A presentation picture of the Museum of Gulags located in Khandyga, Siberia/Russia
Last two days I spent at 2011 Sakha Travel Exhibition in Yakutsk. It is an annual event held during the first weekend of April. I attend the exhibit just to find new travel enthusiasts from various regions of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).
This time I was lucky to meet Mr. Ivan Igoshin from the settlement of Khandyga. He knows almost everything about history of GULAGs in Siberia, as he is the founder of Yakutia Gulags Museum. Right, it is located in Khandyga, where he lives. You can see him in the picture with a tower. Besides, he is a leader of Khandyga Travel Club.
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Proud to announce the opening of the photo exhibition “On the Road of Bones: Ghosts of the Siberian Gulag Along the Old Kolyma Highway” at Kris Waldherr Art and Words studio gallery in Brooklyn, New York, today.
About exhibition
Through photography and mixed media, “On the Road of Bones” reveals the secret history and hidden landscape of Kolyma, formerly the land of Soviet labor camps and the coldest inhabited region on earth. Stunning new works by young native Siberian photographers Bolot Bochkarev, Nastya Borisova, and Ajar Varlamov trace the remains of the vast highway built across the taiga, tundra, and permafrost of North Asia by Stalin’s prisoners. The exhibition juxtaposes the tragic events of the past with the powerful natural beauty of the frozen land and the daily lives of northern people.
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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…
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
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Yeah, what does the West know about Yakutia? This question a RIA Novosti correspondent asked Eric Hoesli, writer, journalist and Editorial Director of Edipresse, Switzerland, who arrived to Yakutsk with the purpose to participate in the meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club. His answer was interesting. Partly I agree, partly not. Check yourself. Read more…
Three Valleys Innovation Technopark invites international companies to join the permanent online exhibition “New Technologies and Innovations for the Economy of Sakha Republic (Yakutia)”. Read more…
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! Read more…

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 Australian based in Hong Kong keeps asking me. He wrote “A number of travel agents, like tour operator Olympia-Reisen-Sibir, are advertising an Artic cruise tour to Tiksi on the Mikhail Svetlov from July 21 to August 3 (arriving back 3am on August 3.)” Read more…
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…