Once Upon a Time in Siberia
There are company of Russian photographers that travel around Russia and world taking pictures of everything they see. Recently they decided to split up; one of them went to Africa to make a picture story and the other one went to one of the mining towns in Siberia. Just compare it, +40C (+95F) in Africa and -40C (-40F) in Siberia.
Stone Trees of Yakutsk
One of the cool natural breath-taking places in Russia are the “Lena’s stone forest” or “Lena’s Stone Pillars”.
Many spend a lot just to get there and to take a look. This place is where the virgin Siberian woods stand untouched and the only way to get there is to take a four day journey from Moscow city. First, you have to take a flight so long that if you flew opposite direction you could easily come to New York, so far from Moscow that is, but that’s still Russia. The average price for such flight is around $800 by Russian airlines, and as you might guessed there are no foreign competitors on those routes. Then upon the arrival to Yakutia region, the land from where the significant part of world’s diamonds production originate from. Then from there the only way to go to this place is by a boat. Armed native individuals can offer you a “cheap” $500 trip on a small boat, so in three days you can be on spot. They can show you the fields of wild hemp flower around which, as some tourists say, often can be picked up by your guide while you are exploring the stone forest, and then boiled together with some milk to meet you when you are back in camp with some mind blowing mixture. And they are all armed there, those natives. Also you can take bit larger river boat that are run by some local companies and go with more comfort up the river. Of course, then there are no armed natives or botanical exploration.
Also this one can be see on google maps to get an idea where the heck it is.
Some Boat
Demand for the luxury in growing. One of the expanding industry is luxury boats production. New companies constantly appear offering their services in luxury boat building. Nobody had any experience first, there were no luxury boats in Soviet Russia for 70 years in a row. So some manufacturers copy their works from the Western industry, but some go their unique, Russian way, creating something looking not alike to any other, like this one made for one of the Siberian governors.
Tyumen Hot Springs
Russian city Tyumen is just an ordinary city in Siberia. The company that carries the name of this city in it’s title has acquired “British Petroleum” company some time ago.
The winters are cold in the city, like in all the outlying region, but they have one attraction that helps to cope those winter. Those are natural hot springs under the open sky. Thousands of people gather there, both locals and visitors, coming from other Siberian cities, like Yekaterinburg and sometimes even from Moscow, the capital of Russia, to experience the unique contrast of the cold Siberian winter, when the air temperature is about -40 degrees (F/C) and then the hot spring bathing with the water naturally warmed up to 131 F degrees (55 C).
It’s a big fun to change the cloths in the car and then run to the water for 300 feet from the parking, and then back, after the bathing is over. Just taking a few steps out of the water means that all the water drops turn into solid ice almost instantly.
The Tusk Art
Mammoths are already dead for centuries, and most of their remains are being found in the deep frozen soil of Siberian regions. Just some of them are used for scientific research, thousands more are being used by locals for carving. The whole carving art has been formed for many years of finding those mammoth remains. They don’t have ivory but plenty of this prehistoric material so it has become good substitute for the carving craft.
Wooden Windows
Photos of the old Siberian houses and especially the wood carved windows.
Tornado in Siberia
Tornado? Well, it’s OK on Cuba, Haiti, in Florida, Louisiana or even Texas, but tornado in cold cold Siberia? Noway! But not in this year, already a few of the have been spotted slashing through Siberian woods. Something is changing in the climate, really.
Russian Woodcutters Celebrate
Thirty eight years ago, in 1970 there was a hundred year anniversary of Vladimir Lenin, the guy who inspired Russian people to overthrow the previous Tsar government in Russia in 1917. He was a real icon for many Russians and so in one Siberian town some woodcutters decided to celebrate this anniversary by cutting all the trees on a big field leaving only those that would form a really huge message “100 Years to Lenin”. There were no Google Earth back there, no satellite photos on Internet, no Internet itself, so they didn’t do it for some Internet trick, like “See what we have down pointing your sat pictures browser to …..”. The real reasons are not clear and forgotten now, maybe they got an order from Moscow to make such a big message for American spy satellites, maybe it was their own wish to create something that cannot be observed from the Earth by a regular person. Anyways now, 30 years later we can see it. You can see it from Google yourself following this link.
You can see it on google earth yourself.
Nyagan Explosion
According to the words of Borman from lepra there was a big explosion yesterday in Nyagan town in Siberia. The blow up was accompanied with a sound of “jet plane landing”. No official comments from authorities appeared but according to those photos by Borman the event was big.
An Old Mine in Siberia
This guy got inside an abandoned mine in Siberia, the place where probably not one but a few generations of political prisoners worked hard their way to freedom deep inside frozen land of Russian North. He got some cool photos back from there!
Loading ...