Watch this video done by a friend of mine, Dmitry, also known as UF58, in Yakutia’s Chersky Range last summer, and you’ll get an idea of what to do first, when meeting a brown bear in the Siberian wildness.

UF58 is a Yakutsk-based mountain climber and trekker, and a great photographer. His travel reports (in Russian) are usually published at adv.yktv.ru.

Dmitry prefers to hike mountains alone. In August 2010, he was in the Chersky Range. When he saw a bear, he thought it was a lonely horse. So, in the beginning, he did nothing about animal. He lay on a grass resting, watching around and taking pictures… and then he realized that a big shaggy horse turned out to be a bear.

Here what you can do, when you come across the bear, but before reading tips, enjoy UF58′s photographs of the Chersky Range. To enlarge, click on images. Read the rest of this entry…

I have a friend of mine, Mikhael Mestnikov. He appeared to be an active traveler and a big fan of rafting and mountain trekking. Moreover, he prefers to do all his summer expeditions within the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). Mikhael is the chief of the Yakutsk-based travel club “Dokhsun.”

In summer of 2010, Mestnikov’s travel club arranged the combined expedition with rafting the Indigirka River and trekking the Chersky Range. The route was Ust-Nera – Kyuellyakh – Mustakh – Khonu.

Learn more about the expedition and see 69 fantastic travel photographs. Read the rest of this entry…

The Uraanhay off road vehicle was designed by the Smurygins especially for terrains of Yakutia, East Siberia and Far East.

From now on, the Yakutian affiliate of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations (in short, rescuers) will use the hand-made all-terrain vehicle called “Uraanhay,” Yakutsk Vecherny Newspaper reports.

The new off-roader is able to drive smartly through taiga as well as to swim Siberian rivers. It was created by Alexander and Constantine Smurygin in the city of Mirny, West Yakutia, in the course of 1.5 year. Now it is based in Yakutsk.

Such an all terrain vehicle is suitable for search-and-rescue operations in the northern Siberian region. Thanks to the rover, the number of expensive rescue helicopter flights (1 flight hour costs from 4500 USD) might be reduced greatly.

Its advantages are easy use and good cross. The huge off-roader is not afraid of knots and bushes, and its all terrain tires are simply impossible to pierce.

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At the end of November, when the real Siberian winter was getting colder and colder, three young guys decided to ski from the village of Elanka to the famous Lena Pillars (stone pillars) located on the Lena River bank a few hundreds of km south from the city of Yakutsk. When they were doing skiing expedition, the outdoor temperature was minus 45 degrees Celsius. They say, it was pretty windy. Skiers overcame 50 km only, but spent 5 days on the way.

These guys look pretty ordinary, but they are not as such. First, they are real Siberian villagers. Harsh cold conditions are not big deal to them. Second, one of them, Timofei Vasiliev, is from the village of Moma located in the Momsky National Park and surrounded by mountains of the Verkhoyansky Range. Trekking last summer, Timofei and his friends managed to find the volcano without any GPS navigator. Third, they are leaders of the newly-fledged Yakutsk student adventure club called simply, “Extreme.”

Below, please, see Timofei’s photos and comments. Read the rest of this entry…

Pyotr Naumov, 61, spent 7 months on running Russian roads from Kalinigrad to Vladivostok

Last week all Yakutsk-published newspapers went out with news about 61-year-old Yakutian pensioner Pyotr Naumov, who finished his 7-month across-the-country jogging. Russian news agencies, including Voice of Russia, featured Petr Naumov’s brave expedition as well.

Read the rest of this entry…

Our Yakutia photo exhibit in Brooklyn, New York City. Photo by Gale Krylova.

Thomas Ross Miller, the curator of our joint “On the Road of Bones” photo exhibit in Brooklyn, NYC, informs that a couple of major New York newspapers have listed this Friday night’s open house reception at the Kris Waldherr Art and Words Studio Gallery in their events pages. Woo hoo! Many visitors and reporters are expected to come to that event on October 15th, 2010.

More NY exhibit details are available in the previous post. You might also wish to check out the exhibition schedule at http://ontheroadofbones.com/.

Meanwhile, hereby I present our curator Thomas Ross Miller’s statement in regards to the exhibition. What you are going to read further, convinced NYC-based culture editors to do what they did. Read the rest of this entry…

Maciej Besta is a Polish student, who spent one month, August 2010, with his friend on hiking from the Kolyma Highway to Sasyr through the Chersky Mountains in East Yakutia. Recently he sent me a bunch of landscape photographs. Publishing them. In the near future, he promised me to send more. Great! Thanks, Maciej!

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Dog sledding to the Lena Pillars. Yakutia/Siberia. Photo by Anastacia Longinova.

I have friends, Ajar Varlamov and Lena Sidorova. They have a common friend, Anastacia Longinova. Last winter, actually in March, they travelled on dog sleds along the Lena River to the famous Yakutia’s Pillars (so-called stone trees south off Yakutsk). A sort of dog sledding holidays.

The winter travel with Yakut laikas (a type of Siberian huskies) took 4 days. They overcame nearly 300 miles. Yup, it was extremely cold and windy, but it didn’t affect them. Guess what memories they’ve got now. Unforgettable!

See more winter photographs. Read the rest of this entry…

UPDATE, March 03, 2011: Join us for a last look at this stunning photo exhibition. The curator will be on hand to answer any questions you may have about the coldest place on earth. We’ll also have refreshments. Children are welcome! More details on the facebook event page.

Oymyakon Boy from the exhibition On the Road of Bones: Ghosts of the Siberian Gulag Along the Old Kolyma Highway

Proud to announce the opening of the photo exhibition On the Road of Bones: Ghosts of the Siberian Gulag Along the Old Kolyma Highway featuring my, Nastya Borisova and Ajar Varlamov’s winter photographs of this year’s Journey to Oymyakon, the Pole of Cold.

The preview of the Road of Bones winter photographs collection will take place today at Kris Waldherr Art and Words Gallery in Brooklyn, New York. The event will last till December 5th, 2010. All fans of Siberia’s Yakutia and the Kolyma Highway are welcome!

Further, please, find more event details. Read the rest of this entry…

I do really admire these pals. I mean Artyom and Katerina (see the above pic), the co-founders of the Adv.Yktv.ru Siberian adventure blog, and guys of the Yakutsk off-roading club “Mammoth” (http://off-road.ykt.ru/) with its chief Dima Khvatov. If to alter the text of the World Cup Coca-Cola commercial song, they might be always singing, “Give us a reason to off-road higher!” Right. They are easy-going. They are always striving for impassible terrains to go through.

Yakutsk off-roading fans are really lucky. They don’t need to ride on their 4wds, ATVs and motor bikes far away. They just need to get out of the city and make a turn from a road, and here we are. The famous Siberian taiga with lots of challenges is always near!

This time they had two reasons. First, that’s the weekend. Second, a strong wish to get dirty and have sauna inside a special tent with a heating furnace. The latter opportunity was provided by the Yakutsk-based company “Mobilnaya Banya” (A mobile sauna in English). Its director is in a red t-shirt in one of below-listed photographs. Read the rest of this entry…