Nota Bene

After Colombia, next up on our tour of Latin America – Chile. All as per: busy – meetings with partners we’ve been working with for many years and also large clients; new acquaintances, and a few university lectures – since educating specialists for careers in cybersecurity needs to be done as early as possible. University is a little too late; better to start at middle-school level (which we do, but that’s a whole other story). Still – better late than never…

Fortunately, between the working portion of the Colombia visit and that of the Chile visit – weekend! Time for some active tourism. So out came the map of Chile to work out what we could check out in two days. Not that it took long, for as soon as I saw them it was as good as decided: volcanoes!…

That photo is of the caldera (~crater) of the Sollipulli volcano (here). Impressive, eh?

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The time has finally come to lift the curtain on something I’ve only been mentioning in passing while writing these here Yakutsk-Tiksi-Yakutsk expedition posts: the where-we-stayed situation up inside the Arctic Circle and in just-as-cold other areas of Yakutia…

In the smallest of nutshells, the situation is as follows:

• There are places to stay – but often they’re nothing like hotels or guesthouses
• A hot shower isn’t guaranteed
• A toilet is guaranteed – and it’s not always outside!
• The range of comfort levels couldn’t be broader – from dossing down on floors of town-halls or school sports halls, or sleeping in our vehicles (ugh), to the relative (for permafrosted locations) luxury of decent hotel in a city; like the Tygin Darkhan in Yakutsk ->

Tiny nutshell – done. The rest of this post: details…

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Today’s portion of Yakutsk-Tiksi-Yakutsk expedition took us from Topolínoye on the winter road to the Kolyma Highway, and along the latter for a short stretch until our next overnight stay – in the village of Tyoply Klyuch (Warm Springs). The road was smooth and wide, the views – exceptional:

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It was farewell to Cartagena, then 700km south and hello to… Bogotá – Colombia’s capital!

The last time I was here was in 2010, and due to a full business schedule back then there was no time left for a spot of tourism in the city. This time the schedule was just as full, but for good reason: we’ve just opened our third Latin-American office (in addition to those in Mexico City and São Paulo – taking the number of our overseas representative offices to over 30 (I’ve actually lost count!). So I was here in the Colombian capital for the official opening…

Latin America hasn’t been too seriously affected by the ongoing geopolitical storm, meaning users here have freedom of choice – freedom to choose the very best cyber-protection there is (and not have to settle for inferior alternatives as recommended by governments based on anything but quality). Accordingly, our business in the region is coming along just nicely, and we’ve got some great plans for the future here.

At present we’ve 30 employees in Colombia (sales, support, marketing), so, for now, our office is rather modest:

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In my previous post, I left you with us in the middle of nowhere on the Yana Highway (on our Yakutsk-Tiksi-Yakutsk expedition)…

So why did we stop here? Because we wanted another look at a place we’d seen here back in 2021 – among the last few remains of what was once a Gulag forced-labor camp – a barrack surrounded by two barbed-wire fences, plus a watchtower. It’s a symbol of a dark chapter of history of the country – one that needs to be known and remembered. I think the place should be preserved and protected until one day it becomes a valuable artifact of history and a museum of the Gulag.

Read on…

Hi folks,

I was back home from my extended summer vacation in my favorite location on the planet for just days before I was jetting off once again – this time on an extended business trip, and in the opposite direction to my vacation: southwest to South America. And here I am already – in the Colombian city of Cartagena (officially Cartagena de Indias) ->

I think some of you, dear readers, may be wondering where Cartagena is – hearing of it for the first time just now. It’s here, in northern Colombia, northern South America – near the border with Panama and by the Caribbean Sea.

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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…

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After Verkhoyansk and then the Batagaika crater, we continued on our way on our Yakutsk-Tiksi-Yakutsk expedition southward…

Next up was probably the trickiest – and certainly the most tedious – segment of the expedition. You’ll probably be able to guess the reasons by now: yep – bumpy road, and later on – bad weather…

Read on…

Not far (20 minutes on snowmobiles) from the 70-kilometer road between Verkhoyansk and Batagay, there’s a unique natural phenomenon that goes by the name of the Batagaika crater ->

Apparently it formed as a result of a combination of global warming and certain actions of Soviet Homo sapiens – those certain actions being cutting down the trees in the surrounding area, plus the making of ruts by heavy all-terrain vehicles (used during the deforestation). This eventually led to the permafrost thawing, becoming a ravine, and then spreading out, giving us today this here bizarre massive tadpole-shaped depressed formation on the Siberian plains:

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The town of Verkhoyansk is one of extremes. First and foremost, it’s considered to be one of the coldest places on the planet – a Pole of Cold. It also happens to be the northernmost town in Yakutia (so – not including villages), and it’s also the town (again – not village) with the smallest population in Russia. Wait – there’s more: back to the climate theme, it’s in the Guinness Book of Records for having the greatest range of temperatures – a whopping 105.8°C between the coldest and warmest!

Here’s the sign at the village’s town’s gates as you enter it ->

The town of Verkhoyansk – the Pole of Cold

Read on…