We continue the winter anti-Thai theme and the theme of travel on Russia. Last time, Vitalik told about Yakutsk and Lenskie pillars. Indeed, you want impressions, it is not necessary to go to south, you can go, on the contrary, to the edge of permafrost, where temperatures are so low that my imagination of them even can not imagine. Read another post from Vitalik about the road to the cold pole Oymyakon in Yakutia, about the coldest place in Russia, and possibly on the whole earth after Antarctica. True, Oymyakon fights for this title with Verkhoyansk, and scientists can’t will come to a consensus.
The content of the article
- 1 Flight Yakutsk – Ust-Nera
- 2 Ust-Nera
- 3 Road to Oymyakon
Flight Yakutsk – Ust-Nera
Between Yakutsk and Oymyakon about 1000 kilometers on the northeast. It passes through a deserted forest tundra, many kilometers of ice crossings through Lena and Aldan, mountainous serpentines of the Chersky Range, and most importantly – fifty, and if If you are lucky, then it will be sixty-degree frost. The road clearly promised to be difficult, but because I decided to drive it entirely only once – on the way back (about how to get there). And before Oimyakon I planned to get by plane through the administrative center Oimyakonsky district of Ust-Nera, and from there is already 400 kilometers to do on a ride – thus, having laid in one day.
The two-hour flight from Yakutsk to Ust-Nehru deserves to enter the Book Guinness World Records, as the bravest rip-off customers in the history civil aviation. One Way Ticket Polar Airlines cost me more than back and forth from Moscow to Yakutsk, moreover that he got me more for the promotion. To imagine flight conditions, it is enough to understand that it was carried out on an airplane An-24, which was discontinued back in 1979. From the inside, it looked like a real pepelats, from gnawed seats sticking out the armature, persistently digging into the ass, flushing the toilet not worked (the ad reported that in the winter and should not), but Sound insulation seemed to be absent in principle. Left admiring the mountainous landscapes outside the window, the benefit of the plane was flying quite low.
However, there was a service on board, which was that you could get a choice of orange or tomato juice, and from the hands of the co-pilot. And passengers with baggage should have take it out of the luggage compartment yourself, and also carry it through the icy canvas of the airport. Well, yes, not for the comfort you need go to the Pole of Cold. Upon arrival, I called on the previously found dispatcher number and arranged a ride. The ride was driver Maxim, who was going to go to Oymyakon right now. Only here – we literally drove to the nearest gas station, where It turned out that our Range Rover, apparently, could not stand overloads, the rear suspension cracked and broke. What to do? Going on a long journey with such a breakdown was equivalent to suicide. We needed repair, and with welding.
Find welding at the end of January holidays in Ust-Ner turned business nontrivial. In the only working workshop welder absent, thumping unknown where. Ok city small, everyone knows each other, and after a few calls managed to find a free wizard. Warm garage to repair us kindly provided local gaytsy (the case when they can say thanks). The guys had a few hours of work, and I had time to walk around the city.
Ust-Nera
Ust-Nera is a city founded in 1937 by Gulag forces. prisoners – can be called an illustration of modern economic model of Russia, brought to perfection. Surroundings of the city rich in gold, antimony and other precious metals. All this actively mined with the participation of local residents, but at the same time the city resembles a shack of a gradually descending wino in which reigns mess and desolation. Entire blocks in the city are abandoned, some wooden houses still show signs of life, but it is obvious that the days of this life are numbered. Around the trash and vagrant dogs.
More struck not even poverty (expensive cars on the streets, by the way, also present), how much is that neglect. Local clearly do not want to make their lives more beautiful and tidy, apparently because do not see in her future. There is only one cafe in the city, and It is a nausea of Soviet times. Club and shopping the rows also leave a depressing impression. This is because that the extraction of gold and other metals is fully controlled by the mafia, consisting of immigrants from all over the CIS. These people clearly do not bind their life with extreme frosts, and a similar attitude “power having “transferred to all other residents.
Nevertheless, the locals speak unfriendly, although configured very friendly. For example, the guy who I asked about the road to the monument to the victims of repression, after a few minutes caught up with me in his car and offered a ride – obviously he did not want me to walk two kilometers in the frost on foot. Himself the monument, by the way, is officially dedicated to the builders of the Kolyma highway, and about prisoners of the Gulag it is mentioned as if casually – apparently, for political correctness.
Road to Oymyakon
When I returned, the repair was almost complete, and soon we finally went to Oymyakon. By this time it was dark (and dark in January here at four o’clock in the afternoon), and all the next eight hours the way we talked, only occasionally getting out of the car deeds. ”
By the way, the feeling of a two-minute outing in the middle of the Kolyma highway truly cosmic and worth it to drive there at least once. You you are standing in front of a dark precipice, you have billions of stars above you somewhere down there like a vast crowd of ugly bent under the weight of frost larches. (It’s a pity, all this is impossible take a picture on the phone.) The air is so dry that without outerwear at first you do not feel cold, but somewhere through half a minute all this surrounding space is taken as if to gnaw you are warm and you begin to understand what the whisper metaphor means stars “, which locals call hard frost.
We were driving along a perfectly snow-white road, Max told me about their hunting trips and sucking red wine from a half liter bottles, eating Magadan capelin. “Otherwise, such distances are not to master, says. Some need to sleep on the way, and some – like me – time is not so much, so help cheer a couple of sips of wine or brandy. Anyway, gaytsy is only in Ust-Nere. “Toward the end of the path the bottle was empty, which, by the way, had no effect on the rather neat style driving.
“But if the car stalled, then how to find under this layer of frost dry wood to quickly make a fire? “- I ask.” Yes elementary, – answers Max. Here, for example, look – dry larch, but no, “he shows me to two identical white pieces on the sidelines. Half an hour later we drove past the huge dying fire. Caught in trouble, obviously, already managed evacuate. “See, I told you, it’s just that!” —soothes Max.
After another two hours, we drove to Razvilka – the only a place where you can refuel gasoline. Further the road went to the right – to Yakutsk, and to the left – to our Oymyakon. Gas station and cafe with warming The name “Cuba” gives the impression of a real polar station. And the food is exceptionally simple – apparently due to self-mobilizing organism seems surprisingly tasty.
After another couple of hours we drove to the house of old Gutsul, or Gandalf, as young people call him for a gray beard. Gutsul, as Max told me, a very epic character. Tells everyone that he is 73 years old, but local people have unearthed, which is actually on few years less. Hutsul loves to share his details an intimate life and boasts: “I can satisfy a woman for two hours, without taking out! “Now he lives practically a hermit on weather stations, along with a young wife. He has several children but all were taken away by the guardianship, since parents cannot provide im studying at school. It is a pity only Gutsul went off on a hike for 20 km right before we arrived. As he explained to his wife, “beat someone face “. Not sure the truth is that it was an incentive dump out of the house is not a warm January evening. Wife watered us tea by the light of a kerosene lamp (there is no electricity in the house), and we went on.
We arrived in the Oymyakon Valley very early after midnight. Max still from refueling called my friends, and they left for me on the keys to the guesthouse in the small village Kuydusun (about where to stay).
P.S. Acne does not blog, so here is a link to his Facebook account. In the next post you will find 33 interesting fact about Oymyakon, the pole of the cold.
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