After we left the Lake Yamozero we see only unbroken wilderness for 80 kilometers until we cross the River Pizhma. The river is not small and there are several villages which all are on the same bank of the river than the main road along the river. The river can be crossed only using the road bridges and during the long winter also over the ice.
Here at the village of Zagrivochnaya the people have built a very light cable bridge (photo by Konstantin M.), which judged by the appearance requires a good stomach from anybody willing to go to the opposite side.
As we continue our journey to east an even bigger river comes to sight. River Izhma is in spring time more than 500 meters wide and the town bearing the same name is exactly on 65th parallel. The town is populated mostly by ethnic Komi who must have surprised when in September 2010 they heard a Tupolev 154 passenger plane circling the city and finally landing on the runway of the airport. The airport had been decommissioned for 13 years, the runway was severely undersized and pavement in bad shape.
The plane finally came to standstill about 200 meters beyond the end of the paved runway (photo by Chernih Michail). No one onboard was even injured and the plane was repaired during the winter and finally flown home in March 2011. There is even a videoclip of the take-off.
As we leave the town there is a friendly welcoming sign by the road. There we see two iconic animals of this region: a reindeer pulling a sleigh and a salmon swimming below. (image by Alexander Kulinich).
Following the route of our latitude the landscape quickly reduces to the typical wet forest. After a while a small serpentine river appears and vanishes to south. From the map we can see that this river Luza is a tributary to river Kozhva, which in further 25 kilometers comes to sight. It then assumes the role of the local 'latitude river' rolling gently to east.
At one bend of the river we see a posted photo which deserves our attention (image by VitalyD):
This catamaran raft seems to have everything for stress free living on river. The professional looking floats will certainly take easily the typical rapids seen here. Now with the camping set-up we cannot see what kind of motor it has, if any.
Further to east along the river Kozhva a large airport comes in sight. In closer inspection it is obvious that the airport is not operational anymore. It is the notorious Pechora-Kamenka Air Base from the USSR era.
This image (by zakaruks) shows the empty control tower of the Air Base. I was shut down after the Soviet era, and its military structures have been largely cleaned of any useful material both at the shutdown and thereafter by the locals.
A little bit further in the east we find the largest river so far. It is the river Pechora which flows north and has several towns and the city of Pechora. Although this is the largest community on our journey I will not visit the city. Partly because it lies a bit too far north for my criteria, but more because of what we can already see in the east.
The terrain begins to show higher elevation and weather permitting the sharp peaks of Ural mountains shape the horizon.
Right after we cross the river Pechora, something turns up, which tells us to halt for a moment. There is a steep slope rising from the riverbank and there are several dig holes visible. It is an archeological site where a paleolithic settlement has been discovered. Based on the finds the scientists have a theory that it could be one of the last Neanderthal sites. The finds have been dated to about 28500 years back.
On the left we see mammoth bones bearing signs of butchery (images by Alexis Brugère). In the middle is a photo of the dig site (John-Inge Svendsen, courtesy of Science/AAAS). On the right are images of two stone tools from the site (Hugues Plisson, courtesy of Science/AAAS). Anyone interested should read this article of Popular Archeology.
We must however continue to the mountains to finally enter Asia and follow the 65th parallel there.
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