From may 13th to 17th : Moscou
From may 17th to 22d : Moscou
- Tynda en train par le Bam
From may 22d to 27th : Tynda/Iakoutsk
April 7th false departure party...
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Travel diary
published at 05 06 03
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Tynda. Orthodox women monastery. In the church we accept
an old sister’s invitation to have lunch in the refectory.
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We meet Liouda (in red) when
leaving the monastery. She invites us to have a bier with
her later in the afternoon. She introduces us to her bestfriend
Valia.
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Valia invites us to have dinner
at her place. She introduces us to her neighbour Lena (sanding),
her son Dima and his girlfriend.
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Neriungri. Nice warm and sunny
weather when we get there. The next morning: big snowflakes
are falling from the sky when we wake up. It frozed during
the night and the town is all white.
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We take a tour of the world
biggest open air coal mine (65m2), managed by a company called
Iakutugol... |
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...employing 2000 people.
They treat us likes VIP.
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Everything is on the mine
scale : gigantic !
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Following the visit of the
mine, we are invited to dinner by Vladimir Nikolaievitch,
the director for regional affairs’ right hand, and
Evguenii Vitalievitch, in charge of the company protocol.
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The road is very bad. We cover
the 250 km in 7 hours…
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We have our first puncture. We stop
at a garage to get the right rear tyre repaired. |
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We left the mountainous region
of Neriugri and Aldan. The snow is gone. But the road is
not getting any better. The same tyre fails again. |
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The road is getting worse. There
are bits without asphalt. Whatever. We have to hurry if
we want to catch the last ferryboat to cross the Lena river.
Third puncture: this time the left rear tyre. We have no
more spare wheel. We are stuck in the depths of the taiga.
It is 8 pm.
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Nikolai stops a truck to go
to the next village so that he can get the two tyres repaired.
We wait for him during 3 long hours, on the road, in the middle
of nowhere. Valérie revises her russian lessons. Géraldine
turns on the hazard warning lights every time a car passes
by. At the rate of one car and one truck per hour, what an
hughe responsability!
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Let’s forget about the
ferryboat. We drove some more and stop on the verge for the
night. After a few hours sleep, we’re as fresh as a
daisy, literaly and figuratively. Nights are cold in the area! |
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Never 3 without 4? Just to taunt us
one last time, the right rear tyre goes flat again a few meters
away from the ferryboat. |
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To summarize it all, 27 hours
and 4 punctures later, Iakutsk is waiting for us right on
the other side of the Lena river. We have no picture for the
culinary column, but take our word for it, we treated ourselves
to a mega great breakfast! |
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