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.
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.
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.
Address: 21 Lenin Avenue (проспект Ленина, дом 21), Yakutsk/Russia. How to get: From the airport by a taxi (~20 min, 150-250 rubles, max. 300 rubles, don’t pay more for the ride) or by buses # 4, 14, 109 (30-35 min, 15 rubles for one way, bus driver might ask to pay extra for huge luggages). How to book: by phone +7 (4112) 42-13-92. In Russian only. Type: appartment-based hotel/hostel.
On the map: see the below.
It is located in a Stalin-like appartment building in the very center of Yakutsk. On the main street, Lenin Ave. Across the road in front of ALROSA s 4-stars hotel Polar Star. Click the photo to enlarge.
Nina and Nikolay Stenins, hostel owners in Khandyga. With Bjoern Steinz, a German photographer on the right side.
Here is information about where to stay for night in Khandyga. There are three hotels, but I recommend to stay at Nina & Nikolay Stenins’ place.
Back to hotels. One is called Presidential Hotel (the official name is different, but that’s the way, how people call it). It is a few-storeyed concrete hotel, where the 2nd President of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) Vyacheslav Shtyrov prefered to stay. As you know, he was born in Khandyga. Who can stay there? First of all, those ones, who were invited by the administration of the Tomponsky region and major locally-based companies. The second in the rating list is known as Vedomstvennaya (it is also people’s name). Usually it hosts people arrived to visit organizations in Khandyga. Actually it is a big appartment with three big bedrooms, shared kitchen, shared lounge, shared bathroom. To stay in Presidential and Vedomstvennaya costs not less 1500 rubles per night. The worst option is the third one called Hotel of Khandyga. It is a ready-to-sink two-storeyed wooden building with a dozen of shared rooms, one toilet and without kitchen and bath. It is cheap and used by guests arrived from nearest regions. If you decide to spend night in this hotel, please, keep your room closed with a locker. That may protect you from drunk neighbours :)
The best option, I think, is the Stenins’ place. Read more…
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…
The Polish Long Walk Plus Expedition. The start. Up the Lena River from Yakutsk to Ust Kut
“..Long Walk Plus Expedition has just started! Two weeks ago we set out from Yakutsk to Olekmnisk. Since that time we have dozens of adventures but what’s the most important we met extremely a lot of wonderful people. Every place we visited we were welcome with great hospitality. We traveled by bus, car, motor boats and at last on foot,” writes Tomasz Grzywaczewski, an expedition cameraman, in today’s travel note especially for AskYakutia.com.
Okey, let’s start the story from its very beginning. Two and a half weeks ago three Polish guys appeared in Yakutsk. They were hosted in the city’s Catholic church and were accompanied by Valentina Shimanskaya, chairman of Yakutsk Polish community. Certainly, our ways crossed, and these young Poles asked me, “Have you heard about the book Slavomir Rawicz’s The Long Walk?” I said, “Sure. It’s a real story about the Polish prisoner, who escaped from Gulag and walked southward to India.” And they were like, “Yeah, but you know what?! Its author says that it was him, who escaped to British India, but in reality the depicted character appeared to be another Pole, who lives now in the UK in poverty. A true hero is Witold Glinski. He didn’t earn anything from the book revenues, because he is very modest and unpretentious, and the publishing house was too authoritative to convince him to keep silence.”
An American Ian was asking me recently, “I am wondering how the lack of sunlight effects people in the long winter months. How many hours of daylight do you have, and it is dreadful? In summer, are the days extremely long? I am fascinated by your home.”
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.
