by Angela Gallagher
Kytalyk, July 31, 2013
This is my finally summer in Kytalyk and I will be leaving in a few days to return to Amsterdam. I have been lucky enough to have travelled to Kytayk five times, both during the summer and during the Siberian spring where temperatures can be as low as -20oC. So I have very mixed feelings about leaving Kytalyk for the last time, with very little chance of ever returning to such a remote part of the world again. A large part of me will be very happy to be back in the land of running water, hot showers, and if reports from Europe are correct, I will not need my thermal underwear on a nearly daily basis. But I will miss Kytalyk, well elements of Kytalyk, and the whole field work experience. I don’t think anyone ever left here missing the mosquitoes or the toilets.
Although field work can have its daily grind of difficulties and dismay leaving you wondering if you are cut out for science at all, it does have some unexpected benefits such as a cure for repetitive strain injury and weight loss despite hovering up every bit of food put in front of you. Nonetheless, one of the best things about Kytalyk is the tiny temporary community of people that spend the summer here. Currently the Kytalyk population is 11, including Lena our wonderful cook and her two year old son and Dasha. We all work quite independently, coming together during meal times. Breakfast is quiet and sleepy, but at lunch and dinner everyone is a lot more animated. We sit around chatting and discussing the strangest topics happily unable to determine who may be correct due the lack of internet access. The conversation flows freer and becomes more whacky as the supervisors depart, but regardless the conversation around the kitchen table is a fantastic way to defuse any fieldwork induced frustrations that may have built up during the course of the day.
So for me I will miss the kitchen the most, the discussions and all the laughing. Kytalyk is without a doubt a beautiful place and I feel very lucky to be here, most of the time, but I don’t think it would be the same without the little community thrown together in the middle of nowhere.
Dinner time for our little community in Kytalyk (Photo: A. Gallagher , 31 July 2013)