NOTES, COMMENT AND BUZZ FROM EUGENE KASPERSKY – OFFICIAL BLOG
December 5, 2024
You’ve had my report on our six-day Uzon trek, but I hardly told you anything about where we ended up on the last day of the trek – the Valley of Geysers. Now, with a bit more time on my hands, I can collect up my thoughts and impressions thereupon, and share them with you at a gentler, more meditative tempo…
First – a few photos. Bubbling, hissing, spurting, steaming, pouring – all present and correct, sir:
August 19, 2024
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:
September 15, 2023
The main course on our Kenyan safari was Maasai Mara, the country’s vast game reserve, which we caught at just the right time: during the wild animals’ mass migration. Huge herds of wildebeest, zebras and assorted other, smaller hooved beasts. But the main attraction is the wildebeest, and their particular migration is known as the great migration – up from Serengeti in neighboring Tanzania ->
A zillion zebras too:
August 15, 2023
Sea-based, then (low-land) land-based extraordinary experiences – done.
Next up – time to go higher…
First – proviso: I’m no serious mountaineer into tricky climbs requiring special equipment and training. I take my mountains volcanoes seriously, of course, but I’m always one to take the paths up an incline (if there are any paths), preferring to take a meditative-contemplative approach to volcano climbing/trekking…
I’ve scaled some of the more famous volcanoes around the world, but most of them – like Kilimanjaro – have almost become mainstream these days. So let me tell you about some of the more exclusive/exotic ones I’ve either climbed – or just visited and beheld (entranced!)…
First up – Krenitsyn volcano on the Kuril island of Onekotan, which I mentioned in the first post in this series ->
February 20, 2023
Finally, another dream of mine has come true. I got to see… THIS! ->
This That, of course, being Aurora Borealis, aka the Northern Lights. Actually, I shouldn’t have written “of course” just there, because photos like these could have been taken in the southern hemisphere. Indeed, there are auroras down there too, but they’re referred to as Aurora Australis; and as Michael Caine once famously uttered – “Not a lot of people know that”! Record duly set straight, onward with this post )…
December 28, 2022
Hola folks!
Herewith, a continuation of my late-2022 international business trip series. You’ve had Egypt (+1); you’ve had Jordan (+1); you’ve had Brazil (+0); and now – Chile (+0)!…
You guessed it – we flew to Chile from Brazil, so of course the flight wasn’t long. That’s just as well, for I’d had my fill of extended long-hauls of late (one of which lasted 38 hours door to door!). Another bonus regarding this flight: the views out the plane’s window over the Andes – oh my good-gracious-me! ->
Mountains, cliffs, valleys, glaciers – in places fading from browny-gray to bright yellow and orange (no Photoshop) ->
December 16, 2022
Having dreamed of getting myself to Petra, Jordan, the ancient city and temple cut into a miuntain, since I was a child, finally, my dream came true!…
And a… supranatural sight to behold it is – or would be, if it weren’t for the camels and fridge-magnet sellers getting in the way!…
November 29, 2022
I remember how, a few years ago, strolling around the rocky landscapes not far from the Namibian town of Lüderitz (which is the place where what is now South America broke away from Africa, and why the rock formations there are so unique), I was so amazed by the unusual rocks there that I uttered the words, “Mom, I want to be a geologist!” Just the other week, I uttered something similar. I was in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt. And this time my refrain went: “Mom, I want to be an Egyptologist!”
Such a rich (ancient) history presented in a language unknown to me – it was something I wasn’t expecting somehow. The experience turned out to be just marvelous…
October 5, 2022
Our spot of business in Riyadh done, it was time for some fun – on the Edge of the World…
It sure was worth the two-hour drive, and we made it in time for the headliner: taking in the sunset from the top ->
The perfect vantage point for the vastness of the desert. Undeniably must-see…
September 21, 2022
Norilsk business and places of interest: done. But up here in the Far North, there’s actually another place of interest to the adventurous (and well-heeled) tourist, albeit 300 kilometers to the east, and only accessible by helicopter (told you!), and that is the Putorana Plateau.
Briefly, the Putorana Plateau is simply… a magnificently marvelous mountainous area! It’s not quite Kamchatka, of course, but it still gets a full five Ks as per my (KKKKKaspersky Tourism Awesomeness Categorization System) classification. Oh yes: top marks (there is no KKKKKK). Just to remind: 5K = unique, monumental and complex. Not bad for a region you might think is only good for extreme cold and nickel and copper extraction )…
5K it is, but that doesn’t immunize it from downsides…
Downside one: the weather. It’s practically never good around here. Very much reminiscent of Kamchatka or the Kurils.
