August 21, 2024
In and around Topolínoyeh: beautiful and white – all day.
Ahead of us – taking the incredibly picturesque (permanent, but not asphalted) road from the village of Topolinoye roughly south all the way to the Kolyma Highway, and then hanging a right (westward) and back to Yakutsk. That was the plan, anyway…
First – intro pics:
Gulag and halos:
The previous day there was plenty of snowfall – too much for some trucks. We counted several this day that ended up like this one:
But back to Topolinoye…
Here’s the main square of the village. Plenty of freshly-built or freshly-renovated buildings to be seen; alas – only through the window of the car (apologies for the reflections) ->
The Garpana Ethnic-Cultural Center ->
On the outskirts – not so freshly-anythinged old wooden buildings:
Some buildings feature anti-seismic buttresses:
And from the drone:
Forty kilometers from Topolinoye – the Bolshoi Olchan (Big Olchan) mountain pass with extra-special views…
Whiter than white, plus halos! ->
Beautiful, but dangerous:
At the top of the pass:
Paradise!
A wonderful stretch of road – both in terms of the views to be had therefrom, plus the quality of its surface.
The road here’s improved in three years. The main thing – it’s wider. Here’s how it looked in February 2021:
And here – in the exact same spot – in March 2024:
2021:
2024:
Impressive. From a backwater lane to almost a highway in three years. Good work!…
And I’ll finish this post here. But why – out in the middle of nowhere? I’ll save that for the tomorrow’s post…
The rest of the photos from our Yakutsk-Tiksi-Yakutsk expedition are here.
