At my Flickr account I received a good question from an Australian user, tanetahi. In his comment to one of my first autumn pics he wrote:
Do people get depressed or complain much about the cold as you progress from summer to winter in Yakutsk, or is the severe climate just accepted as an inevitable part of life there?
My answer was “September and the early October are very depressive. No, we don’t complain about the upcoming cold. We just regret sunny summer days are over, and we have to prepare to the long winter.” That’s actually depressive.
Further, please, see the slideshow with Yakutsk autumn photos. 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…
The one day trip to the village of Namzy located north off Yakutsk. 1 hour by a car. Date: Aug. 5, 2009. Further, please, find the slideshow. Read more…
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…
If you have been thinking about hunting in Yakutia in autumn, check out the pictures of what it can be. Read more…
That’s great news. Czech OFF SIBERIA adventure motorcyclists Tomáš Holman and Eva Krečová, who are traveling across Russia on one BMW bike, allowed me to post their travel photos taken on the Road of Bones this summer. They rode from Yakutsk to Magadan via the old route Kyubeme – Tomtor – Kadykchan (Magadan Oblast).
In a previous post 2009 August Road Report: the condition of the Kolyma Highway (the Road of Bones) in Oymyakonsky Ulus I gave information on the current road condition using some Tomas and Eva’s report. This time I am up to show pictures of how it looked like. Read more…
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…
Maybe, it’s a little bit late at this point. Navigation on the Lena River, that usually lasts from early June till late September, is coming to the end. However, I think the following info will appear to be useful in the future.
I found out two alternative ways of traveling the Lena River on parts Ust-Kut – Lensk and Olekminsk – Yakutsk. Read more…
So… Two UK adventurous bikers of the Sibirsky Extreme travel motorcycle expedition have just ridden the Kolyma Highway. They had left Yakutsk on Thursday afternoon and arrived in Magadan on Sunday evening. 2100 km, 3.5 days, and 7 tyre changes! What did they say about the federal road?
The road was a little better than the Vilyuisky Trakt, but only a little better. There were still long gravelly sections, the odd sandy patch.
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.
