Зимник
The Winter Road
B2 · Upper Intermediate · fiction · 10 scenes · Premium story
An upper-intermediate story from the permafrost of northern Siberia. Stas drives two thousand kilometres of winter road — a road that exists only in winter — with textbooks and mandarins in the back. Learn the laws of the zimnik: never switch off the engine, never drive past a stopped truck, and listen to the ice, because the frightening moment is when it goes quiet.
Characters
- Stas (Стас) — The narrator, a trucker
- Mikhalych (Михалыч) — The old driver
- The road (Зимник) — The winter road itself
- The village (Посёлок) — The destination
Vocabulary from this story
- зимник — winter road
- лёд — ice
- река — river
- тундра — tundra
- болото — bog
- переправа — crossing
- вешка — marker pole
- наледь — overflow ice
- промоина — washout
- равнина — plain
- горизонт — horizon
- обочина — roadside