One thing though; the area to the north is very swamped; it’s not just lakes. So getting dry lumber any time of the year is near impossible, thereby fire kit is very advisable. Dry needles are not as dry as one would want. Cones that are often advised as an element of easy fire starters are extremely wet and useless for the task; they burn no better than wood thorougly soaked in water. Generally, making fire out of any lumber in the woods is a massive headache in there.
Also, high humidity means fog is a very regular occurrence, so a clifftop might be way less useful that one can imagine. It gets particularly bad the closer you move to Khibiny mountains.
That definitely changes things. Swamps would likely be the last place you would want to try to survive out the Z-poc. The mobility issues would be useful for impeding zombies and raiders, but you would suffer the same issues until you could get some sort of infrastructure in. And that is completely ignoring the fact that Zs can end up hiding under the muck and bog. Also, the drinking water would be a real issue, since, as you said, everything is wet. If you could locate a good pete bog you could harvest and dry it in a shelter for amazing fuel, but I don’t know how prevalent those are in those particular swamps. Other than resource gathering though, I think it would be best to avoid until you had a foothold somewhere else.
Now the fog in the mountains is actually interesting. That level of humidity means that you can source drinking water directly from the air with little issue. Cut up some cotton shirts so they are broad and flat, then rig up a wind vein that will keep a small sail aligned with the prevailing winds so the fog flows over it and the cloth will be soaked with fresh clean water. If the vein is built right you can even channel drip water into a container, then wring out the cloth when the fog has lifted before the sun can evaporate it. Variations on this are actually viable in any humid region, especially if the temperature dips below the dew point at night.
I think I would still probably make for the foggy mountains if I were in that region if I could do so while bypassing swampy regions. The rough terrain could be trivialized with minimal infrastructure and resources could be plentiful if managed right. I am also of the minor assumption that in that region the cold is almost as much of a threat as the zombies, so I’m not positive what sorts of shelter the mountains would provide. If memory serves, most of that region is very old metamorphic rocks that aren’t prone to cave formation. This would severely limit shelter from the elements without a good source of building materials or the means to produce them. I would amend the list to fire axe, body armor (winterized), fire kit, wrist rocket. In scavenging, I would prioritize a survival machete, a pack, the aforementioned claiming gear, and real medical supplies (suture needle, sterile gauze, strong thread or monofilament fishing line). Once I am able to secure somewhere to put a cache, that expands to a charged car battery or 3, jumper cables, basic carpenter tools, many many tarps, and as many fluid containers as I can get my hands on. Russian winters are no joke and without the tarps, drying enough wood to survive would be hell. The tarps would he enough to make a sealed drying environment until a kiln dryer could be constructed. Of course, all of this is predicated on being able to secure an area that has materials and is remote enough that the possibility of wandering Zs becomes slim. It would probably he worth finding a camp in one of the transitional zones between the swamps and mountains so the swamp can act as a natural trap/barrier to Z traversal so it only requires minimal fortification.
I’d say there’s enough stuff that can be turned into fire starter should you have time to dry it (and under a good cover with relatively strong winds and relatively low humidity for the area it will take several days to dry thin starters and months to dry firewood, so tarp won’t help you that much in the short run). Generally, if you’re in the wild in winter in northwestern Russia without already stored dry firewood or other fuel, your chances of survival are fairly questionable to begin with.
Yes, there aren’t many caves in there and terrain is very hard. Constructing a cover is not a trivial task. Normally in this environment survivalists resort to self-made tents or dig into the ground (latter being less popular in the winter, for obvious reasons), but both are fairly useless in a zombie apocalypse for the reasons you’ve already outlined. Mountain and treetop constructions will suffer severely from strong cold winds.
Realistically though, you cannot survive the wilderness of northwestern Russia (and a lot of wilderness for that matter) with just 4 objects. You’ll strike a way better chance by finding a remote village. Yes, you might have to ward off zombies, but, as you mentioned, environment will be less of an issue, and environment here is certainly deadly.
Yeah, that is a really rough place to survive in a non-apocalyptic scenario. I think focused active scavenging on the way out of civilization would be the key to making it. Then finding/setting up a village would be the next key to long-term survival.
I’m glad that I was able to reevaluate with better accuracy. This was fun.
Very impressive!
One thing though; the area to the north is very swamped; it’s not just lakes. So getting dry lumber any time of the year is near impossible, thereby fire kit is very advisable. Dry needles are not as dry as one would want. Cones that are often advised as an element of easy fire starters are extremely wet and useless for the task; they burn no better than wood thorougly soaked in water. Generally, making fire out of any lumber in the woods is a massive headache in there.
Also, high humidity means fog is a very regular occurrence, so a clifftop might be way less useful that one can imagine. It gets particularly bad the closer you move to Khibiny mountains.
That definitely changes things. Swamps would likely be the last place you would want to try to survive out the Z-poc. The mobility issues would be useful for impeding zombies and raiders, but you would suffer the same issues until you could get some sort of infrastructure in. And that is completely ignoring the fact that Zs can end up hiding under the muck and bog. Also, the drinking water would be a real issue, since, as you said, everything is wet. If you could locate a good pete bog you could harvest and dry it in a shelter for amazing fuel, but I don’t know how prevalent those are in those particular swamps. Other than resource gathering though, I think it would be best to avoid until you had a foothold somewhere else.
Now the fog in the mountains is actually interesting. That level of humidity means that you can source drinking water directly from the air with little issue. Cut up some cotton shirts so they are broad and flat, then rig up a wind vein that will keep a small sail aligned with the prevailing winds so the fog flows over it and the cloth will be soaked with fresh clean water. If the vein is built right you can even channel drip water into a container, then wring out the cloth when the fog has lifted before the sun can evaporate it. Variations on this are actually viable in any humid region, especially if the temperature dips below the dew point at night.
I think I would still probably make for the foggy mountains if I were in that region if I could do so while bypassing swampy regions. The rough terrain could be trivialized with minimal infrastructure and resources could be plentiful if managed right. I am also of the minor assumption that in that region the cold is almost as much of a threat as the zombies, so I’m not positive what sorts of shelter the mountains would provide. If memory serves, most of that region is very old metamorphic rocks that aren’t prone to cave formation. This would severely limit shelter from the elements without a good source of building materials or the means to produce them. I would amend the list to fire axe, body armor (winterized), fire kit, wrist rocket. In scavenging, I would prioritize a survival machete, a pack, the aforementioned claiming gear, and real medical supplies (suture needle, sterile gauze, strong thread or monofilament fishing line). Once I am able to secure somewhere to put a cache, that expands to a charged car battery or 3, jumper cables, basic carpenter tools, many many tarps, and as many fluid containers as I can get my hands on. Russian winters are no joke and without the tarps, drying enough wood to survive would be hell. The tarps would he enough to make a sealed drying environment until a kiln dryer could be constructed. Of course, all of this is predicated on being able to secure an area that has materials and is remote enough that the possibility of wandering Zs becomes slim. It would probably he worth finding a camp in one of the transitional zones between the swamps and mountains so the swamp can act as a natural trap/barrier to Z traversal so it only requires minimal fortification.
I’d say there’s enough stuff that can be turned into fire starter should you have time to dry it (and under a good cover with relatively strong winds and relatively low humidity for the area it will take several days to dry thin starters and months to dry firewood, so tarp won’t help you that much in the short run). Generally, if you’re in the wild in winter in northwestern Russia without already stored dry firewood or other fuel, your chances of survival are fairly questionable to begin with.
Yes, there aren’t many caves in there and terrain is very hard. Constructing a cover is not a trivial task. Normally in this environment survivalists resort to self-made tents or dig into the ground (latter being less popular in the winter, for obvious reasons), but both are fairly useless in a zombie apocalypse for the reasons you’ve already outlined. Mountain and treetop constructions will suffer severely from strong cold winds.
Realistically though, you cannot survive the wilderness of northwestern Russia (and a lot of wilderness for that matter) with just 4 objects. You’ll strike a way better chance by finding a remote village. Yes, you might have to ward off zombies, but, as you mentioned, environment will be less of an issue, and environment here is certainly deadly.
Yeah, that is a really rough place to survive in a non-apocalyptic scenario. I think focused active scavenging on the way out of civilization would be the key to making it. Then finding/setting up a village would be the next key to long-term survival.
I’m glad that I was able to reevaluate with better accuracy. This was fun.
I honestly didn’t expect you to, but that was fun to me too!