The Kolyma tract is one of the most unique roads on our planet. It is officially called the Kolyma federal highway. The most unusual track in the world starts in Magadan and ends in Yakutsk. It passes through the so-called cold pole, which is located near the village of Tomtor. The length of the Kolyma tract is almost two thousand kilometers.
The road is a dirt road that runs along the plain and the mountains. The Kolyma tract boasts the smallest traffic in contrast to the cities of the central part of Russia. Moving along this route, you will come across an extraordinary, almost fabulous purity of nature and the transparency of rivers and lakes.
There are two places on the track where the path can only be continued with the help of the ferry. In Yakutsk, across the Lena River, and in Khandyga, across the Aldan River. In summer, they cross the rivers by ferry, and in winter, directly on the ice. In the spring and autumn, the crossings do not work at all. In recent years, the tract has been slightly lengthened due to the construction of a new section passing through Ust-Iera.
The local places have an unusually harsh climate, and the locals who have to live in such difficult conditions are distinguished by great cordiality and hospitality, they will definitely come to the aid of all travelers in trouble. If you have any problems on the way, then any car passing by will always stop and provide you with the necessary assistance, although cars pass along this path extremely rarely. You will always be welcome in any village, they will provide you with an overnight stay and will never ask you for money. For local residents, each new person is a source of new information.
The beginning of the Kolyma tract is the northern part of the city of Yakutsk. The tract continues on the right bank of the Lena, so you will have to cross the river by ferry in the summer, and in the winter cross the so-called ice bridge across the river. It is striking that this ice bridge, more than twelve kilometers long, has an extraordinary "carrying capacity" of thirty tons!
After crossing the Lena, you will find yourself in the village of Nizhny Bestyag, from where your path will already lie on solid ground. Here, the tract passes first through a pine forest and then through deciduous forests. In the fields, you will meet fat and hairy grazing horses that behave like deer, digging up old grass with their feet and eating it, because there is a very thin snow cover. The shepherds rarely visit them, once every three to four days to check if everything is normal.
The track amazes and even frightens with its desolation. One car can pass here a week, and even then not always, especially in winter. On the one hand, against the background of city traffic jams, this is, of course, just wonderful, but on the other hand, it is very dangerous. If your car breaks down on an empty road, and even with a frost of 50-60 degrees, then while waiting for help you can simply die from the cold.
The local population loves to tell terrible stories about how drivers who are in trouble far from the forest are not always saved even by the fires that they kindle from tires, sides and their cars themselves, if they cannot find dry firewood.
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Along the road, there are cars burnt to the base everywhere, and sometimes burned-out cars can be seen more often than whole passing ones. And it is not known whether help arrived in time for their owners or not.
Not only the emptiness of the Kolyma tract surprises travelers, but also a huge amount of dust. Moreover, if in the summer the dust column can somehow be explained, then it is completely incomprehensible where it comes from in winter with a frost of forty degrees. You just can't breathe out of the dust, and you have to go, focusing on the devices even in the daytime.
The next large settlement on the Kolyma Highway is Khandyga. In Stalin's times, the Kolyma tract began exactly from this place. All transport from the Magadan and Kolyma mines reached Khandyga, and then loaded onto ferries that sailed to Ust-Kut.
After Khandyga the road becomes much worse and deserted, but then the border of civilization of these places follows - this is the village of Teply Klyuch.
The mountainous part of the route after the village of Razvilka is interesting. At this point, the mountains seem to compress the path between themselves. One of the attractions here is the Devil's Gate. At these gates, the track seems to be trying to squeeze between two pointed rocks. Accidents happen very often in the area of the Devil's Gate. And there is more than one such a dangerous place. They even have their own names. For example, Black, Yellow, Hare's loop is a dangerous mountain serpentine, and even the Swallow's Nest, where, according to folk legends, a machine gunner was sitting, shooting prisoners fleeing from the camps.
Further, after the watershed, the cold pole of the Oymyakonskoe Upland begins, and this pole is not a point, but an entire region. The entrance to the village of Tomtor is considered the center of this pole. They even installed two metal steles on this occasion, which indicate the records of low temperatures for the northern hemisphere recorded in this place. The second, newer stele says -71 degrees Celsius!
The Kolymsky tract is famous for its amazing places. In 140 kilometers after Khandyga you will find yourself in a magical forest. An uninitiated person will think that he is in a fairy tale. The trees in this forest are hung with tens of thousands of amulets and multi-colored rags. This place is considered sacred for the Yakuts and is called the Shaman-tree. Everyone passing by must stop near a tree and pay tribute to local deities, leaving some dear thing on its branches. Even the most belligerent materialist, driving along one of the most dangerous roads in the world, will probably ask for protection from the otherworldly. In addition to the Shaman-tree, this forest has one more attraction - a stream that never freezes, even in the most severe frost. They say that the water in this stream is very tasty and lasts for more than one month. What is the origin of this source,why doesn't it freeze? So far, no one can give an answer to this question.
On the Kolyma tract you will find many lakes, but some of them are distinguished by their weirdness and mysteries. For example, they say that lakes Krasnoe, Labynkyr and Vorota are the habitats of some predatory monsters.
The first on your way from Yakutsk you will meet Lake Krasnoe, which you cannot fail to see, because it is located two or three meters from the highway. The lake is about three kilometers long, about a kilometer wide, and a hundred meters deep, but local residents claim that in some places the lake is “bottomless”. They say that many witnesses observed an unknown predatory animal on the lake, which, perhaps, is hiding in some other reservoirs, and in Krasnoye it swims through grottoes and underground passages.
The composition of the water at the bottom of the Red Lake is also strange. If a metal object is lowered into the lake and then pulled out after a short period of time, it turns out that it is covered with an unnaturally thick layer of rust.
Further along the road you will come across the Labynkyr lake, which is considered the largest and most famous on the Kolymsky tract, and practically next to it is the Vorota lake. These lakes are located at a kilometer above sea level and have a depth of about 60 meters. They are famous for their riddles. They say that some huge relic animal lives in Labynkyr. Moreover, at the end of the last century, echo sounder studies were carried out here, which proved that the stories of fishermen are by no means fairy tales and legends, and a huge living creature indeed lives in the water column of Labynkyr Lake. However, researchers have not yet been able to answer the question of what kind of creature it is, whether a monster similar to Loch Ness, or some kind of predator fish that has undergone mutations, or something else. The answer is awaiting from the next planned expedition.
Not far from Magadan you will come across another strange lake, which is called Dead. The strangeness of the lake lies in the fact that, according to the local population, the lake is lifeless. There are no fish or birds here. And even the presence near the lake casts on everyone some indescribable fear and desire to get away as soon as possible. Researchers have not found the reasons for this incomprehensible phenomenon.
In some parts of the Kolyma tract, unidentified flying objects have been observed more than once.
Source: Interesting newspaper. Incredible No. 17