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.
Well, it seems Oymyakon is currently a very hot news story topic in the European media. Last days brought many requests from there and all of them about the way of life in the coldest inhabited place in Siberia’s Yakutia.
The last one arrived from Madrid’s La Razon. A Spanish reporter wrote:
It would be also very usefull if you could tell us some aspects about this place:
-¿Do they have train? ¿Why?
-¿Do they have a motorway? ¿Since when?
-How many months winter last there? Is it true it takes nine months?
-Is it true summer is complicated because of thaw?
-What are their most frequent health problems? ¿Because of cold?
-What problems do they find in their daylife because of low temperatures?
Frankly saying, all answers to the above questions are already written on the blog AskYakutia.com, i.e. in posts tagged as Oymyakon and the Pole of Cold. To find them will take time for sure. Of course, it’s easier and faster to ask than to search required info on the resource. Indeed, that’s the philosophy of this website. Well, if I received a request, I need to answer.
I decided to make a post with listed questions about Oymyakon, because I found them frequently asked and, yeah, they are very fascinating.
Western media representatives, please, keep in mind one important thing! Oymyakon is not a part of technology- and communication advanced Europe, Asia or North America. It is located in the very depth of Siberia! People in Oymyakon live their ordinary Siberian village life.
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.
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…
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.
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…
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…
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…
