I had a sort of schedule… of what and when to publish… but Vitaly Toko ruined everything. He regreted that he didn’t make it to Yakutia’s Kolyma this autumn. He worked here for many, many, many years. Actually, he spent all his best years in Yakutia and he’s got a lot of photographs of the biggest Siberian region.

Two days ago Vitalya created a video slideshow using his pictures of Yakutia and Vyacheslav Butusov’s song «Moya Zvezda» (My Star). Why does he love this remote Northern area? What does he feel to it? Everything can be seen in that video.

Hope he will come the next year and we’ll have a drink together

Further find my rough translation of V. Butusov’s song lyric into English.

Read the rest of this entry…

Amazing how many photographs of Siberia’s Yakutia my St Petersburg friends have on their facebook page Russia. Travel across the country. Check it, you will like it for sure.

Meanwhile, here is the info about photographs. 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…

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.»

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!

Read the rest of this entry…

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…