I've just finished writing up the 2017 trip which led up to this winter trip, i.e. the drive east from Kaliningrad to Magadan, essentially crossing the whole of Russia from August to October.

The illustrated write-ups are in three parts:

Firstly the crossing of European Russia and West Siberia in the late summer; tracing out a route which takes in the source of the Volga River, crosses the Urals and visits some of Siberia's oldest towns and cities.

https://eurasiaoverland.com/2017/09/02/43i/


The town of Irbit in West Siberia (home of Ural motorcycles), once a thriving market town on the Great Tea Route, now a shabby but still charming place

The second part steers away from the main road and cities, and heads into the stunning mountains and interesting cultures of southern Siberia; Khakassia, Tuva and Buryatia, to the edge of eastern Siberia.

https://eurasiaoverland.com/2017/09/16/43ii/


Lake Tore-Khol in beautiful Tuva, right on the border with Mongolia near the crossing (open only to Russians and Mongolians) south of Erzin on the M54. One of the most magnificent spots I have ever visited

The third and final part enters the Russian Far East, stopping in a series of youthful and prosperous cities which feel quite different from the rest of Russia. We then make a major backtrack via the rugged hills along the Pacific coast and turn onto the M56 into the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic. We drive the Kolyma Highway and Tenkin Route during the fist days of winter, reaching Magadan in an unusually early snowstorm on the 14th October, completing our 23,000 km, nine week journey.

https://eurasiaoverland.com/2017/10/14/43iii/


Utter wilderness along on the Kolyma Highway between Topliye Klyuch and Kyubeme as the road climbs into the Verkhoyansk Range which, in tectonic terms, actually marks the boundary with North America

Expect the two-part, detailed write-up of the winter trip in the not-too-distant future.

Thanks for looking,

EO

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EurasiaOverland a memoir of one quarter of a million kilometres by road through all of the Former USSR, Western and Southern Asia.

Part One of the full winter trip write-up is now on my website, covering the beautiful Kolyma Highway (pictured) and the gruelling Lena River Ice Road.

https://eurasiaoverland.com/2018/02/13/44i/


The snow covered peaks of the Verkhoyansk Range line the Kolyma Highway near Kyubeme in a perfectly still, deep frozen world

Thanks for looking,

EO

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EurasiaOverland a memoir of one quarter of a million kilometres by road through all of the Former USSR, Western and Southern Asia.

Part Two, describing the journey from Peleduy on the Lena via a private oil-company road (with an escort through the Talakan Oil Base) onto the infamous Tas-Yuryakh - Verkhnemarkovo Zimnik (winter road), down to Ust-Kut, then a short drive along the BAM Road to Severobaikalsk at the top of stunning Lake Baikal.

Then 223 km over the frozen surface of Baikal on 'unofficial' (i.e. illegal) tracks, reaching the shore near Ust-Barguzin on the lake's eastern shore.

Finally, a long highway section stopping off in gritty Irkutsk, and beautiful Tomsk, in my opinion Siberia's most beautiful city. Beyond Tomsk, I follow the mighty Ob to stay in a tiny village, driving another short zimnik across the Ob to Narym, a lonely place of exile with a great museum and a preserved home where Stalin was once briefly incarcerated.

https://eurasiaoverland.com/2018/02/27/44ii/


Beautiful Lake Baikal with its tempting ice cover in Severobaikalsk

Thanks for looking,

EO

__________________
EurasiaOverland a memoir of one quarter of a million kilometres by road through all of the Former USSR, Western and Southern Asia.

Part Three, describing the journey from central Tomsk Region up on winter roads to the Ob River, then through the oil and gas cities of Tomsk and Novy Urengoy to Nadym.

From Nadym the next winter road took me along the 'Dead Road', the Trans-Polar Mainline, a Gulag construction project aiming to link the Pechora Basin by rail with the Ob River and the port of Igarka on the Yenisei, which was never completed. The ruins of the railway, the camps, barbed wire fences and watchtowers sit here in the tundra, untouched since the 1950s.

At the end of the winter-road is Salekhard on the Ob River, from where I made a fascinating trip to meet some Khanty reindeer herders, with whom I stayed for a night in a chum (conical tent).

Back in Salekhard I had a magnificent display of the Aurora Borealis (pictured) before driving the Ob River Ice Road, 500 kilometres south to Priobye, where I picked up an asphalt highway to Moscow.

The conclusion of a once-in-a-lifetime winter adventure!

https://eurasiaoverland.com/2018/03/20/44iii/


Beautiful dual bands of waving aurora dance through the skies above me in Salekhard

Thanks for looking,

EO

__________________
EurasiaOverland a memoir of one quarter of a million kilometres by road through all of the Former USSR, Western and Southern Asia.

Lovely photos, great to see some pics of this beautiful region in winter and some of those places I have never seen pics of before. Hats off!

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