Shot today. Edited today. Broadcasted on the famous Yakutsk News Channel today. Daniel Robino is a superstar!

Daniel’s URLs: his website, his expedition facebook fan page

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.

Rooms availability and rates:

1 so-called deluxe room w/ 2 beds, shower & toilet = 2000 rubles per room (if to share the room, the cost will be 1000 rubles per a bed.)
2 single rooms = 1200 rubles per a room.
2 double rooms = 1600 rubles per a room (if to share, 800 rubles per a bed).

Available also:

- Two shared toilets + 1 shared shower
- A kitchen with a gas oven, micro-wave, fridge, electric kettle, full crockery sets, washing machine, big table, chairs, etc.
- An ironing-board + an iron.
- Cable TV in each room.

Available services:

- International guests registration at the city migration service. 300 rubles per person. Everything is done at the administrator’s desk. Needed to provide copies of a passport, visa, migration card (that’s the form you fill before crossing the Russian border).
- Bath accessories, coffee and tea are provided for free.
- No Internet access.

Important note:

Booking must be done in advance, two-three weeks before arrival. That’s the only way of getting a room for sure. If to come right from the street without notification and request about room availabilty, there is a chance to hear a negative answer.

My personal rating:

It is better to stay in this hostel/guesthouse than in the previously described Metro hostel.

I found this hostel by occasion. Precisely, a Spanish cyclist stayed there and gave me a call saying that he was in the Vostok mini-hotel. I liked that place. Tiny, but pretty clean and comfortable. The hotel staff is friendly.

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.

Download the file track_fd_kolyma_m56_amur.zip.

GPS maps for the Far East and Siberia can be found at http://mapdv.ru. Check out the previous post The Road of Bones: GPS maps for Magadan Oblast as well.

Found this post useful. Please, do me a favour. Share it.

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.

Vertical maps from Map49ru.Narod.ru:

- 49rus.nm2, the map of roads for Navitel GPS Navigator v. 3.2.6.
- 49rus.rxm, the map of roads for GisRX GPS Navigator.

Direct links for downloading maps with this year’s updated information on Omsukchan, Orotukan, Talaya, etc. from virus-free files sharing servers:
НН 3.2.6
GisRX
SpeedCam

A lot of bitmapped files can be found at http://nav.lom.name/maps_scan/. Just search through and find.

Other maps will be added, once I have time and new findings.

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. A few years ago Nina and Nikolay Stenins decided to make a hotel out of their former appartment in a 2-storied wooden living building. They did it. They created the hotel “Angara.” (Address: 7 Okhlopkov Street, Apt 5, Khandyga; Nina’s contacts: mobile +79141007418, work +7-41153-41462, home +7-41153-41006, steninan@list.ru, Rate: 1000 rubles per night. 5-6 people accommodated. Booking might be done by phone or via emal.)

I regret I didn’t save the GPS coordinates of the hotel. What did we do to find them? We arrived in Khandyga and found ourselves immediately on the main street. Actually it is the only one. Stopped by the chain of relatively big stores and called Nina. Her husband, Nikolay, came to us and showed us direction. So you can do the same. After we had done with accommodation, Nikolay lead our driver to a garage, where a space was already reserved for us. We paid 300 rubles for one night parking.

Now its former apartment has a hostel look. 3 bedrooms (two big with two beds and one small with one bed, each room with a TV set), shared kitchen (with all required stuff like a fridge, a gas-stove, a microwave, a teakettle, even a thermos), bathroom (hot & cold water) and toilet. Plus they’ve got a room with a steam iron, a table, a fan, an armchair and an ash-tray. Hosts live in other apartment.

When my friends & I stayed at their place, we liked that it was pretty cosy. We felt that the so-called private hotel is kept by a family. Everything is clean, and their blankets are very warm and soft, the latter are good, when outdoor temperature is around minus 40 or 50 degree Centigrade :) Besides, I like Nina and Nikolay. They are very friendly and hospital. Oh, it’s hard to believe, but Nina can speak English.

Private hotel in Khandyga. A room I stayed in. By the way, it is the only room with the biggest TV set. It has two beds. There are also one-bed and two-bed rooms, but with a small TV.

It is a hall with a phone. When we entered, we occupied it with all our stuff. So in this pic you can see our clothes, boots, etc.

A kitchen with above-described items. We left a lot of unwashed plates and dishes. Nina said, We should not worry about it.

A room for ironing and smoking. Aaah, I should adjust a blanket on an armchair before taking a photograph.

To me, it’s hard to describe what it is. It is not homestay, because hosts live in other apartment. It is not a classical guest house, it’s based inside the living building. It is not Bed & Breakfast, cause breakfast is not served, but guests can cook whatever they want. Hostel? Maybe. Locals usually say a mini-hotel. It’s like a hotel, but small one :)

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).

WHAT EXTREME HE HAD

In the last leg of the journey, 525 km from Magadan, his motorcycle got broken. The front shock blew and he had a number of flats. He was forced to think about a ride to Magadan by lorry. Nevertheless, he managed to fix the bike and back to the road.

ROAD CONDITION NOTES

Oisin wrote:

“..Sergei [a hostel owner in Khandyga] had talked to the local truck drivers and the feedback was that for the first 100km or so the going would be, after that while the roads started to go over the mountains things could get very bad depending on the weather, but they reckoned I’d be ok…”

“..As promised the early going was straight gravel roads with very few problems and even after a hundred miles I’d scarcely had a wobble. The going was too easy if anything… I’d my first “hard stop” when I came to a river whose bridge was under construction. The construction teams had laid a trail of gravel over the water and a route to follow out onto the main road. While I was coming across the water and out onto the other side I said I’d take a short cut up the side of the bank when the bike got stuck in the stones. I did my best to get it out and failed miserably so I stayed there until a guy in a truck came along and along with some of the construction crew pushed me back up onto the road… I was lucky, someone came along in ten minutes, but I was having stretches where I didn’t see any traffic for whole hours, I gave myself a mental kick in the bollix for not being more careful and resolved to keep the whole “drive to arrive” mentality for the rest of the day…”

“..I passed a café doling out what would charitably be described as gruel… The roads started to wind upwards and around various mountains and for at least a hundred km I followed a black dusty gravel road with a leafy green border under a blue sky with mountains popping in and out of the field of view. It was a beautiful day. The only thing that takes away from your appreciation of your surroundings is that you’re so focused on the road ahead to make sure you don’t come off… As the first set of mountains faded behind me I started to hit some lots of water crossings as streams flowed down from the mountain. At each crossing I got off the bike and walked across to make sure I could get through and there wasn’t any hidden sinkholes and then walked back, got on the bike and drove through it. God bless my seal skin socks! The deepest was up to my knees and lasted for only 15 feet or so, the widest was maybe 40 feet but was much shallower…”

Follow Oisin’s around-the-world travel on his blog BackToBroke. Enjoy reading his Kolyma stories. Looking forward to learn more details of his riding the last leg of the Kolyma Highway from Ust Nera to Magadan via Susuman.

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…

Here how he looked this morning :)

I learned about his arrival from messages via Facebook (by the way, join our group) Early morning. The first one was written by Jonathan Fox, the second came from Simon Race. They are also adventure bikers, both from England. By the way, I got in touch with Oisin on Facebook before as well. He asked me one question only, “Hope roads up there are ok?” I said, “Yeah, but pretty dusty.” Looking at his pics, I was right.

Back to the story. I went to Lena Hotel, where he was said to stay. Asked an administrator get me connected with Oisin. She did, but no one was answering. A lady at the desk said, “He might be having breakfast. You can go upstairs and try to find him there.” I went, but a steward said, “What? What an Irish?” Haha, I understood, Oisin wasn’t here. I told about it to an administrator. She was like, “Oh, then you need to knock at his room door.” Wow! “Is it allowed?” – “Yeah, why not?” – “Maybe, I’d better leave a note for him.” – “No, no. Just go and knock.” What a simplicity?

That’s why I woke up Oisin. Didn’t plan, indeed :)) Nevertheless, an Irish biker was able to share his impressions on the road Tynda – Yakutsk as well as his plans on further biking to Magadan and New York.

Below, please, see some pics of his journey on the route Tynda – Yakutsk via Nerungri and Aldan, and read his last travel notes about the road condition. Text and photos are derived from his around-the-world travel blog Back to Broke.

Waiting for the ferry to Yakutsk on the Lena River

From the time I left Ulan Ude to when I arrived at the turn off from the Trans Siberian to head north to Yakutsk, a distance of over 1300km the days have blurred. Even looking at the pictures I can’t see when one day ends and where the next begins.

There are a couple of reasons for it I suppose. Firstly the scenery is very unchanging in the part of the world, in this 1300km it was either flat Montana-esqe countryside, or hills with lots of trees. The land by the road side was almost always flooded on account of a late thaw of winter snow and for the most part the weather has been great.

When the land was flat, the road stretched off into the distance like a piece of black string rolled out onto a green carpet under a brilliant blue sky. The only variation in the ride came from the constant switching from gravel to asphalt roads. If I die mysteriously at some point and they do an autopsy; a question will no doubt stump the coroner will be “Now, how do you suppose he got so much dust in lungs?”

When the land was hilly, the sky was blue, everything else was a bright spring green apart from some white clouds and the white gravel path carving its way through the countryside.
When you ride down the road and in your rear view mirror you can see yourself getting chased by a dust cloud, the overwhelming feeling that runs through your body is “Dude!”

These roads are lonely. You can often go an hour without seeing a car or a truck. At one stage I got a puncture and in the whole time to strip off the bike, fix the puncture and pack it up again, not a single car passed. Every now and then I’d flick my head over both shoulders to make sure there wasn’t a bear heading my direction. Although if it was Momma bear that showed up; it’s been so long since I climbed Mount Crack, she’d probably get a lick of the cango.

Everytime I stop for gas the bike draws an every growing crowd. The more remote I seem to go the bigger the novelty a beardy Irish bollix on a BMW becomes. At one stage I came out of a café and there were 18 guys standing around the bike, you can see it in the photo above. My first reaction was “Oh shit, what the fuck do this mob want”, I walked up smiling and they looked at me like I was from another time.

One of the guys spoke English and he said you look like you’re from Braveheart the film, “Oh you mean Mel Gibson?” I replied hopefully, to which he replied “No the other guy, his buddy, the fat guy” as he motioned to a big belly; nice to know Brendan Gleeson has a look alike out here in Far eastern Russia.

The road from Chita north has been under construction for years now, and by the looks of things it’ll be a long number of years before it’s finished yet. Every now and then you pass a tiny village of battered wooden cottages and you can’t help wonder; why exactly do those folks choose to live all the way out here? What do they do all day?

I stopped the first night in a truck stop and pitched the tent and just rolled into the sleeping bag and went asleep. As soon as I woke up I got underway again.

Every long trip has a day when you do a crazy amount of miles; this was the day for that. All told I knocked out over 550 miles on mixed terrain in what seemed like a replay of the previous day. I was dying for something to come along that I could stop and take a picture of but the pickings were very slim.

As it was getting dark I arrived at the turn off for Yakutz, the sign said 1169km. I pulled in for gas and asked the pump attendant was there anywhere to sleep around here. He gave me directions to a “Rough as a badgers arse” bedsit where after a quick wing wash I drifted off sleep and dreamt of Momma bear wearing a polka dot bikini.

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. 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.”

Further, three guys, Tomasz Grzywaczewski, Bartosz Malinowski, and Filip Drozdz, started disclosing all the truth. Finally, they said they wanted to make the documentary and share the truth with the whole world by making the Long Walk Plus Expedition.

As they declare on the Facebook fan page (btw, you can follow them up there), the expedition’s mission is walking, horse riding and bicycling on the tracks of Slavomir Rawicz’s book “The long Walk” from Yakutsk (that Soviet camp was located near this city) to Calcutta in India in the course of May – October 2010.

When I asked them, how they managed to find so many big sponsors, they said, “We couldn’t believe it ourselves. The idea came to us in the last New Year holidays. We started writing letters and here we are. The companies liked the story.” Yeah, not only companies like the expedition idea, but also the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed interest and willingness to help. Just look at the list of supporters on their website.

So… I was impressed, but I was impressed more by their route. On May 20 they asked me, how they could get from Yakutsk to Olekminsk. I said, “Are you kidding me? Today is the day of big spring flooding on the Lena River!” Check what I meant the post on the blog eYakutia – English Yakutia. “No boats go that direction. No even planes. It’s raining heavily.” They were just, “We are ready to walk.”

The last phrase convinced me they could make it through taiga, flood and many other obstacles along the Lena River to Olekminsk. I like adventurers. So I took a map and pointed at settlements they could go through, Pokrovsk, Bestyakh, Sinsk, Sanyjahtakh, Uritskoe, Khorintsy, etc.

I wished them good luck and they leaved Yakutsk the next day. It was still raining and flooding. Poor guys, they got wet and chilly.

Three days ago…

On June 3, they appeared on Facebook, namely in my inbox. Tomasz wrote to me, “Here is Tomasz from The Long Walk Plus Expedition. We have already got to Olekminsk. We had a lot of amazing adventures and met a lot of extremely friendly people. Yakutia is absolutely awesome! :)”

Fantastic!

The next abstract was not so amazing, “We have a small problem, because my camera battery charger broke down :( Can I ask you for help to deal with this problem?” Further, he asked me to buy a charger for his Nikon D90 batteries and send it to them via a Raketa ship to Olekminsk.

At the first glance, the favor sounds easy. Go and buy. But there is another problem. In Yakutsk local photographers do not tend to buy camera accessories in the city’s stores. They order everything on Moscow or Saint Petersburg online stores. It means ordinary shops do not sell anything like that at all. I was a little bit confused.

I was forced to post the ad in a local photo forum, asking whether anyone had a charger to sell to me. Answers were like, “I have one, but I can lend it for a while.” or “If it is urgent, they can come to me and charge their batteries.” There were no one, who could sell it for good.

Praise god, I have many friends. One of them is Ajar Varlamov, a local photographer, who told me by a phone that he had a friend, who might have chargers for sale in his not-so-much known small store. Later, Ajar informed me, there was one charger, and he was so afraid of others’ buying it before me, so he decided to purchase it at once. Oh my god! Ajar is a really awesome friend. I am so grateful to him.

The next morning, today, I managed to send it via the Raketa ship captain to Olekminsk. I let the Polish guys know about it. I wrote, “Be at the river port at 5 pm and meet the captain with your new charger. Meanwhile, you can write a travel not about your long walk from Yakutsk to Olekminsk.” And you know what? Tomasz made a story especially for my blog! Many, many thanks, Tomasz, for your contribution! Find his note below.

The story moral is “Take the reserve charger and batteries for your travel across Siberia’s Yakutia.” It’s not a joke.

The mentioned travel note:

“The 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. March through taiga was a really exhausting experience – deep mud, swamps, thousands of mosquitoes and rapid rivers.”

“We visited a few villages, e.g. Bulganiachtach, Edej or Saniachtach. Edej was totally blocked by kilometers of ice floats so the sight was absolutely astonishing.”

“However the whole Yakutia’s nature is awesome. We also saw monumental Lenskie Stolby (known also as Lena Pillars or stone pillars on the Lena River).”

“The administration of the region have given us a great aid in our journey. They especially help in arranging transport and providing accommodation. We are shocked that many people heard a lot about Poland, and everyone knew the Polish scientist and explorer, Waclaw Sieroszewski.”

“Now we stay in Olekmninsk, and today we’re going to explore a former camp, that is hidden deep in forest.”

“The Long Walk Plus Expedition team would like to thank all people who helped us and without whom our travel wouldn’t be possible.”

Tomasz Grzywaczewski, Bartosz Malinowski, Filip Drozdz

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.”

In December in the central part of Yakutia we can have daylight from 11.00 am till 3.30 pm. However, due to thick fogs, we may not see it at all. In northern territories it can be much shorter. In Yakutia’s Arctic there are so-called Polar nights.

We are lack of Vitamin D apparently. Parents tend to give little kids pills or drops with Vitamin D.

In summer, yeah, we have more sunshine. White nights take place in the second half of June and early July. At the same time in the Arctic Zone the sun may not set at all :)

Frankly saying, we are accustomed to live in such conditions. However, every local dreams to visit sunny sea resorts as often as possible, but a few can afford it. Travel expenses are really high.

“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.

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?

There is the Kolyma Highway, that goes from Yakutsk to Magadan via Ust Nera. It’s in good condition all the year around.

Keep in mind that the part Kyubyume – Ust Nera – Magadan is considered to be a new route.

The old route we call the part Kyubyume – Tomtor – Magadan. It can be used only when river waters are low. Mainly in August. July and September are also good time, but they may have heavy rains. Check the post 2009 Photo Report: The old route of the Kolyma Highway (Road of Bones) by Czech OFF SIBERIA motorcyclists.

What is the difference between new and old routes, I wrote in this post 2009 August Road Report: the condition of the Kolyma Highway (the Road of Bones) in Oymyakonsky Ulus

Those, who want to make it to Magadan via the old route of the Kolyma road, please, consider the following opportunity to try it with local driver’s Yakutsk to Magadan expedition. They will go in August with trucks as support. Participation is totally free.

2. Do you know about any regular flights from Magadan to Anadyr? Is there possibility to travel by ship from Magadan to Alaska?

There is the direct flight done by Yakutia Airlines on Wednesdays. Ir Air, also known as Irkutsk Avia, does regular flights from Magadan to Bilibino and flies irregularly to Pevek and Koupol (Купол).

There is the trackway between Magadan and Anadyr, but it’s a winter road. There is another option to try in summer. The route is as follows. Magadan – Seimchan by a car/bike/bicycle, Seimchan to Anyuisk along Yakutia’s part of the Kolyma River by a barge, Anyuisk – Bilibino – Pevek by a car, and then from Pevek to Anadyr. The last part seems hard to go through. Wrecked bridges are reported.

Unfortunately, currently ships do not go straight from Kamchatka/Magadan to Alaska. Travellers tend to ship their vehicles to Vladivostok, then to Alaska or California. Check this post How to ship your moto or vehicle from/to Magadan & from/to Vladivostok by sea?

However, one Magadan off-roading enthusiast states that it is theoretically possible to get to Alaska by a barge, if to do the following things:

1. Find a barge [I think, he meant, in Magadan] and pay the captain.
2. Cross the frontier checkpoint in the settlement of Providenie or Anadyr.

Nevertheless, he highlights that he thinks it is impossible.

3. Do we need the special entry permit for Chukotka? The Russian Embassy in Montenegro told us, “We don’t need them.”

Chukotka with its Anadyr and Pevek is located in the Frontier zone. It means entrance permit might be required. In any case, you need to resolve this issue via travel agencies. The list of frontier zones is described on Wikipedia pretty good.

Have a good ride. If any, keep asking me about Yakutia and even about the rest of Siberia & the Far East :)

I know examples, when international journalists entered Russia with business or tourists visas. Those, who were assigned by newspapers or magazines to make stories on travel opportunities, didn’t experience any troubles, because they came as travelers, they didn’t take any interviews with officials, they didn’t go to any restricted areas, and they just kept writing harmless travel notes about hotels, restaurants, tours, lifestyle, and etc. Right, behaving that way, they didn’t attract much attention from migration officers and any other services.

However, I know other examples I’ve heard from local travel companies. Journalists acted in the above described manner, everything looked fine, until they went through regular police checks, and they were found out as journalists on assignment, and instead of showing press/media visas, they displayed their travel/business ones. That was the start of their troubles.

I am very interested in international reporters’ coming to Siberia’s Yakutia and making PR pieces. That’s why I am writing this post with the main idea, “To make the travel as smooth as possible, it will be good to arrange everything in the appropriate way.” Believe me, the procedure of getting the press/media visa is pretty simple.

PREVIOUSLY
I described what types of the Russian visas existed and how to apply for them. Read the post “The Russian visa.” You might also want to check the following related readings:

- Do I need to have special permission to arrive in Yakutia?;
- How to get entry permit for visiting the frontier zone in Yakutia?;
- Tips for dealing with the Russian Migration Service?;
- The cheapest way of migration registration in Yakutsk?.

HOW TO GET THE PRESS/MASS MEDIA VISA
The mass media company (newspaper, magazine, TV or radio station, etc), that assigns its correspondent to travel to Russia, needs to request an invitation from Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The request must be written with the company’s letterhead and signed by its senior official.

The invitation request has to contain assignment description, exact dates of travel, and passport data. It can be sent to Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs directly or via the diplomatic representation of the Russian Federation in the respective country.

Once the request will be approved, the MFA of the Russian Federation will send the visa order (invitation) directly to the Russian Consulate or the Consulate Department of the Russian Embassy saying to issue the press/media visa to the journalist and for the period mentioned in the request. The approval procedure takes up to 3 days.

This is the general way of getting the press/media visas for visiting Russia.

KEEP IN MIND OTHER DETAILS:
- If the report assignment is very specific and affects Russia’s interests, the approval procedure can be extended or shortened.
- In case of the EU entities, another scheme might be applied… in accordance with the EU-Russia Agreement dated May 25th, 2005.
- As far as I know, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs might reply to the media company’s request this way, “In your case the media visa is not required. Other regular visas will be enough.” That’s also good. In any case, such reply might serve as a very useful official paper, that demonstrates your activity permission for any representative of the Russian migration service.

ACCREDITATION
Oh, accreditation procedure is another song. It is described fully and pretty good on the official website of Russia’s MFA (www.mid.ru). Accreditation is required for international journalists’ meeting with any officials in Russia, including the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). Without official accreditation, foreign reporters will meet the authority’s total ignorance.

CONTACT INFO

The Ministry’s Press Center
Phone: (499) 244-41-19
Fax: (499) 244-41-12
Email: dip [ at ] mid.ru

ADDITIONALLY
I strongly recommend foreign journalists to consult with the Russian press attache in your country. He/she must know everything!.. To learn contacts of Russian diplomatic and consular missions, please, see this list.

WHY DOES EVERYTHING GO VIA THE MFA?
Imho, it is assumed the initiative must come from the foreign mass media interested in making its own story. On the other hand, any Russian organizations are supposed not to be interested in inviting international journalists, so logically they cannot come to the decision of inviting foreign mass media representatives. That might be one of many reasons.

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.

Verkhoyansk is known as the 2nd (maybe, the 1st) Pole of Cold in Yakutia. It’s located near the Arctic Circle, where travelers can see Aurora Borealis and experience the most extreme cold weather in Siberia’s Yakutia. Believe, it is much colder there than in Oymyakon. Besides, Verkhoyansk is the most challenging destination for auto/moto adventurers.

Vaselisa Popova in the national costume

Another news contact... in Sangar, Kobyaisky region, Yakutia, Siberia.

2010 Sakha Travel Exhibition in Yakutsk.

2010 Sakha Travel Exhibition in Yakutsk.

2010 Sakha Travel Exhibition in Yakutsk.

Now I know, whom to redirect questions regarding the Siberian remote villages of Sangar and Verkhoyansk :)

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… taiga, puddles, rivers, funny metal [that's the still in the vid] and not-really-funny wooden bridges, and the Road of Bones along the foot of dusty Verkhoynasky mountains.

About the expedition and DVD
“A preview of Sibirsky Extreme 2009 – a DVD of the Sibirsky Extreme Project’s big Siberian ride of 2009, motorcycling from London to Magadan, then back via the BAM Road and Mongolia. Shot by Walter Colebatch, Tony Pettie, Terry Brown and Jonathan Fox.”

Check also:
- Previous posts about Sibirsky Extreme.
- Sibirsky Extreme Website.

PS: The preview is cool. Well done, Walter and, if I am right, Jonathan! :)
Waiting for the DVD now :)

Yakutsk Permafrost Institute with its underground laboratory in the form of tunnel is a sort of a must-to-see sight in the capital of Siberia’s Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). It is the most visited by international guests.

The last year before The Copenhagen Climate Change Summit it became a real Mecca to international journalists, who wanted to know whether the global warming affected the life of the only city in the world, that was entirely built on permafrost.

The funny thing is that reporters were eager to hear institute chiefs saying “Yes, Yakutsk experiences the consequences of the global warming, grounds are being melted, buildings are collapsing, everything is turning into a big swamp.” Their questions sounded in an appropriate way “Does the climate change (the euphemism for “the global warming”) affect the life and infrustructure of Yakutsk?” And what they heared in replies, dissapointed them thoroughly.

Therefore, feeling all expenses on travel to the remote Siberian city to be in vain, they asked a question in another way “What would happen to the city, if the global warming would eventually gain the ground?” The answer sounded as predicted “There would be ground melted, buildings collapsed, and everything would remind as a big swamp.”

Permafrost occupies 60 percent of Yakutia. The max depth is approx. 5 metres.

So, what did and do the Permafrost Institute workers usually say in reply to such questions?

Viktor Shepelev, deputy director of Yakutsk Permafrost Institute

Viktor Shepelev is the deputy director of Yakutsk Permafrost Institute. He is responsible for the institute’s research work. It’s mainly him, who explains the current state of the Siberian permafrost to international interviewers.

In the beginning he admits that climate changes were fixed and recorded. He says that the average temperature in the ground indeed increased approximately by 2 degrees. But… periods of cold and hot seasons remain the same. The winter is not shorter neither longer. So does the summer. Besides, snow cover stays as thin as before. You know, snow cover is like a fur coat, that is able to hold the warmth. If snow is thick, ground would keep more warmth. If thin, it wouldn’t. And it is thin. Snowfalls happen in October and early Novermber and that’s all for the whole winter, that ends up as usual in April only.

With no other significant factors, these 2 degrees do not signify. The permafrost remains stable and not altered in Yakutsk and Yakutia at all.

By the way, here is another interesting information from Viktor Shepelev.

According to him and his colleagues, climate changes are cyclic. They are characterized by three types of changes. At this moment, he starts usually showing the diagram with three amplitudes and naming them by special terms. Please, forgive me, but I forgot them. Nevetheless, let’s continue.

Further Mr. Shepelev says that last decades indeed went under the flag of warming. This period will come to the end by 2015. After it will be replaced by the long COLD period. [If you like, you can call this as "the global freezing". That's my joke]. By the way, their Fairbanks-based colleagues has the same research results and evidences.

The span between 2010 and 2015 is the transition time, when all those mentioned amplitudes almost coincide with each other. That’s why now we can see cold and warm spells simultaneously in winter.

Melting islands in Laptev Sea, near the Lena River, North Yakutia

Diagrams of how fast North Yakutian islands get melted

At the same time, Viktor Shepelev says that, if the territory of Yakutia remains unaltered and unaffected, its islands in Laptev Sea got in the process of the fast melting. They consist mainly of ice. More vivid this process became in the last decade. In the above diagram you can see how two sites in the Buor-Khaya Bay area, Muostakh Island and Bykovsky Peninsula (Mamomtovy Khayata), are disappearing gradually. Is it in the result of the global warming? It might be so. Maybe, it is the underground sources of methanes, that force ice in Russia’s Arctic to be melted.

Well, the above lecture is the first part of the excursion. By the way, the lecture by the deputy director is a rare thing. It is done for important visitors only :)

The second part is the descending into the underground laboratory of the Yakutsk Permafrost Institute. The entrance (a massive blue metal door) is located in the center of the building, on the first floor, from where the wooden stairs lead 3 meters down into the tunnel called the institute’s underground lab.

The tunnel is horizontel. Very short, about 25 meters in length. And it is very low.

The guide of the Permafrost Institute underground lab.

The guide is an elderly person, and he looks very sever. He can say “Get through the entrance very quick. We don’t want warm air to get into the tunnel.” Or he can allow himself saying “Don’t touch these. You can damage these crystals, that took a few years to be formed into such beauty.”

I didn’t want to break any crystals. Really. But I was misfortuned and crashed two or three of them by my hat. I am telling you, the tunnel was too low in height for me. I felt really sorry, and regret that I did that with what nature worked years on.

See the whole set of photographs (in larger sizes) I managed to take in the course of my excursion to Yakutsk Permafrost Institute a month ago, at eYakutia.com.

Oh, forgot to share with another info. Viktor Shepelev also says that he worries about one thing. If huge forest reserves in South America and Siberia would be demolished, permafrost will be affected apparently.

By the way, Hannes created a very nice slideshow with his photographs taken in the course of his expedition to Oymyakon. Check his video and find hyperlinks I know.

Hannes’ slideshow with tuneful Yakut songs:

RECOMMENDED LINKS TO CHECK
Actually these links are that I know. If you know more, let me know and I’ll post them here.

Places with free downloads:

The world-famous Khatylaevs: http://khatylaev.sakhaopenworld.org/
Bert Jickty’s homepage with a lot of music: http://bertjickty.narod.ru/

Albina Degtyareva’s Ayarkhaan Band:

- the CD on sale at http://www.cafepress.com/ayarkhaan;
- to listen audio tracks and watch the video at eYakutia.com
- I’ve got a few Ayarkhaan’s book with the CD included. If interested, I can send them to you via regular or express mail.

Mp3’s at Amazon
Found a few mp3 files to download at the low costs:

Various artists from the album “Yakut tayuk”:

- Le tayouk des yakoutes/yakut tayuk
- Le khomous des yakoutes/yakut khomus
- Le tayouk des yakoutes/yakut tayuk

Yakut khomus players’ performance rrom the album “KHOMUS”:

Anatoly Ukchanov: Yakut Melodies
P. Pakhomov: Yakut Summer
Spyridon Shishigin: Yakut Waltz
Ivan Alekseyev: Yakut Pictures

Found also CDs with Stepanida Borisova’s performance:
- the CD album Trancesiberia
- another CD Deep Throat Or Dangerous Strings. Voice Festival (CD)

That’s it. If you know more online resources with Yakut songs and music, please, let me know.