Bruce Parry (with a tripod) and his team in Yakutsk, Yakutia/Siberia

Hurray! Bruce Parry with his IndusFilm crew is in the Siberian town of Yakutsk! What’s he doing here?

Bruce Parry (born 17 March 1969, in Hythe, Hampshire, England) is a former Royal Marine instructor who is now a TV presenter and adventurer, known particularly for the documentary programme series Tribe (known as Going Tribal in the United States), co-produced by the BBC and the Discovery Channel. Resource: Wiki.

I met Bruce Parry two days ago on Lenin Avenue in Yakutsk. Actually he and his team arrived early, on June 17th. They have already visited a village near the town, went for two celebrations of Ysyakh, Yakut national holiday. One was held in Gorny ulus (three hours by a car from Yakutsk) and Megino-Kangalassky region (just in the front of Yakutsk on the opposite bank of the Lena River). Yesterday they departed for Sakkyryr to travel with Even reindeer herders. On the day of the meeting, they visited Epl Diamonds’ diamonds-cutting and jewelry’s factories and drove around the downtown shooting general views of the city.

First, I would love to tell the story of how his arrival happened to be possible. Read the rest of this entry…

The Winter Road Documentary Poster

This is the video preview of Nikolay Evstifeev’s documentary “THE WINTER ROAD. The Land of Fierce…” about the sever work in Siberia’s Yakutia. Here you can see how hard ordinary people’s work can be in the toughest part of Siberia.

The documentary film won The Best Directing Award at The 17th Saint Anna Film Festival and The Best Cinematography Award at The 29th VGIK Film Festival. Btw, Anton Safronov was a camera man.

The documentary is about Yakutia, the sever land of truckers, gold miners, hunters, oil & other industry workers. Extreme conditions are revealed in every capture. Survival at minus 50 degrees Celsius, ice roads on rivers, people’s attitude to nature, wild life… and PEOPLE without false manners and any compromises.

Young documentary filmmakers traveled winter roads in Yakutia, Siberia/Russia. They met many ordinary workers, who appeared to be real heroes of daily life.

“This film is very sincere! This is a real big documentary!” said Michael Porechenkov, the chairman of the 29th VGIK Film Festival jury, a famous Russian actor. Read the rest of this entry…

Received a message from an Icelandic friend of mine. He wrote, “Yakutsk was on Icelandic News Channel this evening.” Later, he explained that it was the reportage about an Icelandic mechanic’ work at Yakutsk Airport. A representative of Iceland Air, that leased 5 Boing 737 planes to Yakutia Airlines, said in his interview, “It is -27, people are showing hospitality.” Read the rest of this entry…

On January 24, 2010, RussiaToday aired the 25-min report about Yakutia. A nice story.

Synopsis: Yakutia is the largest republic in Russia and one of the most extreme places on the planet. It’s officially the coldest inhabited place on earth. Yakutsk is the capital and largest city of the region, built entirely on permafrost. But despite the cold weather, our correspondent James Brown found plenty of warm people there. Explore Yakutia with us on RT.

Watch Misha Maltsev’s documentary “Siberia at the Centre of the World – Part 1: Music, Dance and Ritual in Sakha-Yakutia.”

Disclaimer: the video length is about 1 hour, be careful if you don’t have unlimited Internet traffic. Misha Maltsev’s bio is here.

The popular Dutch travel show “3 Op Reis” is currently featuring the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). It dedicated two TV Show series to our region, one to Yakutsk, another to Verkhoyansk, the coldest town in Yakutia. The TV crew visited Yakutia in early October 2009. Hehe. Remember I recommended them to go to Verkhoyansk.

See a video further. Read the rest of this entry…

Mario (left) and Oriol (right) are going to Oymyakon and make a 30-min documentary for Channel 5 Spain.

Helping Mario and Orio with their travel to Oymyakon, the Pole of Cold. They decided to fly to Ust Nera, then to drive south to Oymyakon, where they will stay one week and make footage for the 30-min documentary to show on Channel 5 Spain. The photo was made today on Lenin Ave. in Yakutsk.