Travel blog
Kolyma stories
Kolyma Highway
The idea for this route came to me during a summer trip to Yakutia. Hungry, dirty, overgrown with stubble and exuding the aromas of a body that had not been washed for a long time, dirty things and fire smoke, I went out at the end of my route onto the Kolyma highway exactly in the middle between Yakutsk and Magadan, 70 kilometers from the nearest settlement - the gold mining village of Ust- Nera, in the most remote place from civilization. And during the two hours of waiting on the highway, not a single car passed along it - neither in one direction nor in the other! It is not surprising that the first car I saw was greeted with unspeakable joy and at the same time fear that it might not stop. But she stopped and the driver kindly agreed to give me a ride to Ust-Nera. My 120-liter, 60-kilogram backpack took up exactly half of the free space in the minibus, and seeing this, as well as smelling the smell emanating from me and my traveling belongings, the driver quickly regretted that he agreed to take me - it was very clearly written on his face , but it was already too late :)
However, we started talking, became friends, and I comfortably traveled with him all the way to Yakutsk, where I was taken to the airport and given help in replacing my ticket for an earlier date, and much cheaper, what was asked of me at Aeroflot - a couple of calls to friends and the issue was miraculously resolved with minimal losses for my by that time severely depleted budget.
The driver turned out to be not just a good guy, but also an excellent storyteller, and during the 36 hours of our joint journey to Yakutsk, he infected me with the idea of making a winter trip along the Kolyma highway, that the idea itself myself, without much effort on my part was realized.
And here we are in Yakutsk. Two Hungarian guys are lovers of trash travel and Russia in general, having previously made a road trip from Hungary to Lake Baikal and back, as well as having visited Kamchatka in winter and driving through Karelia and the Murmansk region and their Russian friend, who sheltered and warmed them during the difficult moment of their first trip around Russia and then drank more than one glass of vodka with them on their further wanderings around Russia - the company you need. This is no joke - a trip around Kolyma is not for the average refined city dweller, especially a European one. For such a trip you need healthy adventurism, experience in trashy travel and the ability to enjoy discomfort and get a buzz from it, otherwise you shouldn’t go there. You also need to be prepared to drink a lot of alcohol and enjoy new sensations. You can, of course, do without the first, but the men, as they say, will not understand - the people in Kolyma are simple, harsh and not without bad habits. If you address someone as “you,” they will immediately understand that you are a stranger. And if you don’t drink vodka, it’s definitely not our spy!
Yakutsk greeted us with a slight invigorating frost of -39 degrees. During the day it warmed up to -32. And this is already a sign of spring in Yakutia: in winter there are practically no differences in day and night temperatures, but when it becomes 10-15 degrees warmer during the day, it’s time for spring. At night and in April it can be -40 here, but during the day it will definitely be warmer - 20-25 degrees, and this is no longer frost for these places.
On the first day, under the leadership of Yana Makarova, a resident of Yakutsk who speaks fluent Hungarian, our warm and hospitable angel, we visited two museums - mammoth and archeology, as well as a private museum-estate Atlasov. Looking at Yana, easily and naturally translating the stories of museum workers about archaeological finds and ancient Yakut rituals to the Hungarian guests, I simply could not get enough of it - I didn’t even understand everything in Russian, let alone how to translate and explain it all to foreigners...: )
In the evening there was a banquet in our rented apartment - Yana and her husband came, another couple of their friends, a Serbian basketball coach at the Yakut State University and four of us... According to all formalities signs - they are all completely different people, but I haven’t been in such a warm and soulful campaign for a long time. We talked about Yakutia, about Hungary, about travel, joked a lot and ate delicacies brought by the guests, including the raw foal liver with spices that I promised in the tour program. The evening was simply amazing!
And in the morning we were already driving to the Lena Pillars. In the summer they are taken to them by boats and boats, but in the winter, part of the way the road goes straight on the ice of the Lena, under the less famous, but no less interesting and unique Elan pillars, on which ancient petroglyphs have been preserved, which we heard a lot about in the museum, but here you go - we saw it with our own eyes!
Elan Pillars
In the area of the Lena Pillars, the river bed is wide - about 4 kilometers, and the road goes closer to the opposite bank, so the services of Ivanovich, the only resident of the village on the opposite bank from the pillars, are in great demand tourists to the pillars on Buran and treating them to hot tea in his hut.
Well, how about getting to the pillars and not climbing to their highest point along a narrow forest path? No, this is simply impossible for us, despite the severe frost.
Having descended, we find ourselves just at sunset and this is a truly fantastic sight: glistening ice on the Lena, increasing frost and the setting winter sun from behind the Pillars. The only pity is that it’s almost impossible to take photographs - we got very wet on the way, and on Lena there was a piercing frosty wind, blowing through and not allowing us to take off our gloves even for a minute to take a few normal shots.
Lena Pillars at sunset
On the third day of our stay in Yakutia, we say goodbye to the hospitable capital and head towards the village of Khandyga, where we will have our first overnight stay on the route. The road for several kilometers again goes along the ice of the Lena, then the village of Bestyakh, where we buy food - the cheapest in these parts - then everything will be much more expensive, the driver fills up a full tank of gasoline and we drive away from civilization.
The open-air museum in the village of Cherkekh is opened especially for us by appointment. A local guide walks with us along paths trampled in deep snow in summer shoes and in response to my surprised question “Isn’t it cold?” answers light-heartedly, “Nope.” Then he still invites us to take a walk ourselves and quickly runs away to a warm house. And I, unbeknownst to myself, am freezing the tip of my nose - it is very similar to a sunburn, it hurts and peels off in the same way, but it goes away after a week without any traces or special consequences. But there weren’t any real frosts yet - we’re going to Oymyakon, and there, as our driver’s friends say, it’s minus 59 degrees!
Cherkekh Museum
In the evening we arrive in Khandyga and check into a hotel. Hotels in almost all Kolyma villages are private apartments that the owners rent out to tourists and business travelers who find themselves in these parts. In Khandyga, the apartment is of decent quality - warm, with hot water, but already much inferior in terms of comfort to the apartment in Yakutsk. And it stands like a “real” one. - 1,500 rubles per person, but this is still a small thing.
The next day we go to see the Gulag camps near the village of Topolinoye. It's "almost close" - 100 kilometers along the highway, then 190 kilometers to the north along a narrow country road, accessible by train only in winter - several bridges over rivers have been demolished by stormy currents, and it seems no one is going to restore them. In winter you can drive on the ice of rivers, but in summer, excuse me, only with heavy equipment. The return journey is again 190 kilometers and 70 back along the highway to the village of Teply Klyuch - it is the closest where you can spend the night. Although we have to go back, and tomorrow we will cover these 70 kilometers again on the road forward, there is no other way - villages in these parts are already rare, and those where you can find accommodation for the night are even more so.
And all this way is for the sake of two dilapidated Gulag camps. Well, as you wanted - this is Kolyma, there are such distances here.
The camps are well preserved, although at this time of year they are hidden under a thick layer of snow. The barbed wire along the entire perimeter, the barracks, even the security tower still stands, although the day is not far off when it will collapse under the weight of time pressing on it.
The answer to the question “why are the camps located so far from the highway?” simple - gold. It was for his sake that these camps and the Kolyma highway itself were built - to mine gold with the help of free labor.
By the way, on the way to the camps and back, the driver turned on a chanson in the car and it sounded completely organic here. Usually I can hardly stand this kind of music, but here I listened with interest and even wrote down individual lines of songs :) As they say, there should be a place and time for everything, and for some reason this place was in great harmony with the blatnyak.
The hotel in the village of Teply Klyuch is perhaps the most exotic of our entire route and resembles more a homeless shelter than a hotel: the doors are warped, paint and plaster hang in tatters from the walls and ceilings, In the bathroom there are bare wires sticking out of the walls, and if you open the tap, water no longer flows from it, but... from the ceiling. You close the tap, the water from the ceiling stops flowing. The toilet room is exactly as wide as the toilet - you sit on it and rest your shoulders against the walls. And this “pleasure” is worth it still the same 1500 rubles per person! A shelter for homeless millionaires.
The next morning we leave this “hotel” with great joy. and we go to Oymyakon. The warm spring is drowning in dense frosty fog - this means that it is at least 40 degrees below zero outside, but the problem is - while we are going to Oymyakon, a cloud front arrives and it starts snowing, and snow is always and everywhere - warming!
In Oymyakon the thermometer shows 42, but just a day ago it was -59! Why else go to the Pole of Cold if not for the frost? But we were unlucky, alas...
However, there are also advantages to warming. The fact is that there are no warm toilets in Oymyakon – they are all outside and at 60 degrees below zero, going to the toilet turns into an extreme sport. At minus 42 degrees, it’s also sport and excitement, but not as intense :)
Well, our driver couldn’t be happier – for him -60 and even -50 - a real problem. The car is parked here overnight in a warm (stove-heated) garage, so there are no problems starting it, but at temperatures below 50 degrees it literally becomes wooden – the suspension creaks, the wheels are “square”, it’s impossible to drive faster than 20 km/h on a bumpy road at this temperature. But even at this speed, the likelihood that any metal unit can burst from frost is very high. But repairing a car in such cold weather, on a highway 100 or 200 kilometers from human habitation, as you understand, is not an option. You can only call “via satellite” help, take the tourists out, and then wait for warmer weather to make repairs or at least tow the car away.
There are quite a lot of abandoned KAMAZ trucks on the Kolyma highway – flew off the road on ice, even slightly, without damage – consider it to remain in the ditch until spring, if the area is not swampy. And if it’s a swamp, then it’s forever – the swamp will begin to melt and the car will simply go “headlong” into it.
Accident on the Kolyma highway
In the morning, after having a hearty breakfast, we go to the horse farm, where a herd of Yakut horses grazes in a fenced area – unique animals that independently obtain their own food, tearing up the snow with their hooves and are not afraid of any frost. And they are almost wild – They don’t let people get close to them and only here, in a fenced area, can you get close enough to them, but even then – very slowly, without sudden movements, like approaching a wild animal.
Horses are practically not used here for household needs. There are a very small number of horses that are specially tamed for racing at competitions and folk festivals, as well as a small number of foals that are slaughtered for meat, but only up to two years old – Older horses never go to meat anymore and die naturally, from old age or illness. So the majority of Yakut horses are bred to maintain the breed, fortunately there is very little care for them – sometimes they are fed with oats in winter, the rest of the time they are on free bread.
Yakut horses
After returning from the horse base, Chyskhaan is already waiting for us – Yakut Santa Claus presenting diplomas for visiting the Pole of Cold to all tourists. True, we first receive the diplomas from the village administration, and only then hand them over to Chyskhaan to take a memorable photo with him. The ritual is not at all mandatory, but quite pleasant.
Photo with Chyskhaan in Oymyakon
And after that Tamara Egorovna Vasilyeva herself is waiting for us to talk – godmother of Oymyakon, a former school teacher who collected a lot of information and bravely defended in government and scientific circles the right to call Oymyakon the Pole of Cold. At the beginning of the 2000s, there were attempts by Yakut deputies to take this title from Oymyakon and transfer it to Verkhoyansk, but Tamara Egorovna went to Moscow, St. Petersburg, visited the academies of sciences and proved that the coldest place – Oymyakon, and in Verkhoyansk the average temperature is 2-3 degrees higher.
She is now retired, but continues to conduct scientific work, writes books and… receives quite a few tourists in his home. There are no hotels or guest houses in Oymyakon, all visitors stay in Tamara Egorovna’s house, she feeds them herself and she organizes all the tourist programs for them in Oymyakon. She is highly respected in the village.
Photo for memory with Tamara Egorovna Vasilyeva in Oymyakon
Towards evening we go ice fishing on Indigirka. Our fishing guide Egor already has nets and everything we need – This is to free the holes from frozen ice and collect the fish that are pulled out. The catch is small for these places – two molts and two grayling, but this is just a tourist attraction, not real fishing, so no one is particularly upset.
The caught fish is immediately “cooked” for us. - cut into pieces. Raw. Under the instructions of our driver “Fry fish” only spoil” and she quickly goes under vodka in this form. By the way, there are no parasites in the fish of northern rivers, so everyone here almost always eats it raw or lightly salted– it is safe. But personally, I still like lightly salted better than raw. During a summer expedition to Yakutia, I spent a day hanging out with local men who had gone fishing in the Urals – with nets, 20 barrels for salting fish and 10 boxes of vodka. In mid-August, the grayling was large, fat and, a day after salting, fantastically tasty. During these days, without exaggeration, I ate 20 fish, no less.
In the evening we are expected at a local cultural center with a concert organized especially for us and two other French filmmakers. The concert, however, is not ordinary – we are quickly drawn into the action and we, together with schoolgirls in folk costumes, dance, sing along and play board games, which are here, far from smartphones and unlimited Internet, brighten up leisure time not only for children, but also for adults. Despite the staged nature of the moment, everything looks very fun, lively and informal. As a farewell, we take a joint group photo, and the schoolchildren ask us to come visit them with our children next time – they are very interested in seeing and communicating with children from other countries and regions of Russia – virtual communication is not held in high esteem here.
Photo as a souvenir with the residents of Oymyakon
In the morning it turns out that today is a holiday – February 23. Tamara Egorovna gives us gifts on this occasion and we leave the hospitable and not so cold Oymyakon.
The gold mining village of Ust-Nera, where we arrive in the evening, is a truly depressing sight – black from the soot of coal-fired boiler houses and home stoves, with the unfriendly nature around and equally unfriendly people, it is not conducive to a long stay here. The only cafe is not open, the prices in stores are simply outrageous, so we have dinner in a rented apartment-hotel with food we brought with us and try to go to bed as quickly as possible.
The only thing I manage to notice in the evening in Ust-Nera – All cars here are taxis. It would seem, who and where goes by taxi in a small village that can be walked from end to end in half an hour? It turns out that taxis here don’t so much carry people as they fulfill orders for the delivery of food and, especially, vodka from the store. It’s probably simply impossible not to drink here, especially in the evening, so this micro-business of delivering vodka to the suffering is thriving.
The next day, in a few hours, we reach the border of Yakutia and the Magadan region. All this space – about 400 kilometers – is a sad sight. Rivers dug up by dredging, tons of rocky soil strained and scattered in random heaps – the result of many years of gold mining in these parts. According to the environmental law, all these waste dumps are supposed to be leveled and almost replanted with forest. But who will do this far from civilization and checks? More precisely, as they say, inspections come regularly, they only end in restaurants and bathhouses that are closed to prying eyes – inspectors usually don’t go any further. Particularly important inspectors are taken by helicopter to hunt, for example, bighorn sheep listed in the Red Book – this is much more interesting than looking at piles of mangled mountains and polluted rivers. Everyone here is talking about this and it is no secret to anyone, they even name specific names, but who will hear these people?
This is how the land, rich in natural resources, lives little by little, gradually turning into an uninhabitable desert. But the distances here are enormous, there is still enough gold and fish for our lifetime, and then – It's none of our business.
And we drive further and, before reaching the town of Sasuman, we turn off the highway to explore the ghost town of Kadykchan, which is located a couple of kilometers from the highway and is clearly visible from it. But you have to see it up close!
Ghost town of Kadykchan
A district of multi-storey buildings, a large school, a cinema, a community center, a swimming pool and many other buildings gape with empty eye-socket windows. There was once a coal mine here, in 1996 there was an explosion, the fire was put out, but the coal continues to smolder to this day – The permafrost located above the coal seams feeds the smoldering with oxygen; as a result of the smoldering, carbon dioxide is released and it becomes impossible to work in the mine. Never.
The mine was closed. That same winter, a boiler exploded in the boiler room that heated the city, and the city was left without heat in the -50 degree frosts. Residents hastily left wherever they could, abandoning their cars and apartments, often with all their belongings. A certain number of people who simply had nowhere to go continued to live here for many years, but they too were gone – Some people couldn’t stand it and left, many simply died. Somewhere in a garage lives, they say, a single resident-hermit; tourists used to visit him, but now they don’t recommend going there – it is inadequate, besides it is covered with ulcers of unknown origin, it may be contagious…
We walked almost the entire city, looked into the Brigantine cafe, the cultural center, some houses, but we were especially struck by the school. The city has long been plundered – everything more or less valuable was taken away, including many doors and almost everything metal that had been uprooted from the walls, but the school still contains textbooks and books, children’s notebooks and records – in these parts it is not considered something valuable.
Ghost town of Kadykchan
Children’s voices can still be heard in the corridors; in the toilet there are indecent children’s inscriptions on the tiles… Ghost town – very precise definition of this place.
Ghost town of Kadykchan
In Sasuman, and this is the second largest city in the Magadan region, although it looks not like a city, but a village, a real hotel was waiting for us with, surprisingly for these places, hospitable security guards and administrator. As in Ust-Nera, the only cafe in the city was not working, but the aunt happily offered to cook something for us on her stove, which she did, cooking the dumplings we bought, and in the morning frying scrambled eggs and boiling sausages for the road. The evening passed in the form of a friendly drinking session with huge portions of very tasty, by the way, local dumplings.
The next morning we took a photo near the plane sticking out of the building – a local landmark, famous, as it turned out, even in Hungary and we went back – to the exit to the Starokolymsky tract.
Here we need to tell you a little about the Kolyma highway. Everyone knows that it was built by prisoners in the 30s of the last century, as a road for the removal from this region of large previously explored reserves of gold, silver, molybdenum, uranium, coal and other natural resources, which the poor economy of the young country of the Soviets so needed . Almost all of this was exported, marking the beginning of a commodity economy that later destroyed the Soviet Union and from which Russia has still not been able to get rid of.
Initially, the Kolyma highway was laid south of the current branch of the Kolyma federal highway – not far from Oymyakon and went to the village of Ust-Omchug (here were most of the Gulag camps), and from there to Magadan. After the war, geologists discovered huge reserves of placer gold north of the tract – in the area of the current village of Ust-Nera, a new road was built there, and the old one, with mined-out gold-bearing areas, was abandoned. It still remains, but since no one looked after it, almost all the wooden bridges built in the 30s have fallen into disrepair and today this road can only be driven by heavy equipment – tractor, URAL, KAMAZ in a special configuration. In the summer, extreme sports enthusiasts like to ride along it on motorcycles, bicycles and on their own two feet. driving or walking along it is not as dusty as along the federal road, and rivers, if the water is small, can be crossed by fords. But this activity is extremely extreme – the water in the rivers can rise quickly and you will be cut off from the road in any direction for weeks, or even months. Think carefully before deciding on such a trip.
The exception in the Starokolyma tract is the section that starts a little closer (to Yakutia) Sasuman, goes along the passes to the village of Ust-Omchug and then, again, through the passes, goes to the federal track near the village of Palatka. There are still large gold mining cooperatives here that maintain the road in working order and therefore you can drive along it without much extreme. So we went.
Pass on the Starokolymsky tract
The passes turned out to be not as beautiful as promised (perhaps a different weather or time of day was required to contemplate them in all their splendor), but the visit to the village of Ust-Omchug was very interesting.< /p>
First, on the recommendation of the owner of the apartment where we stayed for the night, we went to the local museum, co-organized on a voluntary basis by one local resident and which is a mixture of archaeological, local history museums and a museum dedicated to the Gulag. It was Saturday evening, the museum, of course, was closed, but for us (oh the beauty of small villages!) it was opened and, moreover, completely free.
In these parts there was the most terrible Gulag camp – its prisoners worked in a uranium mine and were kept in monstrous conditions even compared to other, monstrous camps, and not far from the village there is the famous “valley of death” - a natural wind tunnel between the mountains, in which several dozen stages with prisoners froze to death – After all, they came here from Magadan on foot and if they froze, then together with the convoy. There are a lot of documents about all this in the museum.
We had dinner in a fairly decent cafe for these places, the owner of which introduced himself to us as a gold miner, tried to sell us the head (stuffed) of that same bighorn sheep listed in the Red Book and promising to issue all the permits for export. And then, closer to midnight, girls started coming to the cafe… It's unlikely they were prostitutes – in such a tiny village, prostitution cannot be an industry, and there were a lot of girls, in groups, one, two or three, they were dressed provocatively, they drank light alcohol, but they did not look at the men, which is not typical for prostitutes. What it was remains a mystery to us, which, however, does not torment the soul so much that we want to solve it.
Moreover, the next day Magadan was waiting for us – the capital of the Kolyma region, as the famous song says, but for us – long-awaited civilization and, lo and behold! – Internet, which was not there all the days after Yakutsk.
But first we stopped in the village of Palatka – listed in the Guinness Book of Records for the number of fountains per capita. I don’t have exact data, but there are a lot of fountains here! And all the houses are decorated in bright, festive colors, there are some very sophisticated, even for capitals, children's playgrounds and original street lighting. All this, as local residents say, was done with the money of a local oligarch, the owner of a gold mining and gold processing concern with the strange name “Arbat” for these places. He also owns almost all the jewelry stores in Magadan, and there are a huge number of them. No one can answer the question of why Magadan needs so many jewelry stores, but their owner, apparently, is not a fool and created them with some far-reaching intent – All our interlocutors agreed on this.
Village of Palatka, Magadan Region
We stayed in Magadan for four days and saw everything there was to see. The city is interesting for tourists, curious, the nature around is also of great interest, but four for this city – a lot of.
Mask of Sorrow of Ernst the Unknown
Anyone who comes there for the first time should visit the mask of sorrow of Ernst the Unknown, the Mammoth monument and the monument to Vladimir Vysotsky on the shore of Nagaev Bay, as well as go to the village of Ola, on the road to which open amazingly beautiful views of the shore and cliffs of the Sea of ??Okhotsk, and also there is a landing site of the first settlers of these places, marked with memorial signs.
However, having wheels, it’s easy to see all this in one day. The second day can be devoted to a rather interesting, but very small museum of local history, go to the Regional Drama Theater (we were unlucky - there were no performances), and also visit the memorial apartment-museum of singer Vadim Kozin - a Soviet pop star, convicted for the conflict with Beria (we lived literally above this apartment, but never visited, alas).
View of the Sea of Okhotsk near Magadan
Conclusion
The trip turned out to be even more interesting than previously imagined, although it was called “extreme auto photo tour,” but nothing extreme, thank God, happened. If you are a fan of unconventional and challenging travel, you will definitely like this trip. There are many things you won’t see or experience anywhere else in the world! Kolyma – This is Kolyma!
The only fly in the ointment, which, in fairness, must be added to this honeyed story – this is the price tag. In these parts it is much higher than the average for Russia and even in Moscow for literally everything. If at the time of writing this report, 92nd gasoline in Moscow costs 36 rubles per liter, then on the Kolyma highway it costs 50 rubles per liter. Accommodation in a homeless shelter – 1500 rub. per person per night and 3000 rub. – for a more or less decent hotel room. An apartment in Yakutsk cost us 6,700 rubles. per day (for everyone), and in Magadan – 3000 rub. per day (for everyone). The cost of a 4-seater + minibus driver with driver services, accommodation along the route and meals exceeds 25,000 rubles. per day. For comparison, in Moscow, renting a 20-seater (!) Mercedes Sprinter costs a maximum of 20,000 rubles. per day including everything.
In general, when going to Yakutia, be prepared for significant expenses. My friends, while I was in Kolyma, were traveling around the Philippines. We lived quietly, mostly in 3-star hotels, flew between islands on local planes, ate fruit (and they even brought it to me as a gift), seafood, basked in the sun and kitesurfed, and the two of us spent less than I did alone in Kolyma. This is the arithmetic.
But the Philippines – this is the Philippines, and Kolyma – This is Kolyma. Two completely different worlds on one planet Earth, and if you are inquisitive, have a thirst for life and a passion for learning new things, there can be no opposition here – you need to go to the Philippines, and Kolyma, and many other different and unique places. I'm telling you this! :)