This road was built by the inmates of Gulag camps, most of them were buried along the way. That’s why it’s named the Road of Bones. Read more…
Video
Thanks to Eva Krečová, I’ve eventually watched the Long Way Round episode dedicated the Road of Bones. So many years past, but it happened now only. If you weren’t lucky to see it, just do it and consider your traveling this way. Must be a lot of fun and adventure stories.
Btw, Eva Krečová & Tomáš Holman are the Czech travel motorcyclists, who repeated the same journey along the Road of Bones in August 2009, but alone on one BMW bike and without local truckers’ help. Check their set of Kolyma Highways photographs.
Watch other parts of the episode. Keep in mind that Ewan and Charley’s biking took place in June 2004. May and June is the period, when local rivers tend to be furious and full of high waters. The safer period is August. Read more…
Check ExUmira2‘s video. Here’s info: Read more…
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.
In March 2007, a few friends of mine, Yakutsk-based adventure cyclists, Marat, Maverick & Scorpion (don’t know why, but they call each others by nicks), traveled from Yakutsk to Oymyakon, the Pole of Cold. A funny thing. They documented the expedition pretty good. They’ve got a lot of high resolutions photographs, perfect videos and… Since the travel they couldn’t find time to make the full report.
Recently Marat promised me to make his report with pictures. Time is passing, but he didn’t finish his text yet. Well… While he is trying to find spare time, I decided to create my own post using some of his photos and the video done by Maverick for friends’ fun and digged out occasionally in the archive. Here is what we have by now.
Why not celebrate the New Year in Yakutia?! You will be surrounded with the extreme cold and real Yakutian hospitality. The Siberian winter is fun and worth to try it! Don’t you think so?
By the way, this is the first time, when I realized what a wonderful New Year we have here, on the coldest place on the Earth, and I thought why not to share this exotic experience with others :) Further, please, see our warm NY greetings in the cold, cold and exotic, exotic surroundings. 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.
Thanks to my writing about Yakutia for international readers, I have a unique opportunity to communicate with very interesting people. One of them is Rob Lilwall, a travel cyclist of London. Five years ago, he decided to embark on the journey of his life.
Bored of his work as a geography teacher in England, Rob eventually packed his panniers and took his bike for an adventure. He flew as far from England as possible. To Magadan. That was where he and his old school friend, Al Humphreys, hit the Road of Bones. It was the end of September and the beginning of a Siberian winter. At that point everything seemed perfect.
A month after he wrote 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…
“Yakutsk, Cherrapunji, Hammerfest, La Paz… these are the cities that top the charts. They struggle doggedly against the toughest environmental conditions on our planet to provide their populations with an acceptable level of existence. These cities persist and continue flourishing in places where normally only traditional villages would be expected to survive…”
That’s how the description of France-based Zadig Production’s documentary film “Extreme Cities” starts. It was the ZP crew I did assist a little in terms of information and contacts prior to its visit in Yakutsk a year ago. In my turn, I am proud to share the promo video of “Extreme Cities: Episode One YAKUTSK” with a film’s annotation. Read more…
