INGA is a girl from a small clan of nomadic reindeer herders. Left behind to tend to her ailing grandmother while her clan—including her younger brother Mikko—traveled north to the Summer Village, Inga soons finds herself alone when her grandmother does not survive the summer. When the onset of winter brings no sign of her clan's return, Inga sets out alone to find them.

something something character design

[epfloutthere]

Social life at the station

The interaction with the other researchers on the station is very open and marked by mutual interest in our respective research projects. As I wrote earlier, the start was a bit bumpy, because the station was filled up to the brim with busy researchers and the cafeteria was too small to fit us all. Consequently, we had to eat fast and without talking and it took a bit longer to get to know each other. But in the later stages of our stay everybody relaxed because there was plenty of space and time to interact.

For all three rounds of new arrivals, Banja night was the time to make friends with everybody else. Banja is the Russian equivalent of sauna. It plays an important role in Russian social life and even for business as we learned. Apparently, many deals and agreements are sealed in Banja. At Samoylov, Saturday evening is Banja time; men and women are split up into pre- and post-dinner groups. The girls have to go first such that the guys can drink vodka in the sauna after dinner. That’s fine with me, at least we get to watch the beautiful sunset, while shock-freezing our overheated bodies in the little lake just outside the banja.

Banja-to-lake is probably the biggest temperature gradient I have been exposed to so far. Heated up with great care by Sergei, the banja awaits us with temperatures well above 100 C, (the record being 110) and just before we reach the boiling point ourselves we throw our tortured bodies into the lake, which had cooled down to 2 C during the last week. After the courageous plunge from the little bridge, my brain seems to turn off for a little moment and then all I can think about, is the quickest way to pull myself back up out of the water. Only Flore who comes from a family of ice-water swimmers keeps her calm. As if she was visiting the local swimming pool, she slowly walks into the lake until she is fully immersed and then swims a peaceful lap around the bridge. All of us have been staring at her in disbelieve and nobody has dared to repeat this act of bravery.

But whichever way we choose to cool down, we all share the experience of perfect calm and peacefulness spreading through our bodies after each cycle of shock-treatment in this beautiful environment.

Btw, in Russian Banja one wears woolen hats to protect head and hair.

After the respective groups are done sweating, everybody gets together in the old station, a small and cozy-looking wooden house that accommodated the researchers before the new, modern station was stomped out of the ground in 2013. Banja night was also our introduction to the fine art of toasting, something we all very much appreciated and will try to bring home with us.

It goes like this:

First somebody, often the person about to toast, makes sure everybody has a full glass. To our great surprise and relieve, any liquid, such as tea or juice will do and we were never forced to drink alcohol.

The order of toasting often follows some kind of hierarchy and since I was supervisor and oldest member of the Swiss expedition I found myself surprising early in the game of stand-up speeches to praise the moment, the good company, or anything else worthy of our appreciation. Improvised public speaking does not come to me easily, but I still enjoy this new custom … especially once my turn is over. It brings everybody around the table together and teaches us appreciation of the common experience. At Samoylov, many toasts evolve around friendship, hope and nature; Downing the entire glass is absolutely not mandatory and in between toast you don’t usually drink, so if you want, a glass of vodka can last you an entire evening. Singing also seems to be an integral part of social events and our polish research team did an amazing job at this. When Greg pulls out the guitar to accompany Agata through sad and happy songs in various languages, all we had to do, was humming along and the arctic was ready to melt.

While most evenings were spent with group meetings, a some personal time and later on with the Aurora Borealis, we also had a few evenings together with everybody else at the station. Just before the end of summer, we had a great evening around a big fire on the beach and baked fresh bread on sticks (to Germans well-known as Stockbrot). Andrei delivered a beautiful end-of-class toast to our group and I tried my best to follow-up with a toast to the transition from student to teacher as we grow up as researchers. Not sure I got my point across since my front was half cooked from the fire and my senses side-tracked from the amazing smell of fresh bread. But it was a heartfelt goodbye from Andrei who left the following morning.

Before the AWI team from Potsdam left, we had an amazingly tasty fish BBQ in the station’s courtyard, the only location that was protected enough to allow for outdoor eating,… anywhere else the fish would have probably turned into Stroganina before we could eat it.

xWaldemar delivering his goodbye and retirement speech; after many years of coordinating the AWI logistics at Samoylov, it is a big goodbye for him.

With everybody gone, and Team-EPFL-alone-at-home for two days, we had a pretty special second weekend at the station: Saturday was Annina’s 23rdbirthday and we were greeted with a delicious-looking birthday cake for breakfast which earned everybody’s approval.

While Nicolas and Xavier carried out the daily CO2 measurements, us girls went out to brave the elements for a run around the island.

It is a beautiful loop, mostly along the beach, but with an interesting section of permafrost related earth-crack-hopping up on the eroding coastline. When we finished the loop at the old station the island dog Sever (Russian for North) came out to deliver his wishes,… he just caught the wrong girl for his birthday kiss. The evening was filled, with many games of Gems, a terrible Swiss card game that I seem to be incapable of mastering. =)

Along with all our other presents, we had brought three pieces of cheese with the best intention to share our culture and make a tasty meal for our follow researchers. Unfortunately, the logistics of Sunday cooking had not worked out as intended during the first week, since we had been out on our overnight excursion. Now the cheese was starting to get old and did not look like it would survive another week. So, we ended up making Chaesspaetzli and Rueblikuchen for an almost empty station, … with us being our only guests =). But I guarantee that we enjoyed it very, very much!!

Replacing Regina our cook in the kitchen was real team work, and it took us over two hours with 6 people to produce the Swiss Sunday Supper:

Fraenzi lead us with great routine through the many steps of Spaetzli-making.

Meanwhile Annina, Flore and Nicolas displayed the most admirable determination to produce a Rueblikuchen. The recipe called for 400g of ground almonds; the kitchen only provided whole almonds and no grinder. But this could not stop team Switzerland! With an iron patience that can only possibly be summoned by a real Swiss or the most team-spirited Frenchman, those three spent an estimated 2 hours on a knife-driven almond chopping mission. In multiple steps they decreased the splinter size, until it qualified for a true Rueblikuchen. Hats up!!

The meal was a great success and all guest were full of compliments =)

Bon appetit!