At noon on the third day after arriving in the polar town of Tula, the Aurora Tavern was unusually not open.
In the spacious hall on the first floor, on both sides of the dining table under the crystal chandelier, Maya and the middle-aged boss named Vitaly sitting opposite the table, witnessed by Wei Ran, Suisui and others,
Signed a transfer agreement for the building below.
"Congratulations, Mr. Vitali."
Suisui said happily, "Soon you will become a professional manager of a health resort hotel."
"Thanks to Miss Aurora, I can't wait to take my family to Kazan." Vitaly, the former owner of Aurora Tavern, said with a trace of sincerity in his tone that made Wei Ran and Jima wait.
Gratitude beyond human understanding.
“We all understand how you feel.”
Suisui glanced at Maya's thumb pointing at her behind her back, and said with a normal expression, "After the transfer procedures are completed, Dmitri will send you and your family to Irkutsk, and then you need to
You and your family will have to switch to a regular flight and rush to Kazan. When you arrive in Kazan, someone will receive you. Arrangements have been made, including the school your daughter will transfer to."
"Then let's not waste time"
Vitaly looked at each other with his wife standing behind him and his daughter who had come back from leave. He stood up and said eagerly, "Let's go through the formalities now."
"Maya, remember to pay." Suisui instructed, still looking calm and calm.
“We’ll be back soon”
Before Maya could finish her words, Jima had already stood up. Like a professional butler, he stood behind Maya in a dignified manner. While the former was getting up, he gently moved his chair back a certain distance.
Watching Jima and Maya follow Vitaly and his family out of the closed tavern, board the rented large off-road vehicle and drive away, Suisui, who had just looked like a human being, immediately cheered happily and directly drove away
He hung on Wei Ran's body.
"You have bought this place, what next?" Wei Ran asked a key question.
"how could I know"
Suisui replied nonchalantly, "I didn't pay for it. Let Maya have a headache for this kind of thing."
"makes sense"
When Wei Ran heard this, he was too lazy to think too much. He waited until the crazy girl in his arms calmed down, then asked her to sit down and wait patiently.
Perhaps because the town was not that big, Jima and Maya drove back to the tavern in less than half an hour.
"Where's Vitali?" Wei Ran asked curiously.
"The family has been sent to the airport by Dmitri."
While Jima was speaking, he had already walked into the bar. He reached out and pulled down a bottle of good-looking red wine from the wine rack and opened it. He also picked up a few goblets and gave them to everyone, including the Katenka sisters.
Pour a small half glass of red wine.
"They are quite anxious." Wei Ran shook his head in confusion, touched the cup with Suisui beside him, raised his head and poured it into his mouth.
"Thanks to Aurora," Maya said gratefully, "Vitaly now insists that if you arrive in Kazan one day late, you will lose one day's money."
"Ignore them"
Suisui put down her cup and asked the question Wei Ran asked just now, "Maya, you bought this tavern, and what next? Are you not going to open it?"
"of course not"
Maya then put down the cup and explained, "Dmitri will come over later to temporarily help run the tavern. Mr. Culp said that someone will take over the place next."
"So we don't have to stay here anymore?"
Ji Ma joined the conversation at the right time, "Maya, in this case, how about we stay and help Victor and Aurora?"
"This scumbag really knows how to talk."
With a smile on her face, Suisui mocked in Chinese that only she and Wei Ran could understand, "We need his help?"
"He is not even as useful as Beria." Wei Ran also gave his opinion with a smile on his face, and then bumped fists with Suisui in tacit understanding.
"What are you two secretly talking about?" Ji Ma asked warily.
"It's nothing." Wei Ran spread his hands and finally helped his good friend without leaving any trace. "You guys can discuss it slowly. We will set off to Needham downstream first."
"Sister Ma is so pitiful"
Suisui amused herself by making a final joke in Chinese, and then walked out after greeting the Katenka sisters who were sitting aside to watch the fun.
Almost at the same time that they started the two cars, Jima and Maya also chased them out of the tavern. At the same time, Dmitri also drove over in a tattered van.
"Dmitri, I'll leave the tavern to you."
Ji Ma sent the key chain that he had just used to lock the door of the pub directly along the car window that the former had just lowered. Then he anxiously greeted Maya to get in the car, stepped on the accelerator and caught up with Wei Ran who had just driven out of the parking lot.
et al.
Dmitri, who was about to say something, weighed the key chain in his hand, and then simply turned off the engine. He waited until the three large off-road vehicles completely disappeared around the corner of the joint, and then slowly started
He took out the satellite phone from his pocket and dialed.
While he was communicating with the person on the other end through his mobile phone, Weiran also drove an off-road vehicle into the frozen Lower Tunguska River.
Although it is only mid-to-early October, the river has already completely frozen, and some trucks and off-road vehicles that are not too heavy have already replaced the work of summer cargo ships and have begun to speed on the flat ice.
"Jima, how about you lead the way?" Wei Ran deliberately said on the radio channel, "After all, you are the only one who knows the specific location of the old teacher."
Knowing that Wei Ran was helping him, Ji Ma immediately agreed, stepped on the accelerator and drove to the front, doing unnecessary work of leading the way.
"I bet you a bottle of beer that scumbag Ji won't be able to take advantage at all." Suisui, who was sitting in the passenger seat, said with certainty.
"Maybe I'll have to suffer some hardships," Wei Ran agreed with some anticipation.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Speaking of which, Jima is not stupid, but he was a bit of a dog-licker after meeting Maya. However, Maya, this girl, is also a bit too smart.
.So even though the current Ji Ma looks like he is about to eat meat, it is actually hard to say who is the hunter and who is the prey.
While teasing Jima, a group of three cars drove along the winding river for almost half an hour. Finally, a gathering area smaller than the town of Tula appeared on the right side of the river.
What’s more interesting is that on the island in the middle of the river facing the town, there is an iron sign that is conspicuous enough. On it, sky-blue Cyrillic letters with red edges spell out a sentence - "On the other side is the river."
It’s Needham”.
Driving up the slope paved with snow and up to the river bank, you can almost have a panoramic view of this triangular town distributed along the river bank without getting out of the car.
"The Lauritz we are looking for lives at the very edge of the southwest of the town, farthest from the river."
On the radio channel, Jima explained based on the clues he collected the day before, "It is said that the roof of his house is brown, which is very good... Forget it, just pretend I didn't say it."
Jima put the walkie-talkie aside angrily. Most of the roofs of the buildings outside the car window were covered with a layer of snow, and the color of the roofs could not be seen at all.
Fortunately, Jima finally remembered that he had a mouth. After he warmly and cordially asked several town residents, he finally parked the car at the door of a wooden house close to the forest.
Similar to most buildings in the polar regions, this wooden house is also supported by load-bearing pillars driven into the permafrost layer to a height of about one meter above the ground. On one side of the wooden house, there is a garage also made of logs.
The translucent plastic sheet was covered, and the van parked inside could still be vaguely seen.
When the three cars stopped one after another outside the iron wall that was only one and a half meters high, a man wearing suspenders and jeans with round glasses on his face and a tangled hair and beard emerged from the wooden house that looked particularly warm.
He was neatly groomed and looked like an old man in his fifties or sixties.
"Are you here as guests at my house?" The old man smiled and said hello to Wei Ran and others who opened the car door.
"If you are Mr. Lauritz, then we may have to prepare a door-to-door gift." Jima spoke while shaking the two bottles of high-end champagne in his hand.
"Good boy, come in quickly." The old man named Lauritz waved to everyone gently.
"He said I was a good boy"
Jima took the champagne brought from the tavern and left the off-road vehicle with Maya, who was too lazy to talk to him.
When the six of them walked into the courtyard and into the warm wooden house, Lauritz said, "Are you the students I taught? Why don't I remember that there are
twin?"
"Mr. Lauritz, it's a pity that we are not your students."
Dima said seriously, "We found you through Ruslan who works at Tula Pier."
"Ruslan?"
Lauritz immediately looked like he suddenly understood, "I remembered that he called me yesterday afternoon and said that a young man from a big city wanted to ask me something, so he was talking about you?"
"If nothing else, it will be us." Wei Ran smiled and took over the topic.
"Then sit down first."
Lauritz warmly greeted everyone to sit down around the long table in the living room. While Ji Ma helped introduce Wei Ran and others, he slowly walked to the fireplace and started making coffee.
At the same time, everyone was also looking at the layout of the house.
There are not many pieces of furniture in this room, but they are quite interesting. The most eye-catching thing is the various musical instruments placed on the shelves in the corner of the living room, ranging from accordions to violins to flutes and harmonicas.
In addition, there are photo frames hanging on the surrounding walls. In those photo frames, they are basically photos of Lauritz and a very elegant woman with various children.
"Mr. Lauritz, you must be a music teacher, right?" Suisui couldn't help but ask.
"I am a geography teacher and an amateur photographer after retirement."
Lauritz poured a cup of coffee for Suisui and explained with a smile, "My wife is the music teacher. If you want to ask questions about music, I'm afraid you have to wait a few days. She took the children there the day before yesterday.
Tuluhanks is participating in a music performance. You must know where Tuluhanks is, right?"
"Where?" Suisui looked at Wei Ran subconsciously.
"The intersection of the Lower Tunguska River and the Yenisei River," Wei Ran explained with a smile, "was one of the places where Stalin was exiled."
"Standard answer, reward you with a cup of coffee."
While the funny Lauritz was talking, he poured Wei Ran a cup of coffee, "So you guys came here to see me. Is there anything I can help you with?"
After thanking the other party for the coffee, Wei Ran took out the photo of the auditorium from his pocket and pushed it to the other party, "Mr. Lauritz, we want to know where this photo was taken. Ruslan from the dock and us
Say, you might be able to point us in a direction."
Hearing this, Lauritz slowly picked up the glasses on the table and put them on. He held the photo and looked at it before shaking his head, "Sorry, I have no impression of seeing such a place, but I'm sure this should be somewhere."
The auditorium of a mine.”
Without waiting for anyone to ask, Lauritz took the initiative to explain, "My wife once took her students to many mines for musical performances. The chandeliers used in those auditoriums are almost exactly the same as the ones in the photo. Many of them still have the same chandeliers."
It’s an old antique made in the Soviet era.”
This old guy can do it...
Wei Ran secretly admired it and took out the clues he had prepared long ago and asked, "Lauritz, do you know which mines were abandoned between 1960 and 1965?"
"1960 to 1965?" Lauritz looked at Weihan in confusion.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Seeing this, Wei Ran pointed at Khrushchev in the photo and the taunt written in red paint on the other side of the national emblem, "Since the portrait is hanging
It is Khrushchev who is wearing it, and there is also the taunting sentence from Beria, so this place must have been abandoned at the end of Khrushchev's reign.
And it must have been before Brezhnetsov came to power and extended his influence here, otherwise there should be at least 20,000 medals in the frame in the photo."
"Twenty thousand medals? Hahahaha!"
Lauritz couldn't help but let out a series of hearty smiles, then stood up and walked to the bookshelf in the corner of the living room. While rummaging through it, he said, "For the sake of those 20,000 medals, I can't tell you the photo."
Where is the auditorium inside, but you can probably look for it yourself."
Having said this, Lauritz had already pulled out a hard-cover book from the bookshelf that seemed to be three fingers thick and at least the size of A4 paper.
Picking up the rag and gently wiping the non-existent dust on the hard-cover book, Lauritz handed it to Wei Ran, "This is the information left by my father, and it may contain the answer you want.
"
I took the hard-cover book and opened it. There were only two photos on the first page. The black and white photo on the left showed a young man with a Prussian hazelnut hair. The color photo fixed side by side on the right side of the page showed a
An old man with white hair, a cigarette butt in his mouth, and a cane.
"That's my father"
Lauritz explained with a normal expression, "As you will definitely hear, he is a German prisoner of war."
"Put this away..."
Dima hesitated for a moment and asked the question that had been in his mind for a long time, "Mr. Lauritz, why didn't your father leave the Soviet Union at that time?"
"This is probably the question I hear most often"
Lauritz took a sip of his coffee and explained gently, "My father is a Sudeten, which is the main reason why he did not leave. In addition, after he was sent to Siberia as a prisoner of war, he soon became
For various reasons, he became a prospector, and with this job he mastered a lot of geological information. This is the second reason why he couldn't leave here. Of course, there is another important reason, he fell in love with my mother.
.”
"Where is the Sudetenland?"
Ji Ma and Suisui, who were unlearned and unskilled, looked at Wei Ran in no particular order. Immediately afterwards, Maya and Katenka sisters also looked over. Even Lauritz looked at him with a serious look on his face.
.
Secretly curling his lips, Wei Ran replied with a normal expression, "To put it simply, this is not a place name with a geographical concept. It represents the three places where German-speaking residents lived in Czechoslovakia and the land close to Germany before the end of World War II.
A large piece of land. Of course, after the Munich Conference, the Sudetenland was occupied by Germany."
"So?" Suisui asked.
"Germany lost World War II"
Wei Ran spread his hands and said, "Czechoslovakia wanted to return to the Sudetenland and drove all the German-speaking residents there to Germany. I think Mr. Lauritz's father was unable to go back because there was no place to go back to.
?”
“That’s pretty much it”
Lauritz nodded with satisfaction, as if the person they were talking to was not his father at all, "So young man, are you also studying geography?"
"History" Wei Ran replied frankly.
"No wonder"
Lauritz pointed to the hard-cover book still in front of Wei Ran, "Before retiring in 1984, my father went to most of the mines in the Tunguska coal field, including, of course, the various small mines where he served his sentence.
.
After retiring, he sorted out the conditions in most of the mines he visited, and they are all there. Young man, I hope my father can help you."
Hearing this, Wei Ran turned a page at the back of the room, and Suisui and others also gathered around. Only the Katenka sisters looked normal and took small sips of their coffee, while the other pretended to appreciate it.
From the group photo on the wall, I secretly paid attention to the cars outside and the kind old man.
As for Wei Ran and others, at this time, they really don't know whether to attribute the detailed information they saw to the so-called "German seriousness" or simply to the love for their work of an old man who has worked in a mine all his life.
Because in this thick book, the name of each mine, the mining time, the type of minerals mined and the degree of enrichment, as well as the time and reason for closure, are simply but detailedly recorded.
Not only that, at the end of each mine, there is also a hand-drawn map, clearly marking the specific location!
Lauritz even proudly took the initiative to explain that he helped draw all the maps in this full book.
After obtaining the other party's permission, Suisui immediately asked Anfisa next to her to help her get her SLR from the car and take a photo of each page.
At the same time, Weiran, with the help of Anfisa and Maya, sorted out all the mines in this book that were closed between 1960 and 1965. As expected, there were twenty
The list of several mines includes the No. 119 mine in Nizhny Tunguska!
By the time Suisui took a photo of the last page, the cold sun outside the window had already hidden most of her body below the horizon, and even Lauritz had prepared a sumptuous dinner that could feed all of them.
The other party was so enthusiastic that they naturally couldn't refuse, so they simply stayed and had a meal with Lauritz.
During the chat at the table, everyone also accidentally learned that almost every weekend, students who he and his wife had taught would come here to gather.
The oldest among them already has children, and the youngest is still in high school. Even the long table that is rarely used by ordinary people was specially made for the convenience of him and his wife’s students coming over for dinner.
prepare.
After dinner, everyone responded to the old gentleman's request and took a group photo in his living room before leaving various gifts and leaving.
After traveling upstream along the frozen Lower Tunguska River, they drove the car back to the town of Tula and parked again at the entrance of the Aurora Tavern, which had resumed business. It was already past eight o'clock in the evening.
"Where should we go next?" Suisui kicked off her shoes and sat cross-legged on the soft leather sofa in the empty hall on the third floor of the tavern.
“Go to Ukta”
Weiran replied while swiping the satellite map, "We still have to go to Yukta to visit, and I just looked at the information I compiled. On our way to Yukta, we will pass by a man named Yeika.
place.
This place is only about 40 kilometers away from Yukta, but here, there is a tributary of the Lower Tunguska River extending to the north. We sorted out the twenty or so that meet the requirements from the information left by Lauritz's father.
Six of the abandoned mines are within the basin of this tributary."
Suisui obviously followed Weiran's channel, "So if Yukta doesn't find anything, we will go north along the tributary from the place called Yeika?"
"That's it." Wei Ran nodded, "I may have to waste some time next."
"So when are we leaving?" Suisui asked impatiently.
"Why are you so interested?" Wei Ran couldn't help but ask.
"Because I had a bold idea"
After Suisui finished speaking, she saw Wei Ran looking at her with a strange expression. Obviously, their bold ideas did not seem to refer to the same thing.
But this time, Suisui rarely gave an explanation. She just urged, "If you have decided, don't waste time. How about we set off as soon as possible?"
"Ji Ma, are you going to follow?" Wei Ran asked Ji Ma, who was sitting on the other side.
"Maya, come with us." Suisui didn't wait for Ji Ma to speak, and took the initiative to invite Maya who was applying a facial mask next to her. "I need your help this time."
Her words almost moved Jima to tears, while Maya took off her mask, turned her back to Jima and winked at Suisui.
"Not because of that scumbag"
Suisui leaned into Maya's ear and said, "But you have to be responsible for driving the car the whole time. When we return, I need to know how you feel."
"As long as you find a way to prevent Jima from getting into the car where I sleep in the middle of the night, it will be fine." Maya put forward the only condition.
"I'll leave it to you." Suisui turned to look at Wei Ran.
"I'm going to take Dmitry with me this time. He's already making preparations. When the time comes, just let Jima sleep in the same car with him."
Before Wei Ran finished speaking, the talkative Dmitri also walked up to the third floor. He habitually picked up Beria, the dog who was about to bare his teeth at him, and said with great enthusiasm, "Victor, I
It’s ready, we can leave at any time.”
"Then do it now!" Wei Ran stood up and pointed at Jima, "He sleeps in the same car as you."
"No problem!" Dmitri happily agreed, "This will give me someone to chat with."
"I don't want to..." Ji Ma looked at Wei Ran, who was selectively blind and deaf, with a bitter face, and then looked at Maya pitifully.
"It doesn't matter"
Dmitri said with a smile, "If you don't want to go, you can stay in the tavern and help me take care of the business here."
"Please prepare some more earplugs for me," Ji Ma, whose dreams were shattered, feebly made his only request.
Now that they had decided to set off, everyone did not waste any more time. After going downstairs, everyone got into their own cars.
Fortunately, Maya managed to save face for Ji Ma, and the two finally got into the same car, but Maya just took the driver's seat according to Suisui's request. As for Dmitri, whom Weiran deliberately called
, also got into a car of the same model, and even attached an extra four-wheel cargo bucket filled with supplies to the back of Ji Ma's car.
As the lights of the four cars came on, Dmitri was the first to leave the parking lot and drove along the Nizhny Tunguska River in the direction of Ukta in the dark.
The distance between the two places is more than 200 kilometers. With these six-wheel off-road vehicles with a maximum speed of only 60 kilometers per hour and actual speeds of 40 or even lower most of the time, it will take at least a whole night to drive.
Fortunately, I don't know what kind of madness Suisui had, and she took the initiative to take over the driving job as soon as she got in the car. Wei Ran was naturally happy and relaxed, and continued to hold his laptop and plan the next route.
According to his plan, after arriving at Yukta, he would not stay too long, then turn back and go back to the mouth of the river called Yeika, and then go north from there to a forest farm codenamed Tunguska No. 58.
Take a wander here, then continue north along the tributary, and go directly to the final destination of this trip, Tunguska No. 119 Mine!
