Excerpts from The Uralican Daily News, 7 March 2010 Edition

Entry posted by Uralica March 8, 2010

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Large Avalanche On Mount Narodnaya Injures Four

VUKTYL - Four hikers are very lucky to be alive after a loose snowbank near the vertical midway point of Mount Narodnaya's southeastern slope collapsed yesterday and triggered a massive avalanche, which wiped out the vast majority of the hiking trails in the northern portion of that particular slope. The reason for the survival of the foursome was mostly to do with luck, however quick response from an emergency flight team from the closest settlement, the town of Severnaya Naroda in the northwesternmost parts of Yugra, prevented the foursome from dying of hypothermia as the destruction of trails had stranded them. Two of the hikers suffered only cuts and bruises, while one suffered a concussion and another a separated right shoulder. The foursome were later transferred to Vuktyl, Central Uralica, where the two with more severe injuries are recovering.

Sports

KJK Stuns Dinamo Kirov

KIROV - It was one for the ages, just as everyone expected the "Kirov Clasico" would be. The thing that wasn't expected was who won.

In spite of letting a soft goal in early, Immo Kivilahti, Kirovin JK's goalkeeper, "stood on his head" for the remainder of the match, and over a hundred minutes later, Kirovin JK claimed one of the largest upsets of the tournament, beating Dinamo Kirov 2-1 in extra time. Forward Mikko Lippola scored just two minutes in, forcing Kirovin JK to dig deep to get an equaliser, especially when they were outshot 20-11 in the course of the match.

6'5" forward Kai Attinen got the equaliser in the 72nd minute off a well-struck corner by right mid Yevgeny Smertin, whose second-cousin Miron plays for Zavod Ural Solikamsk.

But the glory would end up belonging to two people - goalkeeper Immo Kivilahti, who continuously stymied super-forward Khavkuk Shlomov, and attacking mid Tuukka Lehtonen, who scored the winning goal.

"They deserve the win, if only because Kivilahti stood on his head for all but the first two minutes of the match," said a teary-eyed Shlomov. "And not taking anything away from their attack, either. I'm a little surprised we were able to shut [Tapani] Karjalainen down, but [Kai] Attinen and [Tuukka] Lehtonen were both superb. I suppose we simply made more mistakes than they did. But when you lose a match this big, that was this close, you can't help being a little heartbroken, y'know?"

Kirovin JK now go into the Kanslerinkilpi final to play SiPS, who have been struggling a little in Liga Mundo lately but have been unstoppable in domestic play, in spite of a "shaky start" in the form of a 4-1 win over FK Kirov's reserve team. SiPS has outscored its opposition 44-1, while Kirovin JK's aggregate is 30-1, with the only goal they've allowed to this point being the one scored in this match.

Another Medal For Salomäki, Malakhov Continues Domination

VORKUTA - On the third day of competition during the Vorkuta stage of the Uralican Nordic Skiing Championships, Jarkko Salomäki found himself running second to the legendary Dmitry Malakhov in the men's individual sprint in cross-country skiing, something he described as "an exhilarating experience."

"I mean, winning gold in Chaykovsky was pretty awesome, no question there," he said, in a rather lengthy multi-topic interview yesterday. "But to come second to the best there is in the sport today, there's no comparison... well, if I could beat the guy, maybe, but I can't, that's the thing. He holds every Uralican record in both straight-up cross-country and biathlon. Too bad he readily admits to sucking at ski jumping, or Uralica could own the podium in any cross-country event! But yeah, it was the individual sprint, and I was never further than fifteen metres behind him at any given time. It was an epic rush. I think even more so, because I tend to be better at biathlon than at straight-up cross-country. Was my only race this round, too!" (Salomäki has largely been focussing on football.)

This week, the UNSC runs at Khanto, except for ski-jumping, which is located at Narodnaya Alpine Skiing Centre in Kharp, Yamalia.

Tourism

Uralican Tourism Skyrockets After War's End

SYKTYVKAR - Tourism Uralica couldn't be happier. After TOOL's exit from the current global conflict, Uralican tourism floodgates were blown open, figuratively speaking.

One border crossing official from near Gryazovets, West Uralica, related his tale.

"So we were out on 1 March," he said, "and on 2 March, it was Spartan-calibre madness down here. Now most of the refugees returned home by air or sea, but our popular road ingress points were crammed. I mean, here at Gryazovets, we had three-hour waits at the border-crossing. But I heard from friends elsewhere in the country that there were a few worse areas. Like Highway 7E. The Joutselkä Crossing had a five-hour backup at one point, and as you know that's the main route north through Viipuri between Saint Petersburg and Old Finland, so it's quite well-travelled. The Y-Burg-Chelyabinsk Highway [Highway UH-19] was in total gridlock. I think it got so bad you even had the border crossing along the road going from Tyumen' to Juganvar [Highway UH-29] flowing with the traffic, that would usually come up through Yekaterinburg and go out UH-6 instead."

In the last five days, the most visited cities were Syktyvkar, Yekaterinburg, Perm', Viipuri, Kirov (one astute tourist pointed out he came for the KJK-Dinamo match, but ended up coming early just to "see what the hype was about."), Salyakharad (a stopoff point for alpine skiing enthusiasts), Vorkuta, Veliski, Izhevsk, and Chaykovsky (the "Twinkie Capital of the Former Soviet Union"). Other places that were very well-visited were Polar Bear National Park in Nenetsia-North Uralica, Virgin Komi Forests National Park (split between several counties), and the Verkhnekondinsky National Nature Reserve in southwestern Yugra.