From Houston to Sydney 2013

Russian Far East - 2014

 

When I woke this morning in the dormitory hotel in Myaundzha (near Kadykchan), the skies were still overcast but the rain had stopped.  Was it just wishful thinking that the grey clouds seemed a little higher?

The main task for the day was to drive to Ust-Nera, about 320 kilometres away.  We had received some reports that the condition of the Kolyma Highway was very poor after all the rain, and there were even rumours that one of the rivers was impassable.  In order to make sure that we had sufficient time for the journey (even though we would gain an hour with a time zone change on the trip), we met at 7:45am and departed punctually at 8:00am.

We met up with the other bus containing the few hardy souls who had chosen to sleep at Kadykchan, and learned that they had bedded down in sleeping bags on an upper floor of the high school.  They seemed happy even though there was no glass in the windows and the temperature had fallen to 4 degrees Celsius.

With the two minibuses travelling in convoy, we found a parking space off to the side of the road and had breakfast inside the buses to avoid the huge swarms of mosquitoes.  Breakfast was the same fare as dinner and lunch the previous day had been – bread, cheese, pressed meat sausage, yogurt and water.  This simple food had proved quite adequate for our needs, although after three identical meals in a row, I think we were all looking forward to some variety in Ust-Nera that evening.

Because of the concern about road conditions, we made very few stops between Kadykchan and Ust-Nera.  Our principal stop was in a small town called Artik, situated beside the Kolyma Highway just a few kilometres after we had crossed the border from Magadan Region into the huge Sakha Republic.  The main reason for the stop was to allow those who wished to buy some food for lunch to do at a small bakery.

The quality of the bread sold at the bakery was excellent, but this small town also proved to be a gem for sightseeing.  It was immediately apparent that the houses and public buildings in this town were better maintained than the run-down buildings to which we had become accustomed during our drive.  The centre of the small town resembled a perfectly preserved communist-era town with a freshly painted silver statue of Lenin fronting a Soviet-era hall with Communist insignia still highly visible.  The Lenin Statue marked one end of a linear park joining the two main streets of the town, and at the other end of the park a large arch with the slogan “Glory to labour”, flanked by a hammer and sickle and a red star, was highly visible.

Another feature of Artik that we came to see more and more as we drove northwards during the day was the over-ground water pipes, placed there to avoid freezing during the severe winter months.  Today’s weather in Artik was anything but severe, however, as the clouds finally broke and we saw sunshine and blue skies for the first time on the trip.  The sun remained shining for the rest of the day – until it finally set in Ust-Nera at about 10 minutes after midnight.  The sky never got dark that evening, as sunrise the next day was at 2:50 am.

We need not have worried about the condition of the Kolyma Highway.  Although we did have to ford a couple of rivers because the bridges were damaged, we arrived early afternoon (with the extra hour gained with the new time zone).  Our hotel in Ust-Nera – the only hotel in the city – was very basic, so basic that it didn’t even have a name or a sign outside, and there was no hot water in any of the guest rooms.  On the positive side, the rooms did have working electricity, soap (but no toilet paper) and pictorial toilet seat lids showing four leaping dolphins in full colour.  There were no plugs (normal for Russia), but in the case of this hotel also no washbasin; there was a very insecure mini-bathtub instead.

The hotel was simply identified as occupying the top (3rd) floor of “the pink building in the main street”.  Fortunately, Ust-Nera’s main street is not very long – although having said that, it does span the entire diameter of the urban area.  Checking in took some time as the hotel did not have enough rooms with the combination of accommodation requirements needed, meaning that some people who had arranged a single room had to share in doubles or triples.  As I was quite tired and had a headache, I felt extremely fortunate that I secured one of the few single rooms – it was the final single room allocated and was done on the toss of a coin.

We arranged to meet for dinner at 6:30pm for dinner, so that gave me a few hours to explore Ust-Nera – which was all that I needed.  Being a mining town with unsealed roads and having its water pipes above ground (arching over the roads in places), Ust-Nera could not really be called attractive.  However, in the beautiful afternoon sunshine, parts of the city were appealing, and certainly interesting.

Most of my walking in Ust-Nera was along the main street (named Lenin Avenue, of course) and its nearby vicinity, first to the north from the hotel as far as the river, and then back again past the hotel and just beyond the southern limit of the town.  The highlights towards the north were the new three-domed Russian Orthodox church, the beautifully maintained war memorial, the fast flowing river, and the children’s playground with a Lenin statue and Lenin mosaic.  There was much less to see to the south of the hotel, but the climb to a small lookout just beyond the southern limit of the town was certainly worth it, both for the socialist insignia on the lookout’s monument and for the panoramic views of the city with its spectacular mountain backdrop.

Dinner this evening was at a Chinese restaurant directly across the road from the hotel.  The food was excellent, full of flavor and variety, just as I have come to expect over the years from cooks who come from Harbin.  How the family that runs the restaurant came to migrate to Russia, and Ust-Nera of all places, is still a fascinating mystery to me.

Despite the lack of hot water, it is good to be in a solid hotel room with a bed after several nights ‘roughing it”.  This should be a good night to catch up on some sleep in spite of the short night.  With a latitude of almost 65 degrees North, Ust-Nera is the most northerly point on this itinerary, and is just 2 degrees south of the Arctic Circle.  Consequently, the sun sets tonight at 10 minutes after midnight, and will rise tomorrow morning at 2:50am.  I know from the experience of the past few nights in places that were not as for north as Ust-Nera that the sky tonight will not really darken very much during the two and three-quarter hours between sunset and sunrise, so this will be another evening when the airline eye patches will be used, especially given the flimsiness of the thin lime green curtains in the hotel room.

Day 7 - Kadykchan to Ust-Nera

Monday

7 July 2014