The Polytechnic Museum in Moscow is a fascinating place with unique science and technology exhibits – some preserved as the only surviving examples. Alas, it’s been closed now for renovations since 2013 – so they’ve been building and changing things there for 13 years now. I hope it’s for the better and that someday the museum will actually reopen to visitors. In the meantime, you can view its exhibits at VDNKh and in the museum’s storage facility at Technopolis Moscow. So, since I’ve always been drawn to technical things – especially unusual ones – when I was kindly invited to tour the latter facility, I immediately accepted. And I’m really glad I did…

There’s pretty much anything and everything you could imagine here! All kinds of technical devices, gadgets, cars and motorcycles, photo and video equipment, televisions and radios, calculators, space artifacts – and even a mock-up of… an atomic bomb. To my surprise, there’s one thing they don’t have at all – agricultural machinery (why?!). But everything else is represented – maybe not in vast quantities (so not quite like the “Encyclopedia of Technology” in Verkhnyaya Pyshma), but still plenty…

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The Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Plant on the Angara River is a fascinating facility with an equally fascinating history. Construction began way back in 1954 – over 70 years ago. The first turbine unit came online in 1961, with the rest phased in gradually. For about eight years this power plant held the title of the world’s largest by installed capacity. (Fun fact: the crown then passed to another Soviet plant, the Krasnoyarsk HPP.) Anyway, here’s the Bratsk HPP:

A mightily powerful structure…

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Ola folks!

Getting to Atacama – sweet. Staying the night in Atacama – neat! Next up – Atacama proper…

Our to-do list had a full nine items:

1) Rainbow Valley
2) petroglyphs at a place called Yerbas Buenas (which turned out meh)
3) Devil’s Throat Gorge (curiously, there’s a Devil’s Throat at Iguazu Falls – though it’s not a gorge but a waterfall)
4) Moon Valley
5) Death Valley
6) Lake Chaxa (with flamingos)
7) the stunning Miscanti and Miñiques lagoons
8) the El Tatio geyser field
9) stargazing through telescopes

Off we go!…

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Our South American road-trip early this year was a belter – as regular readers already know. As per, thousands of photos are still being sorted to be turned into (hopefully interesting) photo-based stories, with videos getting uploaded too. As usual, I’m sharing practical info along the way: the routes we took, where things are on the map, where we stayed, what the comfort levels were like – that kind of thing. And on today’s menu: where we stayed in Chile’s Atacama Desert in the town of San Pedro de Atacama (here)…

It was a hotel called Our Habitas. It belongs to a chain of stylish hotels in cool locations around the world (Latin America, the Middle East, Namibia…). But this isn’t an ad for the chain or this particular hotel. There are other solid options here too – including simpler and cheaper ones. We just happened to stay here, so that’s what I’ll be writing about. Let’s go!…

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Another long-held dream checked off the list – visiting the Atacama Desert in Chile’s far north (here). Feast your eyes! ->

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I’ve been sorting through photos for upcoming posts about our LatAm-2026 road trip. Next up: Chile’s high-altitude Atacama Desert. Spoiler (no, these can never be spoiled): the views are jaw-droppingly oh-my-grandiosely-gorgeous-gradients!…

And while I was sifting, sorting, and editing the pics of South American roads – an idea came to me…

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In my previous post I promised to show you some roads and the views to be had therefrom in Latin America, right? Today – that promise: fulfilled. Get ready for picturesque, vast arid landscapes, seemingly painted mountains, and ribbons of road winding through it all:

Not much to say here – I’ll let the photos do the talking:

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I was a little too hasty in my last post when I ended it with “that’s a wrap on Argentina“, for there were the traditional post-scriptum posts I’d forgotten about. All about Argentina’s roads – in the next post; in today’s – all a few words and pics about eats and sleeps in Argentina…

For the most part, things were as we expected. Down south in Patagonia we found plenty of comfortable little hotels and decent campsites. But when we got to the Jujuy Province, we landed in what felt, by local standards, like the lap of luxury!

Case in point: the Hotel Huacalera. A wonderful hotel! We saw online that it has a pool, but we weren’t really in the mood for that kind of relaxation. All we needed were showers and a good night’s sleep, and to get moving again the next morning. But hey, when a little extra comfort is on offer, why not? ->

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The colorful mountains, rocks, and canyons of Argentina’s Jujuy province have been explored, adored, and thoroughly photographed. Time to continue our South American adventure!…

And there are still plenty of must-sees, including: the Salinas Grandes salt flats:

These vast salt flats are seriously impressive.

Read on: Salt, salt, salt! And mirages…

When the temperature drops below -50°C, the world turns into something else. It doesn’t just freeze; it visually transforms. Everything gets wrapped up head to toe in hoarfrost and grows a thick layer of fluffy white crystals. It’s kind of like the inside of a freezer, only way more intense. Trees, road signs, poles and the wires on the poles are all coated in white hoarfrost:

This year that kind of a deep-deepest freeze in the Russian Far East only took place in December and January, while February turned out to be unseasonably warm. In fact, I’d say it was hot for February in Yakutia. If the thermometer shows -20°C at that time of year – yes, that’s hot! The thermometer only crept lower than -40°C a couple of times early in the morning, but it’d almost immediately warm up to -30°C or even higher. It got to the point where, for most of the trip, I wasn’t even wearing thermal ski pants – just jeans. I had some thermal leggings on underneath the jeans – but that was it. And I only wore my fur-lined boots once (when we spent the night in our cars on the ice of the Kolyma River to enjoy the northern lights and a total lunar eclipse).

At such higher-than-usual temperatures, all the white beauty melts away quickly, and the world turns gray and boring again. But at least a few times we got lucky and drove right into “proper” bleached scenery:

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