In continuation of the crisis theme, another guest post from my friend Vitalik, but not about emigration at all. In my article about the fact that wintering in Thailand will not disappear in the long perspective, in the comments we are talking about domestic tourism. I would myself I also wanted it to develop, because I love somewhere with a tent go, but the conditions are sometimes too wild (few campgrounds, no parking lots, etc.), and in popular places it is so crap that the nature I can’t get lost. Still travel across Russia can and should be. How about a trip to Yakutia in winter instead of tropics? -50 degrees instead of +30?
Part one. Yakutsk.
Last year, I bought into the sale of Aeroflot and took on January holidays tickets from Moscow to Yakutsk at very favorable price The result was a short but highly informative. a journey whose impressions are at the request of the owners I will gladly share this resource here. Ahead will be a story about Yakutsk, Lena Pillars, the Pole of Cold, and much more. By the way flights can be monitored on Skyscanner or Aviaseels.
So, the first day. Early arrival in Yakutsk, at 5 am. Airport met (or rather did not meet) with the complete absence of free taxis. A few minutes later I was lucky and managed to grab the car, who arrived at the airport with the first passengers of the return flight. To the question “How much?” the driver replied: “Now is a double New Year fare “. I was already prepared to hear the astronomical sum, and she was the deed turned out to be only 350 rubles. Very cheap taxi in Yakutsk, regarding everything else.
In the guest house with the optimistic name “Delight”, to my the second surprise, did not charge for early check-in. But the local shepherd dog sleeping in the yard, delight on my arrival is clearly not experienced with angry barking rushed at me through the fence of his zagonchika (fence, thank God, was of sufficient height). But the dog can be understood: spending the night in the Yakut cold of complacency is unlikely who will give. In general, my plans for morning sleep were thwarted, and as dawn broke I went to study the city.
What can be said about Yakutsk. On the Internet, it is often written that Yakutsk is a very dirty city. Indeed, the roads are in many places are severely broken and almost absent, and the permafrost is not promotes good soil drainage, which turns the streets into a mess. Plus, even for the local people, there seems to be no problem. trash right by the road. But it is summer. In winter, most of the time the city is shrouded in thick frosty fog that settles on everyone surfaces, chaining them into snow-white frost. Therefore, even a thrown garbage bag looks like such a cute bag with gifts, who dropped Santa Claus, passing by on his deer. And the roads and sidewalks under your feet are like pure white a sheet that together with the complete absence of any odors creates a feeling of perfect sterility.
I was lucky on the first day with the weather, and instead of the frosty fog I found the real January “thaw” – minus 32. Local, seemed to strive to maximize the benefit of such a gift nature, and in the center of the city reigned real movement: the people are actively engaged in shopping, the children rode down the hills and on a sleigh with reindeer, and young couples scurried around the streets (sit on the benches, obviously, it was still uncomfortable). What an unpleasant surprise is an abundance of drunks in the streets, and all were Yakuts. One of they even tried to sell me their fur hat – so to see his pipes were burning. Not for nothing alcohol in the republic is allowed sell only from 14 to 20, and in many villages strict no alcohol law.
After lunch, visited the ethnographic complex “Chochur Muran” on the outskirts of the city. There you can ride sledding, snowmobiles, skiing (there is a semblance of a lift), and also get into the Kingdom of Eternal permafrost. It is such a deep cave at the foot of the hill in which staged installations of ice. In addition to ice sculptures and labyrinths, in the cave there is a hotel room with an ice bed and even an ice bar where you can drink vodka from ice glasses, having a snack planer. The sensations in the cave are quite psychedelic, although its potential is clearly not fully revealed. For example, one would arrange a full bar with a la carte service. Especially since the constant temperature in the cave (-10) allows you to consider it as a means to warm up after the street.
Generally, ice is for the local sacred substance. Everyone respecting the institution of the city itself places an ice sculpture at the entrance. At the river Shipping Company – steamer, in the Post of Russia – the postman on the deer. Even Yakut’s favorite snack – Sliced Planet – should be eaten certainly frozen. There is thawed planing considered the mauveton is almost like cold soup. And from the ice on one of central squares built a small art gallery – then there are ordinary paintings by local artists built into the walls of ice
In addition to ice, the Yakuts love horses very much. But this love peculiar, because horses they are treated exclusively in as the use of food. And not horsemeat is valued, as in Tatars, and a young zherebyatina, six months old. Around the pond in bollards are set in the center of the city to which the skulls are nailed foals with tails, apparently, symbolize something. Even in airport, such an installation is present, but apparently not shock European guests instead of real skulls used figurines. Tails, however, are still real.
Slightly less than horses, Yakuts worship fish. At the entrance to city market you are greeted like flower tents, only instead of flowers, fish of various sizes are installed in buckets. They subjected to instant natural freezing immediately after catch, so their meat is exceptionally fresh.
At the end of the evening, the director of our Yakut office, Boris Korolyov gave me a small tour of the city center and told about features of running a local business. In the way he repeatedly called, despite the late time, from corporate clients before the adviser to the president of the republic. Details I really share here I can not, for corporate secrets.
Part two. Lena pillars
I stumbled upon NordStream at the Yakut forum, when looking for things to do tourist in the vicinity of the city. It turned out that they arrange winter tours from Yakutsk to Lena Pillars – a natural UNESCO World Heritage site, by the way. I signed up for a two-day tour, and here at the appointed 7 am at the gate the hotel was waiting for me myakiausbus UAZ-loaf with driver and guide By michael We went to collect the rest of the participants in the city. Contrary to my expectations, the participants were not at all foreigners and Moscow tourists, and the locals, among whom was Russian Only one, and that with Yakut girlfriend. All but him, by the way, were by girls.
We had to make three hundred kilometers to the south-west – first along the highway, then along the ice of the Lena River. On the way girls showed me pictures of past trips, as well as fed their homemade delicacies, of which the stew is remembered colt fat and frozen raw colt with onions (“Eat faster, until it melted, “they said). Oddly enough, all this turned out to be not that mega-tasty, but very nutritious – the body perceived with a bang.
On the way we stopped at the traditional Yakut fun – salute. It is done without any fire and in general extremely environmentally friendly: just pour a mug of hot water from a thermos and drastically pour it like a fan over his head. In severe frost, splashing with a hiss turn into small pieces of ice and ice vapor. From the side looks very impressive.
Obligatory ritual, by the way, before going to Lena – “feed” her, putting a little pancakes on the snow and (oh, horror!) pouring out near some vodka or brandy. Such are the Yakuts superstitious.
But the main attractions on the way are the yellow rocks with caves and rock paintings from the Stone Age. For local pagans (and according to my feelings they make up here the majority of to any believers) these drawings have a sacred significance, something like icons. By the way, if you see on the Internet or literature rock painting, with high probability it was filmed here, on the right bank of the Lena.
When all the scribblings were studied by us, it began to get dark, and we We stopped for the night in a guest house in the village of Tumul. Guest the house looked like a simple village hut, inside looking more like a tent: one big room about 60 meters, where small partitions indicate the kitchen and hallway. In the middle installed a small but new stove-stove. Sleep supposed on the bunk along the walls. Toilet in the yard, and the only one the water source is chopped by chainsaw ice blocks brought from Lena.
The girls quickly built a small clearing, and then it was discovered that each member of the expedition took with him a bottle Fire – who vodka, who brandy, who champagne. Evening became even more fun, and ended up going to bed, completely forgetting about the stove.
I woke up around six in the morning with the feeling that something was wrong. The thermometer on the wall showed a little above zero. Expedition colleagues slept peacefully, wrapped in clothes. The stove was barely warm, and the cap on the pipe, designed to retain heat inside, is not closed. I had to remember the skills of kindling the stove, and besides it was necessary to stockpile firewood stored from Moscow.
At 11 o’clock in the morning we had to make a snowmobile half-hour trip to the Pillars to the other side of the Lena. Temperature over the board has dropped to the more familiar here minus 46, so that way was coming, though short, but not simple. And indeed, a snowmobile, maneuvering between ice hummocks, it is not very fast, but with the inability to dodge the constant wind frost penetrates all not tightly packed parts of the body. Thank you to the organizers who rented a ski mask, it would be even more difficult without it. In general, on arrival at the place a sip of brandy from a thermos came by the way. You pour it into a mug, and on top it is like milk, immediately covered with a thin ice foam.
The Pillars themselves made an unusual impression, although I expected a little more. A huge, multi-kilometer chain of columns leaving in the fog. It seems that all this is built by someone with incomprehensible goal (for some reason I remember the Olympic Park in Sochi). The pillars are arranged so that they block the low northern sun, which almost never comes here, and at the foot is always gloomy and colder than around.
A little polaziv on the pillars (and in boots on the snow-covered rocks it’s not easy), I decided to ride a snowmobile behind the wheel. Master, the local grandfather-hunter was not against it, and I happily saw on speedometer division “180”, gas flowed to the full. Then there was a shout from the host: “Slow down!” It turns out that with such temperatures can not be loaded heavily, otherwise it can go out of service. The fact that this is a harsh reality, I still had to make sure in practice, but this time it cost.
Returning to the village, after a short lunch, we went home, and in the evening arrived in Yakutsk. Next day me had to go to the most severe place on the planet where they live people, – Oymyakon, but more on that in the next post.
P.S. Acne does not blog, so here is a link to his Facebook account.
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