Last week I and my boys visited the famous Russian travel photographers, Anton Lange & Ivan Shakurov’s photo exhibition “To the North”. Certainly, it was dedicated to the coldest & biggest Siberian region of Yakutia. The event took place in the republic’s National Arts Museum. Read the rest of this entry…

Hard to believe, but I created this set of photographs 4 years ago. Annually I add new pictures, not many, just a few. Currently it has 38 items taken between 24 Jun 2006 & 26 Jun 2010. Read the rest of this entry…

Masha Parnikova and Kim Borisov. Ysyakh in Yakutsk, Yakutia, Siberia. June 26, 2010. Photo by Bolot.

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Location: Yakutsk, Siberia/Russia.
Dates: Jun. 11-13, 2010.
Off-roading contests: sprint, GPS-orienteering, trophy.
Participants competed on 4×4s, ATVs, motorcycles, bicycles, trekkers.

More texts are coming. Meanwhile, see 64 photos of the real Siberian challenge. Read the rest of this entry…

On the way to Namzy. The Lena River's flood. Photo by Ajar Varlamov.

Ajar Varlamov is awesome as usual. When the Lena River flood started [it was on May 20, 2010], he travelled from Yakutsk north to Namzy. He didn’t make it to the final destination. He was stopped in the village of Tulagino. The rest part of the so-called Namzy highway, the 2nd existing asphalt road near Yakutsk, was totally flooded by high waters of the Lena River.

An unpleasant accident happened to Ajar. When he stood on the brink of the asphalt road in the area of the flooding, suddently the ground under his feet disappeared and he fell in cold ice snow water. Fortunately, he was saved. Praise god. So… take a look at his photos of the current flooding… Btw, two his Nikon cameras got broken

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More new photographs of the Lena River flooding in Yakutsk are upcoming with every update. Stay tuned. Check the last set.

The part of Yakutsk - Pokrovsk road between villages of Oktemzy and Tekhtyur is overflooded. May 19, 2010. Photo by 777.

2010 Spring Lena River Flooding. That’s a big event in Siberia’s Yakutia, indeed. We, all locals, follow the last flood information. Emergency and other services are on alert. The flood is already here. The river flows fast.

Yesterday, May 19, the part of the Yakutsk-Pokrovsk road between Oktemzy and Tekhtyur has been already flooded. It means the town of Pokrovsk is totally disconnected from Yakutsk for next two weeks.

Further, watch, how the Lena River flows through a live webcam. Check river pictures and the river map. In the course of the work day I will try to update this post with more flood information on the Lena River, the longest river in Siberia. Stay tuned. Read the rest of this entry…

Here are my announcements of big international events in Yakutsk for June 2010. Initially published on the Twitter account @yakutia.

- Khabarovsk-based Japanese Centre will hold the seminar on the development of tourism, timber & construction industries in Yakutsk on Jun 2-3UNDP & the Northern Forum will held the seminar on climate changes in Yakutsk on June 2-6, 2010. #climatechange

- UNDP & the Northern Forum will held the seminar on climate changes in Yakutsk on June 2-6, 2010. #climatechange.

- 13th University of the Arctic Council Meeting will take place in #Yakutsk on June 1-5, 2010. #Arctic http://bit.ly/aOZih

- 2010 NORD EXPO International Trade Fair to be in Yakutsk on June 1-4, 2010. http://bit.ly/cGp6Cp

- The 9th International Symposium on Cold Region Development (ISCORD) to be held in Yakutsk, Russia, on June 1-4, 2010 http://bit.ly/bl02kp

- Our Yukagir Mammoth is coming back to Russia from Shanghai. Non EXPO2010-related events, incl. the mammoth exhibition, were canceled by Shanghai City Hall.

- Yakutia-based travel companies & local authority will arrange the East Ring of Russia conference in Yakutsk on June 24-26, 2010. It seems they want to create another Russia’s Gold Ring.

Follow event updates on Twitter.

On April 25, 2010, the day before the snowstorm, Mammoth Yakutsk Off-Road Club hosted the city’s GPS orienteering contest. Further, please, see the photographs of top participants. A team of Pokrovsk (in the first following pic) won the competition.

GPS orienteering is very popular in Yakutsk. Hard to recall, when it gained ground. I think, five years ago. All males/females, who do not spare their own off-road vehicle, consider it an honor to compete in collecting all marks with numbers (this time there were 72) faster than others.

Everything looks pretty funny. It is not enough to find marks by GPS coordinates. It is also highly required to touch a mark and a car at the same time, and all this act must be photographed. To reach a mark, a driver must get his/her car closer to the check point and, if space is still huge, stretch himself/herself as long as possible. That’s why contenders may look in pictures extremely amusing Check out.

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There is a great man living in Yakutsk. His name is Ivan Negenblya. He is the most honored Yakutia’s aviation worker. His lifetime theme was and still remains Alaska-Siberia World War II Air Route (info on Wiki). He wrote a lot of books on this topic. Besides, he’s got a great amount of historical photographs in his collection.

Currently I and many other friends are helping him to arrange his first international photo exhibition. Thinking to display ~200 archive photographs in Fairbanks, USA. A couple of days ago, I got some scanned pics so to start working on photo materials… and suddenly…

..Another fantastic idea descended upon me. Why not make Alaska-Siberia WWII Air Route Online Photo Exhibition? Funny, but I decided not to wait and have already registered the domain www.alaskasiberia.com. Now the website development is the matter of time. Oh, forgot to mention. The major Soviet part of the Alaska-Siberia route went through Siberia’s Yakutia.

Futher, please, see more sample photographs. Here we go! Read the rest of this entry…

Take a look at 38 exclusive photographs of how Polar Airlines was rescuing the French Arctic explorer Jean-Louis Etienne in the Arctic tundra of Yakutia’s Siberia after his 5-days North Pole balloon crossing on April 11th, 2010. Read the rest of this entry…