Editorial

Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Just wondering… Will the blog visitors, who love travelling and free downloading at the same time, be enough grateful for what I am going to do now? Damn, I am really up to let the world download the Kolyma Highway travel map for free. Read more…

Walter Colebatch, the UK Sibirsky Extreme moto adventure project leader, returned to Yakutia from Baikal. He said good bye to his fellows Tony and Terry, who went back home to England. At that moment, he thought “I still harboured a burning ambition to get to the Arctic Circle in Asia… I just had enough time before the seasons changed to try one more time to get North from Udachny.”

As two months ago, he hit the same route Ust-Kut – Lensk – Mirny – Chernyshevsky – Morkoka – Aikhal – Udachny and finally reached the place just a few kilometers before the Arctic Circle, the place that had stopped him and Tony last time round.

“The river then had been full of water, and rain was falling,” wrote Walter. “Now it was colder, but the sky was half blue. I approached the marker on my GPS that indicated the limit of our travels last time and took a photo. Now it was all dry road. Just 100 metres ahead there was the River … One look told me the river was 3-4 metre wide and at least 1 metre deep. I walked the shallowest part … My arse got cold and wet. That wont work on the bike, especially considering the current as well.”

Further, please, find more of Walter’s travelogue plus the scanned maps of the Anabar Road. Read more…

What had been happening at 1930s on the territory of East Yakutia was really awefull. Watch the short documentary “Kolyma” made by SDMediaEU for the TV series “Siberian Impressions.” Terrible feelings after watching the video. Especially the scenes with human bones. But we can’t do anything about it. That’s history and the worst part.

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Yeah! That’s right. Wood buffaloes do live in Yakutia, i.e. in Siberia. They were transported in April 2006 from Edmonton, Canada. Since then the quantity of bisons was increased from 26 up to 39. 6 calves were born in 2008, and 7 in 2009. They are doing pretty well, have reacclimatized successfully on the land, where their ancestors had used to live thousands years ago. Read more…

2009 Ysyakh in Yakutsk

June 16, 2009

Osuokhai, Sakha national dance
More pics of previous Ysyakh at Flickr.com

This summer Yakutsk’s Ysyakh (Ысыах), Yakut national holidays, will be held on June 27-28, 2009. Location is Ys Khatyn (Yс Хатынг), 20 minutes by car northward from Yakutsk, near the settlement of Zhatai (Жатай). The opening ceremony will take place on the first day, Saturday, at 12.00.

Note: Yakutsk Ysyakh takes place traditionally on the last weekend of June.

An Oymyakon-based travel enthusiast, Semen Baishev, informed me that in the course of summer he is going to arrange tours to the legendary Labynkyr Lake that is famous for a monster. Read more…

That’s really great news. Yakutia Airlines made breakthrough, irrespective of the world crisis. At present, travelers may reach Magadan and then Petropavlosk Kamchatsk from Yakutsk by Flight 409. The airplane departs weekly on Saturday. One-way ticket costs around 20000 rubles (~450 EUR). Read more…

Praise God, Yakutia Airlines launched the flight tickets online reservation service. Here is the link: http://ticketshop.yakutia.ru/en/ So, now any international traveller can arrange round trips to and within the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).

The flight reservation website is standard and simple. It contains four departments, “Book a flight”, “Flight Schedule”, “Payment”, and “Contact”. Read more…

That’s the invitation offered in the following presentation video about the economy of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in English. Dubbing is not mine. Done by a local TV presenter with an obvious Russian accent :) Read more…

I am back

March 25, 2009

Sorry for my keeping silence. Was out of the city. Made a few trips. The first one was to Moscow where I had three-week study, the other was a journey to Ytyk Kyuel, East Yakutia. Plus I was in charge of one big kids’ event in Yakutsk. And I received the message from my hosting company saying that the previous WP theme’s scripts were incorrect and they overloaded the server pretty much. So I needed to fix the problem first and then find enough time for giving the answers I received before. One of inquiries, by the way, regards the Valley of Death. Now I am back.