Jupiter (9. February 2016)

Another try, but still blured:

Notes from trip to Lapland 2015

Trip there

We were traveling through the Baltic states. We have visited the Hill of Crosses in Lithuania, at 2 AM (scary, mainly because of small hanged crosses, shaking in a wind).

Estonia - one long road heading to Tallinn, surrounded by swamps. And bus stops in no man's land. And first traffic signs with reindeers (or moose? now I am not sure).

Tallinn - a traffic signs with ducks :-)

Seagull on a ferry to Helsinki

Helsinki Cathedral, without snow in December

We spent one night at Villa Tammikko

Helsinki - no snow, surprisingly, at the beginning of December. First snow appeared approximately in the middle of the way to Oulu.

One of our stops - Kuhnamo lake, close to Äänekoski city

We spotted the first moose approx. 70 kilometers south of Oulu. We visited the local market at Oulu and tried some local food there (Pulla pie, some pies with salmon and reindeer meat, etc.).

"Continue" and "tall" in Finnish - "Slaughterhouse" and "Cunt" in Czech

The Finnish language is using very strange expressions sometimes

Oulu market hall

Rovaniemi - lampposts are representing polar circle line

Lapland

Beautiful northern lights appeared at the time of our arrival at our destination, house on the shore of Vuontisjärvi lake.

So, what you can do in Lapland during the winter? 

• cross-country skiing (my absolutely first experience)
• snowshoeing
• ice fishing (I was not attending :-))
• ice skating, ice hockey
• building an igloo (we have not finished it)
• taking a sauna (sauna is basically in every inhabited house)
• dog sledding

Polar night is really long (a day has approximately 3-4 hours only), so there is a big problem distinguishing actual time, you don't know if there is 4 PM, or 9 PM :-).

The lowest temperature, which I've seen there on the thermometer was approx. -28 degrees of Celsius. Sometimes power outages happen because of the freeze.

Dog sledding

We had an amazing ride with Hetta Huskies, during sunset. We took a shorter ride (6 kilometers) because of low temperatures.

And one video:

Meteorological phenomena

• Light pillars (created by ice crystals in the sky) - very nice in the night, pillars are soaring from each source of light. You can see for example a village over the horizon. Or passing car behind trees.
• Arctic clouds - Polar stratospheric clouds, rainbow clouds, formed by frozen particles.
• Belt of Venus - Since the Sun is not rising over the horizon in winter, you can observe phenomena called the belt of Venus.

Nature

Reindeer	Reindeer
	Belt of Venus and hill without trees
	Really thin and short trees...

Food

Candies - really weird approach, to have salty candies. I don't want to see Salmiakki anymore :-).

Pies - Pulla bread was really good, together with meat pies (reindeer, solomon).

Meat - Reindeer meat is awesome, with a fine structure and liver look. Moose (hirvi) sausage was also really good.

Fish - We tried some fish from a shop - all of them were sweetened, so quite unusual for me.

Trip back to the Czech Republic

We have visited the ice hotel in Kiruna (Sweden) during return:

Gulf of Riga shore, Latvia

More videos here

Jupiter (7. February 2016)

Underground civil defense vault Dukla, Havířov (Czech Republic)

The fallout shelter in the former Dukla coal mine (Havířov city, Czech Republic) was in the early 1960s. Planning began in 1954, and construction took place between 1960 and 1962. The shelter was designed to protect 450 people from radiation for 24 hours.

The vault was built to withstand a 250 kt nuclear explosion, impacting at a speed of 300 m/s and an incidence angle of 15 degrees. It features a concrete monolith structure with a circular floor plan (11 meters in diameter) and 1-meter-thick walls.

There are two surface entrances - one civilian and one military. The military entrance includes decontamination and dosimetric rooms. Each entrance has a separate angled staircase, leading 10 meters underground to the first floor. The staircases face away from each other. A 250 kg capacity lift is also available inside the vault.

Currently, a group of enthusiasts is reconstructing the vault, which is open to the public. More information can be found here (in Czech), and the Facebook group is here. The shelter's location is here.


First floor

Decontamination room, pressure chambers, emergency exits, air cleaning filters room, workroom

Second floor

infirmary, operating room, warehouses

Third floor

command room, low-voltage workroom, telephone exchange room

Fourth floor

lodging for protected people, washroom, warehouse - now party floor :-)

Fifth floor

lodging for protected people, washroom, warehouse - recently transformed into a civil defense museum

Sixth floor

lodging for protected people, washroom, diesel engine room, diesel engine control room, drinking water reservoir (14 m3)