December 13, 2021:
Yesterday I finished reading and listening "Магические числа", published in 1985. The novel leading character is Kagot, a Chuckchi shaman who made friends with the norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen and got engaged as a cook in Amundsen's ship "Maud" in 1920. According to the author, Kagot's story is real.
I found the first 50 pages of the book somewhat hard, because besides some unknown common russian vocabulary I stumbled upon many unknown words about the arctic reality and local lifestyle (and looked all up):
1. Ice/snow vocabulary: льдина, торос, ропак, припай, целина, наст, полынья, разводье, заиндеветь, задубеть, затереть льдами.
2. Arctic fauna and game vocabulary: песец, умка, росомаха, нерпа, лахтак, моржа, тюлень, евражка, лежбище, пушнина.
3. clothing: торбаса, камлейка, кухлянка, малахай.
4. other words relating to Chuckchi lifestyle: яранга, полог, нарта, остол, камлать.
After that, the novel became easier to read, demanding a few more look-ups. I enjoyed reading it, liked Rytkheu's straightforward Russian and got utterly fascinated with the real-life character of Roald Amundsen.
So today I started reading "Руал Амундсен", 220 pages, a biographical novel about him, written by Александр Яковлев, published in 1957.
![Image](https://royallib.com/data/images/1/cover_1979.jpg)
Books read: 15.
Pages read: 4,244.