REPOUR originals by Janick Lemieux and Pierre Bouchard
Russian Far-East
The Kuril-Kamchatka Trench is a 10,000 metre deep underwater ditch where the Pacific Plate is being subducted beneath the Okhotsk Plate. The forces in presence create a volcanic arc that stretches from Japan to the Aleutian Trench, home to hundreds of fierce mountains of fire and one of our planet's hottest spot. The active volcanoes hiss, puff, and explode on the 56 Kuril Islands spread over 1,300 kilometre of choppy water and on the remote peninsula of Kamchatka. In short, one of the most logistically challenging parts of our « circum-pedalling » the Pacific Ring of Fire! The hurdles start while shopping for Russian 90-day business visas— we need business visas because tourist visas are only good for 30 days. Remnants of the Soviet system prescribe that visitors apply equipped with an « official invitation from an organization authorized to invite business visitors to Russia ». The invitation letters are easy enough to buy online. That is if you are only interested in visiting St-Petersburg and Moscow's architectural wonders. But our need to enter Russia's FarEast, and roam unsupervised on Kamchatka and along the sensitive Kuril Islands, lands us outside the box. Weeks—and three hundred dollars!—later, we receive two offical invitations from a « resourceful » Vladivostok-based travel agent and run with them to Sapporo's Russian Consulate. The Eins Soya, of the Higashi-Nihonkai ferry fleet, takes five hours to link Wakkanai—Japan's northernmost town—to Korsakov, on Sakhalin Island. We sit inside the spotless ship, nibbling on over-packaged seaweed snacks, and look out to what looks like dilapidated and ramshackle port facilities—any time spent in Japan, a country seemingly affected by OCD, can warp one's perspective on the inevitability of rust! The equally rundown bus taking us from the wharf to the immigration facilities, located inside the terminal, is as smile-enducing as the heavily made up lady wearing a tight military uniform and high heels that escorts the twenty-odd passengers, mostly Russian returnees ladden with boxed electronics. The customs forms are in either Russian or Japanese, the border procedure is thus waived for us—with a bit of embarassement on the officer's part! Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the island's largest city, is an easy 60-kilometre ride to the North. Boomtown since the mid-nineties—due to large reserves of oil and gas exploited by ExxonMobil and Shell off Sakhalin's northeast coast—, this is where we have to register our visas with the authorities, find a way to Kamchatka, and obtain special permits to visit the Kurils. Ten days later, we are occupying a room at the Sakhalin
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REPOUR originals Provincial Ski Team training center, still lacking some answers and documents! In the process, we even have been interviewed by the FSB (Federal Security Service) about the « cyclovolcanic » motives behind our visiting the frontier. To reach Petropavlosk-Kamchatski (PK) is as simple as riding our bikes for two days to Kholmsk, on Sakahalin's West Coast, crossing the Tatar Strait on a passenger ferry to Vanino, riding a train for 24 hours to Khabarovsk, and flying 3 hours to the remote Kamchatka peninsula! We thus land in Yelizovo, a mid-size town 25 kilometres west of PK, and the old road to the capital city is pot-holed, narrow and busy. Drivers look like they are sitting in the passenger seats as Japan exports used righthand drive cars to left-hand drive Russia! The countless mortuary flower arrangements found along the dead straight road remind us of the Russians' love of drinking and driving! Around the inevitable Plaza Lenin, we are pleased to find a tourism office. As before, our independent status is suspicious, and the woman whose job is to promote Kamchatka as a destination calls the FSB and tries everything in her power to prevent us from hitting the road! If she was trying a form of reverse psychology then it worked: we get on our bikes and leave Petropavlovsk-Kamchatski as soon as possible The road to volcanoes Gorely (1,830m) and Mutnovsky (2,323m), south of PK, is paved as far as the hotsprings resort of Paratunka. We stop to sample the healing baths at Sputnik Sanatorium! Japan, again, has spoiled us by providing daily hotsprings in zen and wholesome environments, but here the baths are uniquely Russian. I notice something surreal: a crowd of young adults are passing around a 1.5 litre plastic beer bottle, cupping the golden liquid in their hands to apply it all over their limbs, stomachs, shoulders and backs, like suntanning lotion! In fact, everyone at the rundown baths is in the advanced stages of sunburning and inhebriation, red eyes and red faces all around! Steep switchbacks climb to the plateau where the two fire mountains live. Their snowy silhouettes, along with the perfect Vilyuchinsky (2,173m) to the East, against the crisp sapphire sky drive the point home that Kamchatka is known as the Land of Fire and Ice. 10-metre high metal poles line the road so snow plows can find it during the winter months. It is late July, we wear shorts and are surrounded by high snow banks. At the base of steaming Mutnovsky is a geothermal plant and a popular hotspring where cars are parked, nonetheless someone wants to see our permits for being there! Back in Yelizovo, we set out on the 900-km long dead-end to Ust-Kamchatsk and gladly stop in Malky, a village sitting on pools of mineral and geothermal springs. Extended families have set up tents, tarps, grills and are revelling in the sun and water. We are invited by warm folks, heated by the flame of something they keep calling « cognac », to share a traditional Uha: a clear broth where fishheads float around! In Milkovo, a guesthouse manager lets us shower. Our finances don't allow for a room—the prices are strangely Ritz-Carltonians, plus we have a fundamental problem with nationality-based price ranges!—and we decide to risk urban camping and set up behind the local firehall. A group of merrymakers soon encircle the tent shouting commands to come out and drink! Pierre has to argue hard that it is the middle of the night—although the midnight sun is shining—and that sleep is our idea of a good time. They finally give up after an hour or two of utter harassment The side road to the Bystrinsky District rolls gently over hills. Horseflies are drafting our bikes on the cul-de-sac branching off Kamchatka's main artery, all the way up to Anavgai and Esso, homes of the Even and Koryak peoples. In true colonial fashion, Moscovite Russia claimed Kamchatka during the 17th century and explorers started returning with tales of a land of fire rich with fish and fur. During the Soviet Union, the traditionally nomadic Even and Koryak were « strongly encouraged » to settle in the two villages. Now, attempts at reclaiming their ways are encouraged by the international community. The UNDP and Canada's CIDA sponsor the Bystrinsky Nature Park (<http://www.unkam.ru/english/>http://www.unkam.ru/english/), a comprenensive set of measures and rules aiming at the conservation of the area's biological diversity and preservation of the traditional lifestyle of its native populations. Herds of reindeer are rehabilitated and old skills are restored. Wildlife remains on our minds at every pedal stroke: the region is known for its high concentration of brown bears and everybody we meet never let us forget that they are of the humongest kind, weighing as much as a quarter of a ton. When a little girl asks her mother « what are grizzlies » , she is answered « it's these tiny bears they have in Canada »! As anticipated, one afternoon a Ursus arctos beringianus cross the dusty main road a few meters before our wheels...and runs for his life! A rusty pontoon ferries people and vehicles across the Kamchatka River. The village of Kozyrevsk is on the East Shore. Ladas and Ural sidecar motorcyles are bobbing up and down the muddy paths lined with colorful wooden buildings. As we enter the village, it takes about 2 minutes before Valeri offers to drive us up into nearby Klyuchevskoye Nature Park, home of the Klyuchevskoye volcano group, a cluster of stupendous fire and ice colossus. The 6-wheel Kamaz rides in axle-deep mud until we emerge over the taiga onto a lunar landscape of ash, dunes and rocky ridges. From Leningradskaya old volcanological station, where we set up the tent—and where the first Moon Rover was tested—, we can explore the craggy volcanic wasteland and climb up to Plosky Tolbachik's icy summit 70
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(3,085m). Backtracking to Kozyresvk on our Devinci Missions, we surf the sandy road back to the thick and sticky taiga mud track. It hasn't rained in a few days but I still have to dive and help save Pierre's bike after his front panniers disappear into a deep puddle! Although the road ends in Ust-Kamchatsk we turn around in Klyuchi. The town is restricted to foreigners and to keep going could mean trouble with the FSB. A group of mushroom gatherers driving back to PK load our bikes on top of baskets full of tasty fungus. Back again in Yelizovo, a young man invites us to camp in his family's garage for the night. We are relieved not to have to urban-camp in such a big town and settle nicely in the windowless concrete block while our new friend and saviour Kyril padlocks the door from the outside! In the morning, Kyril's parents, Irina and Sergei, upgrade our lodging by inviting us to move into their Soviet-style appartment. Irina teaches French at the high school which makes our conversations that much clearer. Our adoptive family feeds us salmon roe on buttered rye bread, borscht, salmon kotlety (meatballs) and pelmeni (dumplings), along with endless cups of sweet tea and plates of dry salami and cheese. During the 10-day stay, we part only two nights when Pierre and I ride up a dry river bed to volcanoes Avachinsky (2,741m) and Koryaksky (3,456m) base camp and hike up to Avachinsky's smoking crater. We reunite at the family's dacha (cabin). The sun is shining, raspberries are ready for harvesting and the mosquitoes have all but disappeared. Sergei has cooked a tasty shashlik (bbq meat skewers) and heated the banya (steam bath). We talk, eat, bathe and watch the Russian « so you think you can dance » into the night. Comforting times for two dusty road mongrels! The old aircraft taking us back to Sakhalin Island is in serious need of a paint job, but not as much as the ship docked at Korsakov's port waiting to take us to Kunashir Island, one of the Kurils. More ships are littered in various stages of decomposition inside the bay where a shuttle boat comes to pick up passengers and bring them to Yuzhno-Kurilsk, the main settlement on Kunashir. The tricky manoeuvre of carrying our 18 bags and 2 bikes down a wheeled staircase linking two bobbing vessels is made all the more interesting by the amount of officials wanting to scrutinize our permits for visiting the disputed island— Japan has been claiming Kunashir and the other three southernmost Kurils since they were stolen by Stalin at the end of WWII— while simultaneously investigating our intentions! At the southern end of 123-km long www.pedalmag.com
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