It must be a great honor for me. It’s not the first time when I am asked to post a press release. This time the 2009 Yakutsk Mammoth Tusks Auction organizing committee addressed me with the request to share the event announcement. Well… Here we go.

1. Official name and address of the Auction organizing party
Open Joint-Stock Company “SakhaEXPOMammoth”, building 24, Vilyuiskiy trakt, 4th km, Yakutsk, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Russian Federation

2. Subject of the Auction
The subject of the Auction is the right to conclude a purchase-sell contract on mammoth tusks and other mammoth fauna – both raw and partially processed – to juridical entities and natural persons.

3. Time and place of the Auction

Date: December 9, 2009
Place: Auditorium, 8th floor, block B, Business center, Kirova str. 18, Yakutsk, Russian Federation

4. General Provisions

● The Auction is held in pursuance of the Decree of the President of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) dated March 30, 2005 N2044 “Of a special status of natural resources – fossil remains of mammoth fauna – and regulation of its circulation on the territory of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)”, to attain realistic price-formation on mammoth tusks and other mammoth fauna, obtained on the territory of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).
● The Auction is held in an open form with public bidding.
● The organizing party of the Auction is Open Joint-Stock Company “SakhaEXPOMammoth” with the assistance of the State Committee of Geology and Use of Natural Resources of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) and the Ministry of External Relations of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).
● The sellers at the Auction are juridical entities and natural persons of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), having ownership rights of the subject of the Auction.
● The Bidders of the Auction are legal entities and natural persons, having submitted the application forms and other documents required by the present General Provisions in due terms and having paid the registration fee for participation in the Auction.
● Foreign juridical entities and natural persons are admitted to the Auction providing that they conform to the requirements set by the Russian Federation legislation.
● The winner of the Auction shall be the bidder bidding the highest price for a lot.

5. Additional information

The Auction participants – sellers may put in storage their selling mammoth tusks in advance to the Open Joint-Stock Company “SakhaEXPOMammoth”.

The Auction participants may obtain additional information, read the Condition and Terms of the Auction, and submit the application form to the address given below weekdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. local time.

Contact Info:
Address: Building 24, Vilyuiskiy trakt, 4th km, Yakutsk, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), 677008.
Tel/fax: +7-4112-368401

Deadline
The deadline for submitting the application forms is set as: December 4, 2009, 3 p.m. Yakutsk time (GMT + 09:00).

Download 2009YakutskMammothTusksAuction.zip (223Kb) with the auction documentation (application form, program, the Decree of Yakutia’s President, information on regulations, Auction Committee, Conciliatory Committee).

On Nov. 4, 2009, in Yakutsk, the capital of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), a group of three people descended into the world’s deepest ice vertical tunnel, Shergin’s Shaft, that had been buried and forgotten for more than half a century. It was the important historical, scientific, cultural event called “The Storm of Shergin’s Shaft” designed to get a few rare samples for permafrost researchers and show a new way to observe never-melting, frozen soil layers.

A cameraman Marina Kalinina, the Republic’s airborne rescue detachment chief Eugene Zolkin and a popular Russian TV producer, founder and presenter of TV Shows “Seekers” (Искатели) and “Seekers of Yakutia” Andrey E (Khoroshev) descended into the shaft with the depth of 116 and a half meters.

The event had been planned thoroughly and in details. Security was provided by the Republic’s airborne rescue team. On the day of the descent, outdoor temperature was minus 19 degrees Centigrade, but inside the shaft it was minus 4 degrees Centigrade only.

While descending, the participants were recording the action by a portative videocam. Spectators could watch and follow the operation live on a big monitor set on an ordinary passenger bus outside of the shaft. Going down through frozen ground layers, the trio commented their feelings and amazing views via radio-walkers.

The only lady in the team, Marina Kalinina, managed to reach 30 meters deep. However, the descent made a deep impression on her, she was charmed by ice-crystal soil. She said she felt as if she had been cleaned from negative information.

At a depth of 104 meters, Andrey E and Eugene Zolkin found out that the further way down was narrowed and blocked by ice and building wastes. Going further below appeared to be dangerous. Despite of that sudden stop, there were no doubts the event resulted in scientific success. At the shaft mouth, a rescue officer dug samples for permafrost researchers of the famous Yakutsk-based P. Melnikov’s Permafrost Institute and other scientific research institutions.

It is necessary to mention that Shergin’s Shaft was buried for more than half a century. There were several unsuccessful attempts of reconstructing the ice vertical tunnel. All of them were crashed into officials’ indifference.

Only this year enthusiasts, people of different occupations, get united and eventually overcame bureaucracy. All required papers, permissions, and signatures were received in the course of almost one year to begin the restoration work.

The shaft was finally drilled down and reconstructed, and the wooden shed around the drew-well acquired its personal signboard, and the first group of people used its long-awaited opportunity to descend the world’s deepest vertical tunnel in permafrost.

The shaft restoration was initiated, arranged and successfully completed with the help of the Yakutsk Affiliate of Baikal Economics & Law State University, P. Melnikov’s Permafrost Institute at the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Science, and the Airborne Rescue Detachment of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).

History of Shergin’s Shaft

In 1827, a descendant of Veliky Ustyug, employee of the Russian-American joint-trade company, merchant Fyodor Shergin started digging up a well in the yard of his house to obtain drinking water. Two years later, having dug a reservoir of 15 meters deep and not reached water-level, he stopped the work. In 1829 scientists persuaded him to continue digging for scientific purposes. Shergin began measuring temperature inside the shaft till 1837. As a result, the Russian merchant’s work became famous in Europe and America.

Shergin’s shaft has an important cultural, historical value. It is unique since it is the deepest shaft in the world dug in the permafrost zone. Measuring of temperature almost two centuries ago founded a new world science – geocriology (science about permafrost), without which the North development would have been impossible. As readers might know, Yakutsk is considered to be the cradle of this science.

Information acquired inside the ice vertical tunnel helped to determine that the depth of permafrost in Yakutsk is 210 meters. It was a real discovery. Before those scientific researches, many outside scientists were doubtful about the existence of the permafrost of such immense power. Yakutsk experimental results proved the fact of deep ground freezing.

Taking into consideration the experience of the shaft research, international scientists started measuring permafrost temperature in Canada and Alaska. European scientists, who used to deny the existence of such nature phenomenon as permafrost in forest zones, accepted it as a scientific fact.

Contact information

Andrey E.
Project Leader
www.bguep-yakutsk.ru (in Russian)
shaxta_shergina@mail.ru
+7-924-46-11-016

Three Valleys Innovation Technopark invites international companies to join the permanent online exhibition “New Technologies and Innovations for the Economy of Sakha Republic (Yakutia)”.

The aims of the Online Exposition are to attract domestic and foreign advanced technologies into the main sectors of our economy, to support entrepreneurial activity in Yakutia region and stimulate technological cooperation.

Online exposition is known as innovative and actively developing form of exhibition, characterized by high efficiency level and low expense costs.

In order to promote Online Expositions, Expo.Ykt.Ru is worked out. It is now a prestigious Yaknet platform, where leading enterprises of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) have already been introduced.

We invite foreign developers, producers, suppliers of new technologies, service companies to announce Your products, technologies and services in the Exposition sections:

• building industry
• transport
• energy efficiency, housing and communal services
• food
• agriculture

The exhibition is to be accompanied by an advertising campaign, including leading Sakha Republic (Yakutia) media, outdoor advertising and information network Ykt.Ru facilities.

We focus on a long-term cooperation, development of new industries in our republic and therefore offer the Online Exposition participants various forms of co-operation.

For more information:

visit the website New Technologies and Innovations for the Economy of Sakha Republic (Yakutia) (in Russian)
call the manager by skype user threevalleysusu
mail to: platonova@yaknet.com

Andrew I with a creative studio “A Novigator” announced a descent to the deepest well in the world, Shergin’s shaft, to take place in Yakutsk on October 20, 2009. Update, 21.10.2009: The even was postponed till November 04, 2009.

An exclusive speleological tour into the unique well, that is 116 meters deep, as long as a 40-store building,and surrounded with permafrost!

The hole of this well was dug in permafrost for more than 10 years. A construction was finished in 1829. Fyodor Shergin was a manager of a joint trade Russian-American company (a joint trade Russian-American company manager) and he leaded this construction. Not knowing about deepness of permafrost seam, Shergin argued that he would obtain water. But he couldn’t do it. Deepness of permafrost seam lies 225 meters down in this region.

The shaft has been used for scientific purposes by the Russian Academy since then. It served as a jolt to originate and to develop a new scientific direction.

Generally admitted Shergin’s shaft is considered to be a crandle of geocreology (or permafrost)!

Only several persons have been at the bottom of the well for the whole period of its existence. Risking very much, they were descended to the well by a hemp rope due to the windlass specially made.

The bottom of the well was descended last in 1934.

In 1942 the rope of the descending device was broken off under the mysterious circumstances.

In the eighties because of thawing water in the upper part of the well a glacial stopper had appeared which insulated the shaft from the outside world.

In 2007 a project of Shergin’s shaft restoration was elaborated by the initiative group of Andrew I with the creative studio and “The Novigator”.

During this period there was a large number of skeptics who made the most pessimistic predictions that the well was full of water, ice and fragments of broken rope.

In winter 2009 specialists from the SS RAS Institute of Permafrost carried out a test drilling the upper part of the well. This drilling confirmed “The Novigator” expectations that thickness of the icy stopper was more than 10 meters.

In June 2009 a specially prepared by “The Novigator” specialists video-finder was put down through the hole of 20 centimeters in diameter. A unique videomaterial about shaft videofixation till 110 meters depth was received.

The well was finally kept. There are several well-holes without any timberlings except some parts of the shaft strengthened with larch ones. The upper part of isolated stopper ends with icy stalactites. There is one more stopper from icy formations with thickness of 2 meters to a depth of 20 meters. This stopper is not full of ice, but it has got a hole in it.

The lower part of the shaft has a deep effect of ice crystals with amazing beauty which cover the walls (covering the walls). The larch timberlings look like as if they had been installed yesterday, not more than 160 years ago.

As a result of this work a documentary film “A descent” will be on in the very near future.

Nobody has been at the bottom of the well for more than 70 years.

The intrigue of the forthcoming descent to the bottom of the well is connected with mysteries and legends:
• According to the first legend Fyodor Shergin hid some value at the bottom of the well including a ring with a diamond which he was awarded by the emperor Nickolai I.
• In the days of the Soviet Union this shaft was equipped for carrying out secret tests.
• In the depth of the well (everywhere in permafrost) there are unexplicable anomalous phenomena.

Except this there is an objective difference in forthcoming descent organization.

If there is the lack of minus temperatures on the outside, air ventilation doesn’t occur inside the shaft, that’s why there is no any oxygen at the bottom of the well.

On the 20th of October in 2009 the ice stopper in the mouth of the well will be open. An assault team consisting of four persons equipped with potable videocams will descend at the bottom according to a TV show “Shergin’s shaft storm show”.

In the future it is planned, not changing the configuration of the shaft, to organize an exclusive speleological tour for extremists.

It will be a descent to the Shergin’s shaft bottom! (in mountain outfit).

The speleological tour of maxi extrim will be held in summer when there is no oxygen at the bottom of the well.

There is hardly the same place anywhere in the world except Yakutia!

The name of the project with four “Ss” in abbreviation joined together symbolizes an ancient Solar symbol and a square. Sun sign personifies endless ways of life, directed by nature. A square with rays reminds an outline of the well with walls strengthened by wood. The well is open.

It symbolizes a good sign and good luck.

Andrew I
leader of creative studio “The Novigator”.
shaxta_shergina@mail.ru
+7-924-46-11-016