Despite these hard times, we continue our work saving the world from all manner of cyber-maliciousness. We adapt; we carry on. Meanwhile, I hope my travel notes and photos will bring a little cheeriness to all who view them – because there’s hardly a better way to do that than with the beauty of nature (and a spot of -50° adventure).

It’s a three-day drive to get from Magadan to Oymyakon. That’s if you’re in no major hurry. The route goes like this: day 1: Magadan > Susuman; day 2: Susuman > Ust-Nera; day 3: Ust-Nera > Oymyakon. This means that, as I write this, we’ll be spending the upcoming night in Oymyakon. As we set out from Ust-Nera, we had 440km to cover, with the highlight of the day being the most beautiful spot on the whole of the Kolyma Highway – the Olchansky Pass – completely covered in snow and hoarfrost:

Endless whiteness in all directions. Even the roadsides – magical… both in the sunshine and in the shade:

Read on…

Despite these hard times, we continue our work saving the world from all manner of cyber-maliciousness. We adapt; we carry on. Meanwhile, I hope my travel notes and photos will bring a little cheeriness to all who view them – because there’s hardly a better way to do that than with the beauty of nature (and a spot of adventure).

Our second turn off the Kolyma Highway on our Magadan–Yakutsk–Baikal road-trip was onto the Indigirka winter road, to take us to Bolshoy Ushelye (Big Gorge), aka Indigirkskaya Truba (Indigirka Tube) frozen river rapids (set amid a particularly pretty, wide valley; see below). And both the winter road and the rapids were breathtakingly beautiful…

Here we are in the “tube” ->

And this is our day on the map:

Now, what needs doing every morning first thing? Remember?…

Read on…

Despite these hard times, we continue our work saving the world from all manner of cyber-maliciousness. We adapt; we carry on. Meanwhile, I hope my travel notes and photos will bring a little cheeriness to all who view them – because there’s hardly a better way to do that than with the beauty of nature (and a spot of adventure).

On day-two of our Magadan–Yakutsk–Baikal road trip, we had to get to the next large village on the Kolyma Highway – Ust Nera – where we were to spend the night. I write ‘had to’, since there’s literally nowhere else where we could stay along the route: there are a few tiny settlements, but they each have a full zero hotels apiece. Still, the distance to cover wasn’t so far (the odometers showed 415km that evening), and the views from the road all day were simply fantastic…

Read on…

Despite these hard times, we continue our work saving the world from all manner of cyber-maliciousness. We adapt; we carry on. Meanwhile, I hope my travel notes and photos will bring a little cheeriness to all who view them – because there’s hardly a better way to do that than with the beauty of nature (and a spot of adventure).

Should you ever find yourself on a Kolyma Highway road-trip one winter – which I highly recommend you do, of course – be sure to take the turn off it that takes you to the Kolyma Hydroelectric Power Plant. It’s a real interesting engineering object, and you can have a guided excursion around it – which is just what we did…

Here’s the tunnel to the turbine room ->

Here are the barrier and water outlets:

Snow and hoarfrost around here covers everything:

Read on…

Despite these hard times, we continue our work saving the world from all manner of cyber-maliciousness. We adapt; we carry on. Meanwhile, I hope my travel notes and photos will bring a little cheeriness to all who view them – because there’s hardly a better way to do that than with the beauty of nature (and a spot of adventure:). 

We awoke early in the Magadan Hotel in the city of Magadan, ate a modest breakfast, packed up, and piled into our new and shiny vehicles. We covered a mere hundred meters and we were already on the R504 Highway, aka the Kolyma Highway: yes – the road that would take us all the way (nearly 2000km!) to Yakutsk to the west. But on this first day, we were heading north, to the town of Susuman, which would have been 630km; however, we took a turn off the highway to visit the Kolyma Hydroelectric power plant, which added some 80+km to our distance, giving us a total of nearly 750km this day. Not so far, you say? You’re right – not really, but you have to factor in our needing to go much slower than one normally does on a highway. Why? Because the temperature on this day was below -50°C. At such a temperature the cars’ suspension (and everything else made of metal) tightens up and becomes brittle: the ride is much stiffer and bumpier than normal, and something snapping and dropping off is possible, say, when going over an unexpected bump (this doesn’t happen often, but it does happen). Fortunately, no such surprises for us on the first day (sounds ominous vis-à-vis the rest of the trip, right?:), as we were being way too sensible – which was tough, for an autobahn smooth highway like this is just made for speeding fast along ->

Read on…

Despite these hard times, we continue our work saving the world from all manner of cyber-maliciousness. We adapt; we carry on. I hope my travel notes and photos will help everyone viewing them to overcome any difficulties they may face – because there’s hardly a better cure than the beauty of nature

What can I write about this year’s MYB expedition when half of the route was covered – and extensively documented and photographed – a year ago on the MYM (Magadan–Yakutsk–Moscow) expedition – without repeating myself? I mulled this one over for a quite a while, finally deciding to chronicle this year’s tales in diary format, with adventurous tourists – and adventurous travel agencies – as the main intended audience (that is, after all of you, dear readers – whether you’re adventure tourists or not:).

From a curiously inquisitive tourist’s point of view, Magadan–Oymyakon–Yakutsk as a destination looks like a winner; however, no travel agencies offer it on a regular basis. Well, Yakutsk–Oymyakon–Yakutsk is offered – in minibuses, but that hardly does this destination justice: missed are plenty of other places in this remote corner of the globe that are truly astonishing (which I’ll get to later on). I guess one could of course take a scheduled bus along the highways here, but they’re mostly for locals needing to get from place to place around here – not tourists; that is, though relatively quick, there are no stops for photography, etc. at the most scenic spots. And there are plenty of scenic spots, plenty of very scenic spots, and plenty of sensationally scenic spots!…

Snow, ice, roads, and endless open spaces…

Read on…

Hi folks!

It’s been nearly a month since I returned from our mind-blowing Siberian winter-road-trip. Yes – we liked last year’s winter drive from Magadan to… Moscow (!) so much, we simply had to follow up again this year with a re-run of the best bit – the first leg in eastern Russia; specifically: Magadan – Oymyakon – Yakutsk – Mirny – Lake Baikal – Irkutsk.

As we all know, in the meantime… tectonic changes have taken place in the world. And how they will play out in the future is anyone’s guess. The world is now a different place, and there’s no going back. We have to adapt to the new conditions. Which is exactly what we’re doing here at K. But on a lighter, more personal level, hopefully to ease some of the pressure, herewith I’m starting a new series of posts. A series on… some of the coldest temperatures on earth, some of the longest roads on earth, some of the bizzarest places to stay the night on earth, and some of the most beautiful, fantastical – and very white – sights on earth that can be viewed non-stop for thousands of kilometers in all directions.

In this here intro-post, I’ll be giving you the pre-meal bitters (always good for superior blogpost-series digestion down the line). Basically – some of the more striking, unusual, and – no false modesty here – amazing pics that were taken during the trip. There are plenty here just in this intro – since a great many were taken overall. So for today’s viewing, I recommend dressing warmly – or at least draping a woolly blanket round your shoulders, for just looking at some of these photos can make you start to feel chilly, while a few may even bring on frostbite! You’ve been warned ).

All righty. All set? Magadan > Yakutsk > Lake Baikal (Feb–March 2022), coming right up…

And so, in the words of Yuri Gagarin (as he blasted off into space for the first time) “poekhalli!” (let’s go!)…

Read on…

Magadan to Lake Baikal via Yakutsk by road. Oh yes…

But we’ve got to get to Magadan first!

So it was a final gaze out the window at the office – luckily during a sunset ->

https://instagram.com/p/CZzUVI9oJA6

And then it was the short drive to SVO, and from there the long flight to Magadan – eight time-zones to the east!…

Curiously, there’s now a Magadan restaurant in Sheremetyevo:

And several hours later we were dining at another Magadan restaurant – in Magadan! ->

But, what were we doing in Magadan in Magadan in the first place?…

Read on…

My first international business trip of the year was as modest as it could get – with just a single port of call. But that port of call was sunny Riyadh, which sure made a welcome change to the sub-zero temperatures and daily snow that’s been falling in Moscow since November!…

I’d been to the city before – in 2013 and 2014 – and both times for conferences, speeches and meetings, and with hardly any micro-tourisms. This year – zero micro-tourisms; not even a nano-tourism. As per – the business schedule was a full and busy one, including matters connected with the imminent opening of our local office here (which I’ll get to in another post). Alas, it was so busy… – zero nice photos too. Apologies folks. My excuse? You’ve got to work hard!

What I remember most from my two first trips to Saudi was that practically all the folks I’d meet would say the same thing: without a serious transformation in the country there’s no future for it in the modern world. To be honest, back then I was a little amazed by the boldness of such statements, but now I see that wasn’t just talk. Changes have been made, and though they’re not big changes, they are noticeable. First of all, public transportation is being built! Earlier there was no such thing: Riyadh was strictly car-only. Today there are overhead transportation lines. No trains yet, but things are looking good ->

Read on…

Indeed time to hit the road, or, rather – the skies…

I’ll get to the where and why I’m hitting the skies in a bit. For now – prelude: snowy airport.

Once seated, out of the corner of my eye through my window I noticed a particular airline’s insignia on a plane’s tail fin:

And here it is zoomed in:

When I started dancing a jig in the aisle I was quickly asked to sit back down by the flight attendant. But why was I jigging? Simple: that there emblem is Qatar Airways’. So what? Well, in the past, its planes would operate only out of Domodedovo Airport to the south of Moscow. But here we were at our ‘local’ airport – the hub that goes by the name of Sheremetyevo, which is just a short drive from the office. Domodedovo takes an hour or two longer to get to. Qatar has, clearly, started flying out of SVO too. Hurray. Jig!

So where were we headed this time? Check out the following pic for clues ->

Read on…