only eight countries on the planet that stretch above the arctic circle and this is one of them and if you go to the right spot you can see the most spectacular light show on a deal or boy all this it was midwinter and i was taking the scenic route for the next thirty six hours. but according to this the further north we go the less daylight i'm actually going to be seeing because we should be arriving in moments right in the middle of that poland night and that is forty days almost total darkness. but up here even when it's pitch black it can still be beautiful. i was heading to a famous observatory and my polar express was well on its way.

welcome to the observatory yes but let me give you we've been looking at the full pages that come in and make yourself at home and later we'll put you in the picture . they've been studying up here for more than fifty years so i'm never going to have a better chance in russia to see it's the right now i just have to wait. let me show you where our engineers view the information from. this camera takes pictures of what's going on in the sky. we also get information about. high frequency variations in the magnetic field. field all these phenomena of what's connected to the aurora.

area the. north magnetic poles. that serves as the source for particles. are a gift of nature. to space if you. trees can be seen here in the north if you study the northern lights closely. summarised. is quite moderate. it's. because it takes. two days to travel from b. . to the earth. but those permanently days can be very long if you're not used to them and you

decided to introduce me to one of the local post on. now we're not exactly surrounded by shops out here so for us food in the lab is in roll the short supply. here has invited me to try a little night fishing so we're going to see. if we can get him by saying. you know people here really enjoy fishing during the long pole and they get so carried away by it that they become oblivious to anything else if you're lucky enough to catch one you'll enjoy eating it it tastes so good you wouldn't want to eat any other kind of fish there's nothing like it and it was nothing tastier than fish caught in a long pole a night so no pressure then but fortunately jaroslav turned out to

be a very good teacher. used he's. used. to let me go oh you're lucky. that's a beautiful fish. it's a dog fish. it's very healthy because it has all sorts of vitamins a little hard to find in the winter that's why we see from it and feel it's too and don't fish liver is simply delicious. but big. that's a big fish indeed. we dinna safely stowed away and we headed back to the observatory to check on the forecasts and fortunately the aura can be very unpredictable and it seemed that once again we were going to be out of luck. i could see that everyone was starting

to flag but if we weren't going to see the northern lights at least we could hear about them. and was on them and as. i got about those with no good though. is must be years. but i did. amongst the new little wooden lame again. with their love below filed out of my ear.

oh who was. that on the. stone that you. know. we apes we sang we studied and everyone slept except me i've never been awake more than forty eight hours in my life but up here i just couldn't drop off i put it down to excitement but i was starting to feel seriously unwell and by the time day three rolled around i knew i was going to have to get some help. james must a problem basically i can sleep and it's been already three nights it's just carry out a few tests then we'll try to help you. well

james see your more or less ok. but it seems that the bowler knight has this effect on you because your level of adaptation has only just grow each the. new c.n.n. . your actual age is thirty four but our one machine after all the tests shows twenty nine books you can do so in a sense you become the younger in the north. pole but the price of that use is not feeling too well. folks who are trying to help you with our relics ation methods. you. are searching.

also while we commend you activate the right side of your brain to st listen to music don't write but also stick to a diet try to eat the food that northern people traditionally eat. it seems that. so-called polar stress is very common to visitors at this time of year when it's as bleak and cold as this on the street it's pretty easy to see why . riding a local trolley bus it was clear that i wasn't the only one who was feeling exhausted

. i wanted to get better and so was time to take some of my doctor's advice. the restaurant not only has one of the best views but also serves up some of the best food in moments local businessman has lived here for almost fifty years and has his own theories on how to survive the polar nights. the. forty days you people get tired of it because they don't know what to do. during the polar night you have to move a lot and eat well of course it's important to eat well and sometimes when you get stressed if you just have to drink one hundred grams of vodka. well they say that overeating can be one of the side effects of seasonal affective disorder but i can tell you now that this is going to make me feel a whole lot better. but

. you can see calibers cranberries berries and others all of them a source is a vitamin local food is rich in proteins like this. always fresh because it's brought here from where it's bread what you have in your plate is freshly salted salmon and it takes seven minutes to sultan it's my own invention you know as a result of all of it i'm into nutrients are preserved and it's a very healthy food. still several courses certainly seem to hold up. although admittedly it's had help from the powers that be to try to add a little sparkle to the dunk city center. i've only been working here for about this but we've had four different designs already a polar night and i think are both sunfish and waves because everyone loved it but

what's more important these are made with telly deeds so they last for a long time they save energy and are less expensive so we also save money. maybe it was because. maybe it was the lumps in the gigantic christmas tree that my depression of the last few days i'm going to feel strange euphoria. then my new friend fled team in the promise me had another person's way of making me feel better. almost everyone in russia loves a fine yeah buts much like the climate the men of movement make it a little extreme. here we go. let's make believe

a little hotter. right now and this is where i think all options are completely bloody insane. turn around turn around quickly and run back to the money. wealthy british style. markets. find out what's really happening to the global economy. for a no holds barred the global financial headlines kaiser reports. it

is believed to be. easy. to believe. it's. gone. from.

the la. county alabama. crime. mob coming out of. the box. i was starting to get used to the twenty four hour darkness up here in the far north but that's all i was just a tourist more than three hundred thousand people live here year round and many have their own way of making the long winters a little more bearable. if

i'm going to tell you about how interior decorations should be fashioned to match the conditions prevalent in the far north much considering that it's pitch dark outside we have to have as much light as possible inside in this flat we use one hundred ten lamps to provide good lighting. in this flat with bright colors we have yellow because it's known to affect people in a good way and evoke positive emotions. because it's the color of the bride to make still more optimistic. though we have too many flowers in this flood to create even though the artificial well the feeling of warmth and summer. ok

done. much better a big dog outside but at least we've brought a bit. and if you're looking for a really bright buildings there's one that can be seen for miles around. of all the things you might expect to find north of the arctic circle of botanical gardens probably isn't high on the list but it just goes to show that with a little ingenuity anything almost anywhere. there are more than a thousand tropical plants here from all over the world and over the years the scientists and botanist of work to adapt them to the arctic conditions. also the latest in years a buyout in the right conditions for plants in science the arctic circle during the

polar night are created thanks to special lighting and special lamps this is done so that local residents can see what plants you can grow and tell themselves that they can always have such plants and their houses to generate a good mood and lots of positive emotions. and if you're feeling that you're lacking that all important little men see don't pick up your very own lemon tree. would dream up to hear james try real policy lemony grown here in the north well first of all. i say let's keep the scurvy at bay her while.

mormans was only founded in one nine hundred sixteen but there have been people living in surviving up here for thousands of years and the sami europe's northernmost indigenous tribe of the room techniques for getting through the winter . oh it was the low james nice to meet. you come from far away. anyway a welcome will hit you some tea get you warm get to know each other. a lot of these winter nights are very harsh for us. we've only got three and a half hours at our disposal. so to begin with we use that time to inspect our reindeer and count them. aside from that we also do some stitching. and we make different things like these little things made from bone used to untie

knots we also make bales it's man's work so we do many things with our hands. but sammy's tradition there are long since moved beyond their villages and for almost forty years they've had their own higher educational institution dedicated to preserving the craft. college has more than one hundred students from across the region who come to study and teach obits about the sami way of life they work with traditional materials such as reindeer words. and as my doctor had advised that working the right hand side of my brain would protect against any further polish stress it seemed like a perfect place to get creative. after people were done with household chores like reindeer slaughter fishing and gathering berries in autumn

would have been the sami families dedicated their time to working creatively towards. they found the time to decorate utensils and nine years and other things. and i guess maybe it's the creative work we see today that helps those people to survive jury in those long and cold poland nights. which. i'm just about managed to shake off my polar stress and i've seen how the local people deal with theirs it was time to head back to the observer train i got a call from jaroslav and the aurora was coming. out of around two am we drove out and i checked the prognosis with the labs chief astronomer so again. ok so you know what we have what's been going so this is spitzbergen the cola

peninsula it's got all the way from the north to the color peninsula we should be able to see it at the horizon but it is and this is the color peninsula this is the southern boundary of the oval for polar lights we can see everything on the map our forecast works everything's great. i set up my camera and waited and just under an hour later the most spectacular light show on earth began. wow. this is incredible i can see why so many people say this is one of the few things they want to see before they die i'm at the top of the world and i feel on top of the world right now. i know people see unusual

things in the aura but for me it seemed like a herd of different animals was almost moving across the sky it was one of the most amazing things i've ever seen and i couldn't have been more grateful to jaroslaw of sergei and the colleague from n t and you got a. i knew nothing was going to compare to see. seeing the northern lights but i still have a few days left before i had to be back in moscow. time enough to take up bloody mess on another one of his office. we have a few slips here. one of them is set aside for training. this one is for beginners it's eight hundred metres long. a literal so three slopes the first scares with very high skill levels in the skiing gives you adrenaline and you come here just

ski you forget about being tired and sleepy during the long polar night and you go to work full happy and ready for another day what would you do assuming you don't break your leg of course i don't have been skiing a few times before and certainly never a night still he did say it was for beginners. but he most certainly wasn't wrong about the adrenalin rush and being exactly able to see where you're going so there's a bit of extra spice. it seems that come night or day everyone up a lover's their winter sports and it's the theme for this year's snow village one of the region's most popular tourist attractions.

and that's only been covering the winter olympics down in sochi and it's great to see their absolute getting into the spirit of things up here as well quite frankly if the people of the north can ski through a polar night and bring me back a few gold medals should be no problem at all. village is designed from scratch every year by a team of talented field is an artist and each one has the chance to create something close to the hearts. and. worth of well sometimes you're in low spirits you just want everything to go to hell and leave this place for good or you but then a soon as you see the sun's rays again for the first time the depression goes away

and you're filled with happy feelings once again you want to live here of all places let's go to and once again you become aware of your devotion to this place. also for the long haul annoyance this was the first flights in the new year and i was taking it in with the people who valued it most here over the centuries the sami but with only a few minutes to enjoy it we had to make the most of it ah the sun takes more victims. that's not all. we get ready you know what's going on here let me explain to him

stand could be painful stuff this down they didn't have a proxy so they used a stick now we'll find out which of the teams a stronger let's go. friendship land returns day line just month with a series of traditional semi games like this rain disc in the pool and when the tourists join in these things can get pretty competitive. last district under. review. the was my game. plan with a lawsuit. here. the best.

way to celebrate the first line. but. it was time for me to head for the train back to moscow and home. but travelling through deep snow drifts even in daylight isn't exactly easy unless of course you could a few experts taking the leap. over a course these intense polar nights. but i got to see the aura borealis i must said the first light of the new year with the sally and i think there's only one way to end my dark room an adventure.

let me let me i want to know not let me ask you a question. here on the stand working its way around in the bank we have our knives out. believed to be the site to spank staying there again here in the situation where me and i'd like to talk about the surveillance.

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