A cool Hollywood movie with Colin Farrell is coming on wide screens soon. Yakutia, actually, a bloody part of its history, is depicted. Here is what Richard Laweson wrote in Defamer:

“Here’s a trailer for The Way Back, Peter Weir’s upcoming film about a ragtag band of men (and a girl) escaping the gulag in Siberia [read Yakutia's Kolyma]. It looks a fun, throwbacky adventure yarn, complete with soaring vistas and handsome, grizzled men.”

“Specifically Colin Farrell, who’s having an interesting, quieter second leg of his career. Gone are the cheesy star-maker thrillers, replaced by nimble performances in well-chosen indies. (He was terrific in, and a deserving Golden Globe winner for, In Bruges, and had a nice, unshowy supporting bit in Crazy Heart.) Ed Harris looks typically half-bearded and flint-eyed, and that cute little Saoirse Ronin shows up as eerily adult as ever as a lost babe in the woods.”

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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…

Kobyaj is located north from Yakutsk. It is the only place in Central Yakutia, where you can enjoy the amazing view of the Verkhoyansk Range from the Lena River

Breath-taking rafting is guaranteed in the Yakutian region of Kobyaj

Fishing in the mountain area... What can be more exciting?

I am pretty proud to present the region called Kobyaj. Below, please, find elected summer pictures (frankly saying, I have a lot of photographs, including winter ones).

Kobyaj is people’s name for the Kobyajsky ulus located north from Yakutsk in Central Yakutia, Siberia/Russia. It is the only region (see the map) that includes partly the Lena River and the Verkhoyansk Range. Read the rest of this entry…

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…

Location: Yakutsk, Siberia/Russia.
Dates: Jun. 11-13, 2010.
Off-roading contests: sprint, GPS-orienteering, trophy.
Participants competed on 4x4s, ATVs, motorcycles, bicycles, trekkers.

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

A French balloon explorer Jean-Louis Etienne flying via the North Pole from Norway to the Siberian republic of Yakutia. By Francis Latreille

Jean-Louis Ettienne

YAKUTIA/SIBERIA, April 11, 2010 – Yesterday a 63-years-old French balloon adventurer Jean-Louis Etienne has reached Yakutia’s Arctic Circle and finished his 5-days Generaly Arctic Observer flight expedition done from Norway via the North Pole to Siberia.

In Saturday’s morning he reached the Russian Arctic coast in the area of Yakutia’s Ust-Yansky region. He was expected to land in Tiksi, but the weather (winds and fogs) changed his direction. He was blown eastward to the Ust Yansky region. By that moment he had got pretty tired. The weariness and thick fog on the route to Batagai, the Verkhoyansky region, forced him to land soon in the Northern part of the Yakutian region of Ust Yansky, hundreds kilometers north from the villages of Ust Kujga and Deputatsky.

He spent night in the Arctic nowhere, where temperature at night was below -30 degrees Centigrate.

This morning Jean-Louis Etienne and his balloon equipment was picked up by his support team and brought to Yakutsk by a helicopter.

More info + the video. Read the rest of this entry…