Besides Vodka there was also Banya (which Richard and Sasha courageously joined) and a barbecue waiting for us, where we all had to participate – no way around.

 

Each new piece of food was preceded by a determined "drrrink my big frrriend" and a toast to our good company.

 

(Photo: Carolina & Richard) Cutting the birthday cakeAfter having established a new German-Austrian-Finnish-Russian friendship and having posed for numerous memorable pictures as a proof there were indeed foreign people in Seida, we were finally allowed to leave in the late evening...

 

Luckily today is one of the rare occasions we get to ride a tundra vehicle back to the field, since there is a food transport arranged for the evening. This spares us the 2h walk.

 

Last week was still very warm and at 30°C it was possible to bath in the thermokarst lakes, which is unusual considering it is almost mid-August.

 

This weekend though there was some rain finally and we are preparing for colder weather now in August. Since we are slowly but steadily approaching the end of our field season, which will be at the end of the month, there are a lot of tasks to be done now in order to avoid the last minute panic.

 

We have already started doing an inventory of our field equipment, and calibrating all our soil moisture and temperature sensors is scheduled for the coming week, if there remains time besides the usual measurements.

 

We are in week 7 now and naturally everyone is getting a bit tired and exhausted. So last week it was a most welcome surprise that our cook Natasha provided us with a cake in celebration of Petr's birthday, to which we toasted with a very tasty "maroshka" (cloudberry) liquor ;-)