The Highway "Kolyma" and other trunk roads of Russia.

Kolyma River Bridge, Magadan Oblast

The Kolyma Highway, also known as the Road of Bones (Russian: Федеральная автомобильная дорога «Колыма», "Federal Automobile Highway 'Kolyma'"), is a road through Russian Far East. It connects Magadan and Yakutsk – actually, Nizhny Bestyakh on the eastern bank of Lena River at Yakutsk, which itself lies on the western bank, as there is no bridge; this is not a problem is the dead of winter, as crossing over ice is the most reliable way to cross a Siberian river. A ferry operates during the short summer. The road is 2032 kilometres long. It was constructed in the Stalin era of the USSR by Dalstroy construction directorate. The first stretch was built by the inmates of the Sevvostlag labor camp in 1932. The construction continued (by inmates of gulag camps) until 1953. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 468 pixelsFull resolution (1279 × 748 pixel, file size: 151 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File historyClick on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 468 pixelsFull resolution (1279 × 748 pixel, file size: 151 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File historyClick on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time. ... Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 697 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (914 × 786 pixel, file size: 446 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Bridge over the Kolyma River, Magadan Oblast, Siberia. ... Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 697 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (914 × 786 pixel, file size: 446 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Bridge over the Kolyma River, Magadan Oblast, Siberia. ... The Kolyma River (Колыма́) is a river in northeastern Siberia, whose basin covers parts of the Republic of Sakha, Chukotka, and Magadan oblast. ... Magadan Oblast (Russian: , Magadanskaya oblast) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast), in the Far Eastern Federal District. ... Far Eastern Federal District (highlighted in red) Russian Far East (Russian: Д́альний Вост́ок Росс́ии; English transliteration: Dalny Vostok Rossii) is an informal term that refers to the Russian part of the Far East, i. ... Magadan vicinity from the US Defense Mapping Agency (1978) Orthographic projection centred over Magadan Magadan, Russia city flag. ... Yakutsk (Russian: ; Yakut: ) is a city in the Russian Far East, located about 4° (450 kilometres) below the Arctic Circle. ... The Lena (Russian: Ле́на) in Siberia is the 10th longest river in the world and has the 9th largest watershed. ... A kilometre (American spelling: kilometer) (symbol: km) is a unit of length equal to 1000 metres (from the Greek words khilia = thousand and metro = count/measure). ... Iosif (usually anglicized as Joseph) Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин), original name Ioseb Jughashvili (Georgian: იოსებ ჯუღაშვი&#4314... Dalstroy (or Dalstroi) was an organisation set up in 1931 by the Soviet NKVD (the predecessor of the KGB) in order to manage road construction and the mining of gold in the Chukotka region of Siberia, now known as Kolyma. ... Men constructing the Highway under some of the harshest conditions on Earth Sevvostlag was a complex of labour camps located in Kolyma. ... A labor camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are engaged in penal labor. ... Gulag ( , Russian: ) was the government body responsible for administering prison camps across the former Soviet Union. ...

The road is treated as a memorial, because the bones of the people who constructed it were incorporated into the road.^[1]

Road construction

In 1938

The area is extremely cold during the winter. Two towns by the highway, Tomtor and Oymyakon, both claim the coldest inhabited place on earth (often referred to as -71.2°C, but might be -67.7°C) outside of Antarctica. Some believe actual winter temperatures reached in nearby highlands may be in the -80°Cs. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Tomtor Melville is the name of several different small turtles in the Sakha Republic in Siberia. ... Oymyakon in Russia Oymyakon (Russian: ) is a village (selo) in Oymyakonsky Ulus of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located along the Indigirka River. ...

The road is in a state of disrepair and is not traversable by standard road vehicles because of washed-out bridges and sections of road reclaimed by streams. During winter, frozen water actually helps river crossings.

After the fall of the Soviet government, the road was first travelled by Western motorcyclists in summer 1995 by the Mondo Enduro expedition. Subsequent traverses include Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman's round-the-world motorcycle journey, made into a television series, book and DVD, all named Long Way Round. It was also cycled in the winter by Alastair Humphreys and Rob Lilwall. It was also followed on foot by Rosie Swale-Pope in 2005 and ridden solo on motorcycle by Adrian Scott (2005). Soviet redirects here. ... Mondo Enduro was a round-the-world adventure motorcycle expedition in 1995-1996. ... Ewan Gordon McGregor (born March 31, 1971) (IPA pronunciation: [1]) is a Scottish actor who has had significant success in mainstream, indie and art house films. ... Charley Boorman (born on August 23, 1966 in Wimbledon, London, UK), is an English actor and the son of movie director John Boorman and his wife, the former Christel Kruse. ... Long Way Round (LWR) is a documentary television series, DVD set and book documenting the 19,000 mile journey of Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman from London to New York on motorcycles. ... Alastair Humphreys, a English cyclist, has completed a bicycle journey around the world. ... Rosie Swale-Pope is a British woman, born 1946, currently attempting to run around the world. ...

See also

• Amur Cart Road

Amur Cart Road or Amur Wheel Road (Russian: Аму́рская колёсная доро́га or Аму́рская колесу́&#1093...

Notes

1. ^ Thompson (2002)

References

• Bloom, L. R. and Vince, A. E. (2006) Mondo enduro: the ultimate adventure on two wheels - 44,000 miles in 400 days, Findon: RippingYarns.com, ISBN 1-904466-28-1
• McGregor, E., Boorman, C. and Uhlig R. (2005) Long way round : chasing shadows across the world, London : Time Warner, ISBN 0-7515-3680-6
• Thompson, G. (2002) Kolyma - The Road of Death, The Mission Reporter, Florida : Dundee, www site [accessed 21 May 2007]
• Scott, Adrian (2005) [1]

Russian motorways v • d • e

M1 • M2 • M3 • M4 • M5 • M6 • M7 • M8 • M9 • M10 • M18 • M27 • M29 • M52 Kolyma • Lena • Transkam • Baikal and Amur • Vyatka Graphic representation of the world wide web around Wikipedia The World Wide Web (WWW, or simply Web) is an information space in which the items of interest, referred to as resources, are identified by global identifiers called Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI). ... May 21 is the 141st day of the year (142nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Russia. ... Image File history File links Autoroute_icone. ... Belarus Motorway and other trunk roads of Russia. ... The Crimean Motorway and other trunk roads of Russia. ... The Ukraine Motorway and other trunk roads of Russia. ... The Don Highway and other trunk roads of Russia. ... The Russian route M5 (also known as the Ural Highway) is a major trunk road running across a distance of 1879 km from Moscow to the Ural Mountains. ... The Russian route M6 (also known as the Caspian Highway) is a major trunk road that links Moscow to the Caspian Sea. ... The Russian Route M7 (also known as the Volga Highway) is a major trunk road running from Moscow through Vladimir and Nizhny Novgorod to Kazan in Tatarstan and Ufa in Bashkortostan. ... The Kholmogory Highway and other major trunk roads of Russia. ... The Baltic Highway and other trunk roads of Russia. ... The Scandinavia Highway and other trunk roads of Russia. ... Typical landscape for the M18 highway in Karelia. ... The Russian route M27 is a mountain highway that runs along the coast of the Black Sea in Krasnodar Krai from Novorossiysk through Gelendzhik, Tuapse, and Greater Sochi to Adler. ... The Caucasus Highway and other federal motorways of Russia. ... The Chuya Highway and other major trunk roads of Russia. ... The Transcaucasian Highway, usually shortened as Transkam (Russian: ТрансКАМ), is a mountain road that crosses the Greater Caucasus through the Roksky Pass (3008 m. ... The Trans-Siberian Highway spans nearly the width of Russia. ...