Stories of Soviet Far East

We are in the middle of the Chersky mountain range and start again to move east. The gold miner village of  Predporozhnyi is left behind. I read from a Russian web page that the mountains are tectonically very active since we are in a contact zone of the Eurasian and North American continental plates. There have been many earthquakes in the region and there was even a fairly recent volcano event here - about 240 years ago.

Finland, where I live in, is in contrast tectonically one of the most stable areas in the world. However not many weeks ago I felt an unusually strong tremor at home. This, magnitude 4,2 quake took place in the sea between Sweden and Finland and was one of the strongest tremors ever recorded in Finland. But back to Siberia.

In the above image (by Gérard Guerrier) a group of local herdsmen have camped near a mountain lake. Their animals are of course reindeer, which have no fixed pastures, rather than they migrate semi-wild according to the seasons and the herdsmen follow them in a nomadic lifestyle.

In this picture the reindeer herd is resting close to the same mountain lake (image by Mike1411). The animals like to rest in wind swept places, where the gnats and mosquitos are not so abundant. Not far away from this place in northern direction are the highest peaks of this range.

The Pobeda (Victory) peak is visible in this image on the right hand side.(photo by Mekheda Alexander). With 3147 meters it is by far the highest mountain around. After we continue the voyage, the peaks on the 65th parallel are seen much lower below and the Moma river plateau opens. During the WW II here was a gulag camp, where political prisoners worked in uranium ore mining. There are still some mountains after this plateau and one image deserves to receive our attention.

Human activity in the images is always fascinating although I categorize myself more as a nature lover. The photo above ( again by Mekheda Alexander) shows a rafting party on the river Rassokh, which originates in the Moma Range mountain valleys and flows to east to join the river Kolyma. Our trail takes a short cut and crosses the river in a point with several photo icons. Someone obviously has been here.

This photo documents a memorial for AM Avramenko who traveled these mountains and river Kolyma in early 20th century (photo by wolfzyr). Judging by the text he might have been a gold prospector - or maybe not. Again too little information about this person can be retrieved - what may have been his achievements here?

Continuing our trip we quite soon cross the border of Magadan oblast. Magadan itself reaches the Pacific ocean in the south-east, but it is not the easternmost point of Russia. The 65th parallel only grazes the northern wilderness of Magadan oblast. First stop is a small village called Glukhariny. This is again a ghost town from the Soviet heydays. Glukhariny was a mining base for prospectors and miners of various mineral resources. Since then the profitability of the ores have turned to negative and after 1992 there were very few people living in the village.

This image, taken in 2012 (by Elena Riakhovska) shows distinct activity in the village area. Temporary dwellings are used instead of refurbishing the old abandoned houses. There must be something very interesting going on. A brief search and I found a photo album of one person who actually works here: Grigory Baraulya.

So this is what it is all about. GOLD, and lots of it. Another mystery solved, and we can go on. There is a stretch of rather uneventful landscape and the we cross the river Omolon, which is also border to the final Far Eastern region of Russia, the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. There is still some 200 kilometers more until the terrain once again turns mountainous and we stop to check the image icons. It is no wonder that all the travelers want to record the mountain scenes, and there really are albums filled with those. I will pick something different in the village of Chuvanskoye:

From distance this house would seem long since ruined (image by freeactive). In closer inspection we notice the fish drying rack on the roof, shiny padlock on the door and the utility pole behind the house, all telling that someone uses this house either seasonally or permanently. There is even a house number 61, but somehow I believe that the postman does not visit this house very often.

We are now on river Eropol, one of the sources of the river Anadyr which will eventually develop into the greatest waterway in this region. We will not follow the riverbed since the direction changes continually. Our 65th parallel leads us to tundra interrupted by small hill regions. On one such we see large structures.

There four panels form the antennas of the tropospheric radio relay station "Gorkiy". It used to be very important part in transmitting communication data between the different parts of Soviet Union. Now in the satellite era its significance is not so big, but due to its immunity to jamming measures it still bears some strategic importance.

There are relay stations like this every 100 -200 kilometers, and this particular station has some extra notoriety on its CV. In summer 1975 allegedly three members of the personnel started to shoot at their fellows and officers and finally flew from the premises. Around 10 persons were killed in this incident.

It seems that the stories have slowed me down again and I need to leave the final part of the 65th parallel in Asia to my next blog issue.