08 Sep 2014

Gulag Town

The Jewel of the Russian Far East expedition got underway from Anadyr on Friday and we have had a busy time ever since. Before turning south towards Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy we sailed north from Anadyr to the small town of Egvekinot in the upper Kresta Bay region. Built in 1946, this was originally a Gulag town for political prisoners who worked at building a road to the tin mine and then later worked in the mine itself. Today the tin mine has closed but the road provides important access to the north Siberian coast and has become an important ‘Road Head’ town for the gold mines which have since opened inland.

We spent yesterday afternoon ashore at Cape Navarin. This fascinating geographical location is where the now submerged ‘land bridge’ between Russia and Alaska originated. Our planned landing at the small village of Meinypil'gino had to be aborted due to a large swell from a cyclone to the SE of us making the river bar too dangerous to cross. We are now running ahead of the weather to ‘Bukta’ (meaning ‘bay’ or in this case ‘fiord’ in Russian) Natalia where we should find a safe and calm anchorage so we can spend the day ashore tomorrow.