Urban Planning Gone Horribly Wrong

Ships are noisy places. Fan rooms hum or roar depending on your proximity. Transformers make a terrible, high pitch, screeching, buzz. If you are on a big deck (Aircraft Carrier, LHA, LHD, etc.) you put up with jets and helicopters taking off just feet above your head. Flight deck crews drag chains across the deck when chocking and chaining aircraft. Mt basic point here is that when assigned to a ship, noise is constant. You can not avoid it. The only time things get truly quiet is when you go: hot, dark and quiet. This is bad because it means the electrical load dropped, lights are off, ventilation shuts down, etc. Nice for lack of noise but very, very bad for all else.

So, why am I talking about ships while living in a 4th world, land locked country? This base has some significant similarities to shipboard living. True the real estate is a larger footprint, but there are more similarities than differences. The noise is the first big clue. Living next to an airport isn’t doesn’t provide a fair comparison. Big civilian jets are meek, quite creatures compared to military fighters. And, let’s not forget, commercial airports don’t generally fly aircraft between 11:00 PM and 05:00 AM. Here, F15s can be screaming into the night sky at any hour.

One advantage of ships is that they are purpose built. There is great conservation of space. Generally thought goes into the placement of compartments and functions. Can’t say that for here. The base is a mixture of a few old, Russian buildings and countless temporary structures. Temporary ranges from tents and B-Huts (plywood buildings about 20 by 40 ft) to the seeming favorite, ocean shipping containers welded together. That’s what I live in, a 20 ft sea container. In my last job I counted TEU’s now one’s my home! Not too horrible when they finish. Thank god they don’t have lightening storms here!

The character of this place is that of a B movie sci-fi set. Structures don’t seem to be placed with much thought. One side of the place is very crowded while the other is mostly open ground storage and fuel farms separated by the odd minefield or pile of old broken Russian truck skeletons. The main road around base is mostly paved. Most others are gravel. With the snow and shush on the ground you have to be careful not to get stuck. But hey, at least it’s not dusty at the moment! I haven’t decided which condition best suits this weird set: Cold, snow, frozen mud, white and dark brown or shades of khaki with a constant brown haze and dusty film covering it all. Funny, you would think the snow and rain would clean up the haze. Instead the haze shifts from dirty brown to foggy white. I’m guessing it’s the evaporation. Don’t know, just a guess.