PY1.Extreme expedition: Is there life at the Pole of Cold?

Is there life at the Pole of Cold?

Season duration: December 15 - March 15

Group size: up to 10 persons

Number of days: 9 days / 8 nights

Route: Yakutsk – Ust’-Nera - Tomtor- Oymiakon- Khandyga- Yakutsk

PROGRAM:

Day 1. Arrival in Yakutsk. Meeting in airport, transfer in hotel, evening meals. Rest.

Day 2. Flight to Ust’-Nera by AN-24 airplane. Flight length — 2.5 hour. Hotel accomodation. Acquaintance with the settlement of Ust’-Nera - center of gold mining in Yakutia. Visiting GULAG museum. Lunch and dinner in a cafe.

Day 3. Departure on mini-bus 4 WD to v.Badran (86 km). Acquaintance with the way of life of gold miners, visit to the mine, lunch. Arrival is in v.Tomtor (460 km), fccomodation and dinner in a private hotel. A hotel is of apartment type: 2 persons per room.

Day 4. Breakfast, excursion in Tomtor. Seeing a museum of ice sculptures, winter residence of Chyskhan (symbol and ruler of Cold), seeing GULAG museum, House of Santa Claus. Lunch. Ice-fishing. You can participate and learn the technique of ice-fishing and fish splicing, and taste «stroganyna» — instantly frozen fish cut in chips. In the evening — the children ethnographic dancing band of «Eym» perform dances of native people of Oymyakon. Spending the night in a hotel.

Day 5. Breakfast, transfer to v.Oymyakon. Excursion in the place where the lowest temperature has been registered (-71,2 of Сelcius). Getting receipts testifying the visit to the Cold Pole. Lunch in Oymyakon. Trip to horse-breeding farm, where you will see Yakutian horses. At will, horse riding. By evening — transfer to Tomtor. Dinner in a hotel.

Day 6. Departure on a 4WD minibus to v.Khandyga (470 km). Visit to the village of Yuchyugey (60 km from Tomtor), a place of compact residence of Evenks — reindeer breeders. Acquaintance with their life, traditions and culture, riding deer. Lunch — national cousine. Further route goes through Verkhoyansk mountain ridge along Kolymsky Highway.
Late at night — arrival in Khandyga, accomodation (two per room) in a hotel, dinner.

Day 7. Breakfast in a hotel. By 4WD minibus to Yakutsk (430 km).
Lunch in transit in a wayside cafe. Move across frozen great Siberian rivers of Lena and Aldan. Arrival at Yakutsk late at night. Accomodation in a hotel.

Day 8. Acquaintance with Yakutsk. Review program, Museum of Mammoth, Institute of Permafrost, Treasury of Yakutia.  Farewell dinner in a restaurant.

Day 9. Breakfast in a hotel. Transfer to the airport. Flight from Yakutsk early in the morning.