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.
An American motorbiker, Ben Myburgh, in Yakutsk before his ride on the Kolyma Highway also known as the Road of Bones.
Yesterday, an American motorbiker, Ben Myburgh, arrived in Yakutsk. He made the way from Portugal to Yakutsk via Moscow and Mongolia. Today he is starting his journey the Kolyma Highway from Yakutsk to Magadan.
When he arrived, he got a few questions, but his most important request was, Where to buy a front wheel tube for his BWM F800 motorcycle in Yakutsk? Everything is cool with his current tubes, but he wanted to have one more for replacement.
A ferry on the Lena River near Yakutsk on Nov. 15th, 2010. Photo by Alexander Li, Yakutsk Vecherny Newspaper, Vecherka.Ykt.ru
Is it possible to cross the Lena River near the Siberian city of Yakutsk in November? This is a really good question. The answer is Yes and No. Everything depends on weather, precisely, on the condition of the ice cover on the Lena River.
November is the period of transition and so-called freezing-over. It’s time for the Lena River to get frozen, acquire ice cover thick enough for the use of ice river roads.
Keep in mind, there are no bridges over the Siberian river of Lena at all. The river might be crossed by ferry (in navigation period) or ice roads (in winter).
Captain Magadan on the Road of Bones. Aug. 2010, Yakutia, Siberia.
This year’s summer and early autumn the Kolyma Highway (the Road of Bones), located, as you know, between Yakutsk and Magadan, was pretty busy… in terms of hosting adventure motor bikers from many nations.
So if you’ve got questions about the current summer-autumn Road of Bones condition, please, check the following list of adventure motorcycle travellers, whom I personally met or learned about, and you can get in touch with them and require more detailed info.
What did they report? General road information remains almost the same as I described in previous posts filed under tags, Road of Bones and Kolyma Highway.
Magadan drivers compiled the so-called road legend (description of roads) for the route Magadan – Yakutsk – Bolshoi Never – Chita. They gathered information on settlements, distances and availability of gas (fuel) stations, cafes, repairs shops, places to stay for nights, road police stations, roads condition, etc.
Everything is presented in one .xls file in Russian. Bisides, authors indicated their contacts. If you’ve got any question, please, feel free to get in touch with them. One thing to remember. They speak Russian.
For instance, distance between Yakutsk and Magadan is 2024 km, between Bolshoi Never and Yakutsk is 1157 km.
Though I am based in Yakutia, I am often asked about the availability of any GPS maps for the roads of Magadan Oblast. Well, here are a few links for downloading such files.
Watch the real Siberian video done on the Kolyma Highway (the Road of Bones) by Oisin Hughes, an Irish adventure biker, who yesterday made it to Magadan from Yakutsk just for 4 days only. In this vid you will see, how close to the edge he was biking in the Verkhoyansky mountain area. Fantastic and thrilling! That’s Siberia! That’s the Siberian challenge!
Oisin says, “Jesus, I nearly died when i rewatched it… Got way way way too close to the edge here, gives me the colly wobbles just looking at it…”
My comment will be simple. While being early in this summer, he was really lucky. Weather was awesome. Sunny and no rains. But… the end of his biking happened to be not so much exciting.
Further, please, find what happened and get the information on the current condition of the Road of Bones (the Khandyga – Kyubyume part). Read more…
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…
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.
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…
Marat Zalyalov, a local mountain cyclist, gave quick tips to an Italian biker Dan, who had written to me as follows:
“Your site is really useful, but I didn’t find anything about cycling… So hope you could help me… I’m used to travel by bicycle in hard conditions, and your country looks amazing… Questions: what do I must focus on? Dangers and problems? Any suggestion?.. I am planning to cycle the Kolyma Highway [the Road Bones] this summer. Thanks in advance.”
Yeah, that’s true. I didn’t write much about cycling opportunities in Yakutia. The last post was “Video & Photos: Winter cycling on the Road of Bones.” I have many local friends of mine, who are big fans of long distance cycling. I asked them very often. I was really annoying repeating “Give me your tips. Give me your tips.” Praise god, Dan’s request was a good reason to torture Marat once again, and finally he did. He dedicated some of his precious time [ :) ] for sharing with quick tips in English. Read more…
