Hi! My name is Bolot. I am a journalist. Based in Yakutsk. Ask me a question about the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Siberia / Russia, and get the answer.
Oisin Hughes, an Irish Giant, is the first adventure biker of summer 2010, who arrived on his motobike to Yakutia on the way to Magadan. Yesterday he made it to Yakutsk from Tynda. He spent two days on the road. Really fast! This morning (pretty early, at 8.00 am) on my way to the office, I found him in Lena Hotel. Actually, I woke him up… Read more…
The Polish Long Walk Plus Expedition. The start. Up the Lena River from Yakutsk to Ust Kut
“..Long Walk Plus Expedition has just started! Two weeks ago we set out from Yakutsk to Olekmnisk. Since that time we have dozens of adventures but what’s the most important we met extremely a lot of wonderful people. Every place we visited we were welcome with great hospitality. We traveled by bus, car, motor boats and at last on foot,” writes Tomasz Grzywaczewski, an expedition cameraman, in today’s travel note especially for AskYakutia.com.
Okey, let’s start the story from its very beginning. Two and a half weeks ago three Polish guys appeared in Yakutsk. They were hosted in the city’s Catholic church and were accompanied by Valentina Shimanskaya, chairman of Yakutsk Polish community. Certainly, our ways crossed, and these young Poles asked me, “Have you heard about the book Slavomir Rawicz’s The Long Walk?” I said, “Sure. It’s a real story about the Polish prisoner, who escaped from Gulag and walked southward to India.” And they were like, “Yeah, but you know what?! Its author says that it was him, who escaped to British India, but in reality the depicted character appeared to be another Pole, who lives now in the UK in poverty. A true hero is Witold Glinski. He didn’t earn anything from the book revenues, because he is very modest and unpretentious, and the publishing house was too authoritative to convince him to keep silence.”
An American Ian was asking me recently, “I am wondering how the lack of sunlight effects people in the long winter months. How many hours of daylight do you have, and it is dreadful? In summer, are the days extremely long? I am fascinated by your home.”
Received questions from Montenegro’s Round-The-World Motorcycle Expedition (www.theridearound2010.com), that plans to go through Yakutia (Sakha), Magadan Oblast and Chukotka to Alaska. Here is what they wrote:
“Three of us will be traveling around the world on our motorcycles. Somewhere around July 10th we will be in Chita and from there we want to travel to Magadan. Our questions are: 1. We have seen on the maps that there is a road (not the old road) from Yakutsk to Magadan? Is this true or will we have to use the old Road of Bones? 2. Do you know are there regular flights from Magadan to Anadyr? Is there, maybe, a possibility to travel by ship from Magadan to Alaska? 3. Do we need a special permit for Chukotka? In the Russian Embassy in Montenegro we were told that it is not necessary.”
Before clicking the link “Read more”, I would like to let you know that I am always online. I keep answering questions without any pauses. Just not all of questions with answers were published at AskYakutia.com. I am blogging, when I have free time between the family life and work. This is a little off-top remark.
Often I receive requests from foreign/international journalists, who are coming to Russia and being confused about the required type of the Russian visa. Their questions usually sound like, “I’ve got an assignment and I plan my travel to Russia. What type of the Russian visa I need and how can I get it?” The last one was asked from the USA, and it said, “Do you foresee any hidden obstacles we may run into while bringing journalists on the trip?”
I know examples, when international journalists entered Russia with business or tourists visas. Those, who were assigned by newspapers or magazines to make stories on travel opportunities, didn’t experience any troubles, because they came as travelers, they didn’t take any interviews with officials, they didn’t go to any restricted areas, and they just kept writing harmless travel notes about hotels, restaurants, tours, lifestyle, and etc. Right, behaving that way, they didn’t attract much attention from migration officers and any other services.
However, I know other examples I’ve heard from local travel companies. Journalists acted in the above described manner, everything looked fine, until they went through regular police checks, and they were found out as journalists on assignment, and instead of showing press/media visas, they displayed their travel/business ones. That was the start of their troubles.
I am very interested in international reporters’ coming to Siberia’s Yakutia and making PR pieces. That’s why I am writing this post with the main idea, “To make the travel as smooth as possible, it will be good to arrange everything in the appropriate way.” Believe me, the procedure of getting the press/media visa is pretty simple. Read more…
Vaselisa Popova, my new contact in Verkhoyansk, Yakutis, Siberia.
Good news to all travelers, who are interested in Sangar (the Kobyajsky region) and Verkhoyansk. I visited the 2010 Sakha Travel Exhibition held at Polar Hotel in Yakutsk on April 9-10, 2010. Finally, I acquainted with travel enthusiasts from those places. You can see them in the photographs.
The Kobyajsky region is famous for its fantastic fishing and rafting near Segyan Kyol as well as its Even nomads‘ settlement of Sebjan Kyol in the Verkhoyansky Range. Read more…
Walter Colebatch, the UK Sibirsky Extreme motor travel expedition leader, informed me about realising the the preview of the DVD with the documentary of the last year journey across Siberia, including Yakutia. In this short video you can see his travelling many Siberian roads. Yakutia is shown with… Read more…
Yakutsk Permafrost Institute with its underground laboratory in the form of tunnel is a sort of a must-to-see sight in the capital of Siberia’s Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). It is the most visited by international guests.
The last year before The Copenhagen Climate Change Summit it became a real Mecca to international journalists, who wanted to know whether the global warming affected the life of the only city in the world, that was entirely built on permafrost.
An Austrian traveler Hannes, who visited Oymyakon, the Pole of Cold, this past January, was so impressed with the Yakut folk music that he asked me to provide him links to online resources, where he could download mp3 files with Yakut songs and music or purchase CDs or mp3 files somewhere on the web.
By the way, Hannes created a very nice slideshow with his photographs taken in the course of his expedition to Oymyakon. Check his video and find hyperlinks I know. Read more…
Another request came from Polish mountaineers, Maciek and Kasia. This upcoming summer they decided to trek across the whole Momsky National Park. Accordingly they asked questions as many as possible. Mainly on the route Burustakh (a settlement on the Road of Bones) – Pobeda Peak – the village of Sasyr – the village of Khonuu.
I addressed all their questions to local adventurers. One of them, known as UV58, gave me pretty good answers. Read more…
2008-2011 (c) AskYakutia.com. Powered by NameCheap.com, my best domain registering & hosting company.