Exploring Chukotka - the most remote Russian region

hello world it's baman here surprisingly for you surprisingly for me welcome to chukotka the Easter most Russian region also one of the remotest regions of the country so I'm going to focus on the exploration of the capital city which is called another and it's surrounds so I basically took a flight that lasted 8 hours from Moscow to here to another and landed in this wonderful airport ugal with which was constructed in 50s on 20th century and initially it was the basing stage of the long range Aviation bombers because if you look at the map you can notice that chot is the closest region to the United States in Russia it was a very convenient location for placing nuclear warheads nuclear warheads that targeted the United States yes back to Soviet Union to the cold war that was the case why this area was heavily militarized so the task for the next 3 days is to get first impressions of living here there is actually no road that exists to chotka year round that's why the main sort of Transportation here are these massive Jeeps that are called track hols I call them Arctic big foots so they are used as taxi cars so they deliver passengers to another from airport due to the fact that there is only 1 hour before the sunset today I'm going to explore only the side of the airport so I'm not going to visit the another itself I'm going to visit its outskirts I got here by this bus which turned out to be free public transportation in chotka is free within cities Villages the first area that I'm going to explore would be the district which is called pami so this District was named in honor of the 1st of May This Is The Day of the labor glory in USSR and in modern day Russia the entire constructions in chotka have the form of steeled houses because they are all constructed on permafrost yeah this is what is called steel houses so there is a layer of empty space between the ground and the first floor of the building so this kind of the air space is the boofer zone between warm floor of the first floor of the first story and the ground because if the St from the first floor will reach the ground uh it will eventually lead to the melting of permafrost and these uh houses will just end up in swamps I would definitely say that this remote district is remarkable by its street art look at this beauty there are flowers another lovely street art over there they depicted uh local nation chuki in their National dwelling in chum which is kind of the tent where they can leave year round so due to the fact that all of the houses here are staying on Ste there is no way to enter such houses from the ground level you have to always climb the stairs and then you'll reach the entrance to the section if you watched my video from Naran this picture would be familiar for you because all of the pipes are also located on ground here in chotka because of the Perma Frost so this settlement is called which might be translated as coal mines so this territory started its development because of the foundation of some coal deposits and they are still mined it seems that there are some residential quarters and the area between them build up absolutely randomly with totally random constructions that's another feature of Northern Territories this this kind of architectural cows we are now approaching the main part of the ug cop Village which was formerly the place that housed the military base look what I found the modernized Soviet bus stop the tiny window in shape of a Christmas tree to observe buses if they're approaching or not no there are no buses right now sadly so let's continue walking the advantage of leing in Northern Territories is the opportunity to enjoy such incredible sunsets that are quite longl lasting because of the geographical location of this area so there are long Downs sunrises and long sunsets let's try to sneak into one of the abandoned wooden Barracks Jesus web this actually in emergency Condition it's so dangerous to step here but anyway let's try to get in there there it is look at this massive radiators in winter it's frequently pretty cold here this is one of the rooms other rooms oh this one is very very bad apparently people still live here I see the inhabited five-story block of flat all of the surrounding area doesn't seem to be pretty it's entirely surrounded by abandoned things abandoned houses like these one on or the ones in the background 6,200 km from the capital city of Russia this is how it is I mean people still live here there are some nice Parts uh but also there are some abundant sites well this site probably part of the uh military sector of this settlement which was resettled when military base was closed and now let's get inside one of these buildings here is is this kind of the staircase leading to the second floor over here was one of the apartments the floor here is partly dismantled such a lovely scenery isn't it from this window we can observe the whole District of abandon houses they are exactly same at this point this street has a lot of similarities with the one in workot that I shown in my video there was the street of actual inhabited settlement but full of abundant houses if you haven't seen my work video yet click the link that has just appeared on the screen probably the most significant outflow of population in chotka happened after the dissolution of the Soviet Union this area was heavily militarized and starting from the 80s of 20th century some military projects that appeared in times of Stalin in terms of Cold War started to seize so military base is starting being closed and that's why some settlements those Essence was to maintain that military base to house that military base they started dying out consequently it looks like some infrastructure facility it either used to be a school or a hospital this is the main Corridor of this building here probably used to be the Wardrobe it relates both to school and a hospital look what I found in the second floor of the building this is the sign of the computer so does it mean that here used to be the computer class the class of it technology Soviet it technology so it makes me think that I'm currently in a school not a hospital such a massive probably classroom guys looks like the physics or biology class and somewhere here used to be the laboratory kind of the weird feeling exploring this abandoned settlement I don't have a feeling that I'm 6,000 km away from Moscow I mean I could find more or less the same location even closer in aund of kilometers this is how the life back in times was standardized that you could see exactly same buildings or I mean sort of architecture all around the country and the country itself is massive the biggest country in the world it's quite symbolic to advertise the upcoming elections of Vladimir Putin with this Banner on the facite of the abandoned building my hostel must be located in one of these blocks the most expensive hostel in my life 3,700 rupes per night which is pretty significant by Russian standards there like 40 bucks maybe even more let's see what can they offer for such a price in chotka actually real estate prices skyrocketed here during last years so you can buy an apartment here for almost the same price as in Moscow which kind of weird because just 20 years ago let's say ' 90s people exchanged their apartments for the tickets to Moscow so the hostel turned out to be free bedroom apartment and somehow it turned out that I booked one room for myself it's still quite expensive considering that there are three rooms so there are some common space but at least the owner told me that I will be the only one living here for these three days as long as there is going to be no arrivals in under airport for the next 3 days it's highly unlikely that somebody will just come here out of nowhere oh well apparently I've just woken up local time is 5 a.m. and here is the time difference between chakota and Moscow this is 8:00 p.m. in the capital city of Russia it feels like I slept for the whole day and woke up in the evening anyway this is already the beginning of the next day so I bet it's going to take a while maybe two 3 days to adjust to local time zone So the plan for today is to visit the capital city of chotka to visit another I'm going to try to get there without taking a taxi or this massive Bigfoot Arctic Bigfoot let's see what's going to happen chotka is known to be the most expensive Russian region because of the high grocery prices but honestly yesterday when I visited the supermarket I didn't really see that tremendously high prices I mean they higher obviously than in the mainland but not like three to four times anyway I had the stereotype about chukotka and I brought all the food with me from the mainland that's why I'm going to have the breakfast based on my supplies that I brought from Moscow so this is going to be crispy mm dams instant coffee canned corn and East smashed potato or something and here is the so cold warm bus stop basically the warm box that you can open and get inside it's warm here air conditioner works perfectly here you can sit down and wait for your bus by the way local buses strictly follow the schedule sometimes it's even printed at putot on bus stops but it's also available on the internet and that's how I guessed when there's going to be the arrival of the local bus all right I've successfully took a bus to this abandoned part of the town where I was yesterday in the evening and from here I'm planning to walk literally to walk to another or at least to the ice Road I've been walking for 20 minutes and I'm finally approaching the winter road that I will have to cross so far I've seen only one car going to the direction of another and I haven't seen a single car coming from there this is how another looks its illumination is visible on the horizon and it's 7 km to there and I'll have to Simply cross the ice of the Frozen another lemon or basically Esty to get there okay as long as I don't see any actual direction of the road towards another I'd rather wait for a car so I will either hitchhike it if it goes to another or at least ask the direction okay probably I discovered that I would have to just walk straight yeah this is a real thing in the surrounding area such massive Arctic Jeeps I would definitely buy one if I live here hopefully I will not break the ice and get into the Waters of another lemon feeling myself Arctic com cuty Frankly Speaking um you can clearly see this kind of uh parts of the road that have a a bit different let's say color and these are wet spots which proves the fact that lemon yeah it's frozen but there are some weak points on the ice but hopefully ice is strong enough to carry my weight by the way the snow here is quite strong it's not soft at all so I'm kind of walking and I'm not getting into the snow here is the situation I have already crossed let's say 1 kilm from the starting point point of this winter road look these are weak spots of the lon so probably the layer of Vice is thinner at this point so I have to just walk around it I see some cars guys but they run on different side I don't know it's like 2 to 3 kilm to there maybe winter road I mean actual winter road is located over there but I had no idea about it so I'm just stupidly walking straight to the city all of a sudden I found the traces of a tire which means that this stretch of diliman was crossed by probably Arctic Bigfoot or something in addition I found the sticks put into the ice that Mark Winter Road actually maybe they Mark in the future Ice Road I have found a pretty wet spot trying to figure out how to detour it okay let's just walk around in here yeah we made it but it was probably costed by the jump of a Jeep it just landed straight here put all its weight in the ice it's way easier to get around another in its outskirts in summer you just take a ferry it's very cheap it delivers you to the opposite side of the lion and here you are but when it's time between Seasons so let's say autumn or spring when there are massive ice pieces in the lmon so barges and fairies cannot not sail in this case the only option to get to another side uh of the lemon is to take a helicopter and helicopters here fly only in case if there is no alternative way so currently there is the alternative in form of these Arctic big foots so helicopters do not fly so transportation is a bit [ __ ] up look at this Arctic monster it's approaching me it's not even a snowmobile it's something bigger I wonder if it's going to stop oh wow such a lovely random act of hitchhiking I didn't even tried to stop the car the track just stopped for me and gave me a lift to another there is the welcoming sign of the city straight in the port another is the capital city of chotka its population is 13,000 people which means that almost 13 of the whole population of chotka lives in the city I noticed mle times that industrial zones of former USSR can contain a lot of uh reminiscences of the of the bygone era such as hammer and CLE first of all I'm going to visit chuki national settlement which is kind of the District of another and then we will enter the city there is an old Soviet welcoming sign it says the State Farm or subh house named after the 22nd meeting of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union this is how uh Soviet settlements were named it seems to be some new accommodation constructed relatively recently playground for children and also some new let's say parking Zone or lounge Zone with benches and sways wow I see dozens of people doing fishing well the weather today is suitable for that it's so warm and then the opposite Shore opposite Bank Coast I don't know you got it is the territory of the airport looking at this residential private houses I catch some Scandinavian wipes what do you think about it a local man has just told me that despite the fact that this Village is considered as a village of chuki in fact there is a mixed population so there is a lot of like mixed families between like locals and Russians what a lovely trailer with chuki graffity it says something in chuki like I cannot understand it can't imagine how much diesel do they consume anyway they look monstrous and some of them are even based on some Japanese and American cars like this one some of them are based on Russian Vehicles so they basically take some parts of the original vehicle like the cap and then they put this massive Wheels this is how they clean the roads in another basically use such massive tractor and that's it they're doing nice job the job will be even nicer if they will not forget to clean intersections such a beautiful frost on the branches isn't it feeding spots for Birds wow they are filled with seeds of something some bread look what I found just now the emblem of Olympic Games happened in Moscow in 1980 and it seems to be the Mosaic actually I see these small pieces of material which is the feature of Mosaic one of the coolest landmarks of another is its wooden Church which is the biggest wooden Church in the world constructed on permafrost in the surrounding area there are mainly residential and infrastructure facilities and here is the chotka national museum in another I visit the chotka museum the exhibitions of the museum focused on the cultural historical and natural heritage of the region it featured exhibits on the indigenous people local history traditional crafts and the unique ecosystems found in chotka special exhibition was devoted to the period of the second world war despite the fact that chotka was located far away from the front line its contribution shouldn't be under estimated as well as the contribution of aliot forces especially the United States during World War II the Soviet Union needed foreign supplies of weapons equipment food and clothing for the United States the defense of the USSR was of strategic importance and therefore in November 1941 the land lease act was extended to the Soviet Union totally the USSR reced about $13 billion wor supplies from Great Britain the United States and Canada during the war of which more than 11 billion came from the United States St the largest number of cargos was transported along the Pacific route through the ports of Kamchatka Magadan and vlasto at the same time American aircrafts were delivered to the USSR along several routes one of each was alep the Alaska Siberia Air Road a section of the Russian Air Road passed through the chotka settlement of oal and the another airport and ended in kashar the length of the air Road was more than 6.5 ,000 kilomet totally about 8,000 aircrafts arrived at the front over the Alaska Siberia Air Road we have approached the monument to the Revolutionary Committee in another so basically to the Monument of the first Communists of chotka a group of chuki most definitely enjoying their communist future there is the territory of another Seaport local Shipyard which doesn't seem to operate a lot because of the ice in the lemon however there is still some activity so local Engineers workers they repair some ships some vessels uh maybe do some paperwork as well but aside from that it's pretty dead at the moment next to another there is the biggest wind electric station in the whole country of Russia currently windmills there do not operate because of the absence of wind but when there is wind storm it's probably generate a lot of electricity and Supply the whole surrounding area possibly IT Supplies the whole region I have no idea about that the nearby block of lats is decorated by huge map of chukotka this map appeared in the Soviet Union there is a huge red flag there chotka geographically is very interesting region first of all this is the easternmost Russian region currently we are in its capital city City in another which is the easternmost city in Russia and also you can see the city of the town of Pak over there this is the northernmost Russian town town/city because the rest of settlements that located norn and PC do not have the statues of a town they are all Villages I'm kind of a fan of blue color and its variations especially this kind of the Aquatic tone of blue and the house here are painted exactly the same way as I would like them to look we are walking the Lenin Street of another yeah the SE aort is on the right here is another kind of the Masterpiece of local abstractionism or what's this chotka is definitely the northern capital of street art in Russia look at this wonderful graphity it illustrates some native people people of chukotka playing their National music instruments I see a couple of deers on top and it's very cool that these pictures these images all around the city have this kind of the national component so this is a tribute to their culture look how colorful this building is so beautiful I do like this concept of painting constructions in different colors it definitely makes the area the surrounded area more enjoyable I wish more of the Communist blocks of flats were that colorful wow I have found another Soviet Mosaic in another this is definitely the Mosaic dedicated to science just 2 minutes away from the previous Mosaic there is another one this one is dedicated to the 40 Years of the victory in the second world war according to the popular Legend another is the only city in chotka with traffic lights see some more signs of the Olympic Games in 1980 such incredible graphity showing whales because whales can be seen in Bearing Sea and the rest of residential area is more or less the same I don't know I just can't can't stop in join the local street art every following picture seems to be better than previous one there is such a nice sign with two names of the city on the right is another on the left is the old name of the city it was formerly called Nova Marin I think it's high time to check local grocery prices I made it to one of the biggest shopping malls in another so let's check them out let's start from water you can get 1.5 L of water for 145 R but also for 100 something is available this is probably locally produced there's actually huge variety of beer there is also a lot of Chinese one uh starting from 100 D to 200 and a half 250 1 kg of cabbage from Kamchatka cost just 135 rues usually the most expensive sort of thing in local grocery stores are vegetables and fruits that can be spoiled pretty rapidly for example these are the mushrooms Champion to be precise for 1,300 rubles well probably per kilogram yes this is the price for the pepper 1,350 cucumbers from greenh houses so local ones for 700 rues per 1 kg and these are the Cucumbers from Moscow so they covered 6,000 km to get here that's why probably they cost 1,100 per Kil here you can see different prices on tomatoes they start from 1,150 and up to 100 no 1,300 so pretty expensive vegetables apples seem to be pretty reasonable ones almost 400 per kilo peaches 1,400 um kiwi is also available in grocery stores 1,100 you have some different kinds of tangerines 1,400 different kinds of juice the average price would be from 200 to 250 R this is the Russian Coke 140 rubles and this is the original Coke two 100 rles per this glass bottle and it was imported from Georgia and here is another expensive category of goods which are dairy products these are yogurts for 280 rbl per one bottle yeah these one are exceptionally expensive four times more expensive than in mainland of the country 1 liter of Bellar Russian milk 23 rubles yeah also one liter of milk but not from bellarus from some regions of far East 195 R these are the most common kinds of instant oatmeal so 60 55 R per one package some bigger ones 175 and here is just like ordinary rice the most plain one for 215 R per 800 G again guys this is not the kilogram oh my favorite buck with porridge costs 290 rues per 700 g you see guys that packages become smaller and smaller and this is one of the way uh to somehow soften the increase of prices to basically decrease the package before going to chotka I bought exactly same can corn in my hometown for 150 R and as you can see here it cost 360 so starting from 1,400 and up to almost 2,000 per 1 kg of cheese here we come to can food again we are exploring the beef prices prices on caned beef which is fairly expensive here as well so um 500 700 650 the cheapest bread can be found for 92 R per one piece 1 kg of sugar 255 rubles cheapest kind of pasta branded MAA 150 rles per 400 G average bar of chocolate by the way 350 R per one milka well it would be quite a long story to check all of the prices at least we see that goods are available in the stores they are available and If you earn enough money you can buy them personally I would never believe that the first time I'll see the recycling machine in Russia would be in chotka but here it is in the capital city in another you can see the person is recycling something some bottles I'm going to try to recycle this one all right first time recycling in Russia let's start let's click Start then let's put the bottle over here oh wow it accepted it accepted the bottle it's counting something it's counting my money probably yeah it says weight we will not get the real money most definitely so I'd rather send them for charity I give away five points for the charity all right and now it's high time to have lunch I'm going to visit a restaurant called chukotka it's located in the hotel of the same name hopefully we'll try some local Cuisines here we are in this lovely restaurant the first Cuisine that I'm going to try is going to be the fish soap actually eating that soap evoke some child memories in my head when I was a child I frequently visited my grandmother's place and she frequently cooked almost the same kind of fish soap and I liked it actually I haven't eaten fish soaps for a while so due to the severe climate conditions in chotka you will not see much agriculture here consquently will not see cows or horses that's why the most common kind of meat here is deer meat this is my next order I ordered the deer steak okay local time is 3:40 p.m. and as you can see it's getting dark that's why I'm going to return to the opposite side uh of the estery of the Lon I'm going to walk back again so I will finish my way in the darkness just now I have had the most expensive lunch in my life totally for the fish soap for deer steak and some tea so I spent approximately 2,600 100 rupes which is which is more or less like $30 anyway I do not regret it at all it's pretty interesting feeling when the food evokes some memories you see the barges behind me it means that we are already on the surface of water Frozen surface of water somewhere here must be the road that I will have to follow to get back to O Copy to the airport District again I'm in the middle of the lemon Illuminating the road in front of me there is the city of another than you the visit there was nice over there are the lights of ugal copy my destination 40 50 maybe 60 Minutes more I will be on that side of the lemon actually the road exists it creates sort of the detour around this leemon but I decided to go straight here found the traces of tires left by some track hole so I'm just following them it's kind of okay good morning guys this is my new day in chotka local time is 7:30 a.m. actually I woke up at 2: a.m. probably because my body was confused of this 8 hours of difference in time between chotka in my hometown and I didn't manage to fall asleep again finally decided to have breakfast for the breakfast I'm going going to eat uh this kind of theant beef with lentil this is how it looks and also a cap of capucina today I'm going to visit probably the most unusual location in my whole urc's experience my experience in urban exploration I'm going to visit the abandoned military site which formerly used to be the storage of nuclear warheads let's back to the geography of chotka it is located very close to the United States and during the Cold War there were very intense relations between Soviet Union and the United States basically chotka being the closest point to the United States uh was decided to be the transit zone for for example aircraft that carried nuclear bombs straight here in chotka they placed actual nuclear warheads 20 km away from the city of another there was the underground storage which must be still preserved despite the fact that military left that area quite a long time ago and the nuclear weapon located here in chotka targeted Alaska Alwood Islands and also the submarine base in Seattle so to get to that nuclear storage I would have to just follow first this road and then some side road that will lead straight to the former military town which was entirely destroyed in modern day Russia where they basically placed military contingent responsible for the maintenance of this nuclear warheads even the area that I'm currently walking through used to be a part of another mil military base responsible for uh that nuclear site local time is 9:50 a.m. and look how soft colors are of the nature such smooth transitions between tones of blue I have found the memorial to somebody in the middle of nowhere halfway to the ghost town considering that there is the red star on top it must be the Soviet Monument usually such red stars were placed on gravestones of some War veterans I have finally made it to the territory of the former military closed Town this must have been its entrance checkpoint currently completely abandoned somewhere here was the road barrier these are the parts of the fence so of the perimeter I see the Old Guard Tower observation tower by the way all of the construction here were blown up by military approximately 8 years ago and the military base itself was about not more than 20 years ago this is what has remained after one of the most important Soviet military bases and somewhere there must be the entrance to the actual storage of nuclear warheads the last 300 M are the most difficult because now I turned from the road and I Crossing this kind of soft snow on the slope of the mountain of the hill and it's so deep this is the maximum speed I can walk and it's so energy consuming the last meters were the most difficult but I have finally reached my goal here must be one of the two portals and trans portals to the underground tunnel where the storage of nuclear warheads was was located this military facility was equipped with electrified Narrow Gauge Railway these are the remains of one of the flat cars that was used into operation here and on top of that you can see the remains of the overhead lines so basically the wire that supplied the electric engine that pulled these wagons and here are the remains of the Railway truck so if somebody asks you what is the eastern most Railway in Russia you can technically say it's here in chotka and here is the actual entrance the railway tunnel to the main tunnel of this uh nuclear storage it was additionally protected by such a massive wall but it does not exist anymore see there is also no gate so you can freely walk in we are in the very beginning of the storage its length is 996 M this was probably the loading and unloading mechanisms for this kind of warheads possibly they also transfer some other cargo it says do not stay under the cargo probably under the cargo lifted by this hook let's start from the exploration of some side rooms so this was probably the local substation here is a lot of electricity boxes also it was like the pipeline Junction that's pretty much it and now let's get deeper into the T so now we can clearly see the Narrow Gauge Railway this was the place where some cables some wires were allocated it says attention ventilation is turned on remotely so it's probably the air filter or basically the ventilation there used to be a lot of side passages that led to dead ends but all of these passages contained some important things for the functioning of this uh underground storage so most definitely this was the ventilation compartment there were different controllers for ventilation for different ventilators so from the very entrance there was the direct Railway track and here it turns left so probably this kind of turn was designed to soften the effect of potential bombing or uh missile attack to soften this kind of way of power that comes from the street and here we come to the central part of the storage probably the actual place where nuclear warheads were stored it says dangerous area and this kind of the central part of the storage was protected by such a massive gate its weight is 50 tons so 50,000 kg the first Railway Junction look the this is the switch the switch and the tunnel splits on two parts let's try to explore um the right one first okay I just found another room two railway tracks so considering the size of this compartment it probably was suitable for storing nuclear warheads Soviet clocks it showed three different time let's say military time on the left local time in the middle and Moscow time on the right hell yeah I finally found it Soviet train that transferred Soviet nuclear warheads there it is completely ruined entirely Rusty wow wow we are in the central compartment of the storage I don't know like the ladder for the personal to climb on to see the cargo from the top wow look at this Easter egg here is a huge picture on top of the hole illustrating Soviet flags flags of some military forces the aircraft probably the bomb carrier yeah some Soldiers the astronaut some more Gat I wonder what is the exact amount of them the opposite side of the tunnel is exactly the same as the portal that I entered I have just shown to you the Soviet uh nuclear storage which is not operating anymore hopefully you enjoyed my video from chotka it took me a lot of efforts to come here and to film it uh subscribe to my channel hit the Bell click the like button and also support me on patreon the link to my patreon is in the description to this video see you till the next Journey

Channel: VAGA VAGABOND

Views: 929,860

Keywords: chukotka, anadyr, chukchi peninsula, russian arctic, arctic, urban exploration, urbex, abandoned places, lost places, ghost town, vorkuta, remote destinations, nuclear weapon, arctic history, lend lease, remote travel, far east, alaska, bald and bankrupt, vagabond

Id: wR8H4qCzsTo

Length: 45min 4sec (2704 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 02 2024