Kurile Lake: where you – and bears – can take a break.

It’s 2022 already, and I still can’t get to the end of my Kamchatka (summer) 2021 tales! And I really do want to finish up at least by the end of the Russian New Year public holiday break (Dec. 31 – Jan. 9!) as… well, to be able to make a fresh start on fresh tales about fresh travels and other fresh adventures in the fresh New Year!…

So, where did I leave off the other day? Ah yes – choppering down to Kamchatka’s Kurile Lake; specifically – its Ozerny camp, situated on the river Ozernaya, which flows toward the villages of Ozernovsky and Zaporozhye by the western coast of the peninsula. Here’s Ozerny camp:

Looking good (compared to how things were in the past)!

Goodness gracious – tourist information boards – with a roof, no less! Whatever next?…

And in English too!

These are the restrooms. Chimneys? So, they’re heated too. How things have come on ). Like!

Green bear. It reminds me of another green bear I know ).

In with the new, out with the… wait! ->

I first saw Vladimir Ilyich here back in 2010, but he was seemingly in storage, unnoticed, and out of the way in the nearby bushes! Amazing that he made it through the years up till then (since, no doubt, 1991) and through to today unharmed! Anyway, they’ve brought him back from the dead to be put on show again – and what better place than in a dual-purpose fire-emergency assembly-point &… smoking shelter?! )

// Smoking? Ugh – yes, I remember that. I gave up five years ago, but still to this day I wonder why on earth I smoked those ghastly things for… 35 years?!!

Besides smoking, there are plenty of other things to do here, as I recounted in a post from 2015. But if getting up close to bears ain’t your thing, you can take a dinghy/boat for a leisurely cruise instead. Nice!

‘Heart of Ala-eed’ island, in the middle of the lake:

Bears! But no worries – we’re in boats on the lake. It gets more fun when you’re right next to them, but, like I say, that’s not everyone’s cup of tea!

Look at that beaut. Wouldn’t mess with him: look how big he is!…

From afar they seem so cute…

And they sit in some funny positions sometimes ) ->

Not so many bears here – less than, say, around Kambalny volcano.

And that’s all from Kurile Lake folks. Splendid place, but this year’s visit was a brief one.

The rest of the photos from the Kamchatka-2021 expedition are here.