Magadan roads. Harsh roads of Magadan

Hitchhiking is risky and sometimes even dangerous. Especially when you decide to go to one of the harshest regions of Russia - Kolyma. A Lenta.ru correspondent hitchhiked from Yakutsk to Magadan, undaunted by the lack of roads, abandoned cities and wild animals.

The highway in the Magadan region is a proper name. The highway is called the Kolyma federal highway. On it, like on a knitting needle, a b O Most of the settlements in the region are those where at least some residents still remain. There is asphalt and concrete for the first 50 kilometers from Magadan to the west. Next is the primer. Such that behind the thick clouds of dust you can’t see anything from under the car in front. True, there are not so many cars within 50 kilometers from the city. The farther you go from Magadan along the Kolyma to the west, the fewer settlements, the population itself, they generally become a rarity.

When there are more bears than people

For independent travelers, Magadan has long become synonymous with the phrase “end of the world.” However, this is perhaps the most accessible of the “ends of the world” in Russia. You can even get there by hitchhiking. In Chukotka and Kamchatka, for example, hitchhiking is impossible. There is, of course, Vladivostok - but this is almost Europe in the heart of Asia. It is difficult in Vladivostok to feel that somewhere here “civilization ends,” but on the way to Magadan it is easy. But you don’t need to fly there by plane, but slowly (it won’t work any other way - the condition of the road won’t allow it) approach along the Highway.

The route starts from the border of Yakutia and the Magadan region. But the Kolyma highway begins much earlier - from Yakutsk. More precisely, on the opposite side of the Lena River from Yakutsk. The first 400 kilometers are Yakut villages (in the sense of the ethnicity of their inhabitants), taiga, sparse with clearings-alas, then the Aldan River as a kind of transition to a harsher and wilder world, the village of Khandyga and... Civilization is almost ending. Last big one locality Yakutia on the “Kolyma” - the village of Ust-Nera.

On the border between the regions there is a police post “Artyk” (police officers live in other regions of Yakutia and come to the post to work on shifts). This is where the Route begins. It is more than 700 kilometers from the post to Magadan. This is one of those Russian roads where it is much easier to meet a bear than a car.

On one of the sections of the Route, my colleague and I waited for a ride for 7 hours. It’s not that no one stopped, it’s just that no one passed. However, usually the waiting time for a car does not exceed two to three hours.

At the same time, hitchhiking here is excellent. Unlike central Russia, every hitchhiker is ready to pick up a traveler on the highway. The main thing is to wait.

In these places there is no dense, tall taiga, as in the Krasnoyarsk Territory or Kemerovo region, there are no mountains, like in Altai or the Caucasus. In the Magadan region, nature is like a teenager - it is just preparing to become an adult, it has not yet developed. It is located on a conventional scale somewhere between the tundras of the Far North and impenetrable forests Southern Siberia.

Round hills of crumbled rocks, as if heaped by giants. Stunted coniferous trees growing in islands. But there is no shortage of water - streams, rivers, rivers, lakes, slowly preparing the traveler for the upcoming meeting with Sea of ​​Okhotsk. However, bridges are not available everywhere. Often you have to look for fords in rivers. Although it happens that there seems to be a bridge, it is still safer to ford a water barrier.

Ghosts and the living

The closest settlement to Yakutia is the town of Kadykchan. Many people involved in the topic are familiar with it: it is one of the most famous “ghost towns” in Russia. IN better times its population was about 10 thousand people, a wealthy northern mining town where coal was mined by open pit mining.

Photo: Laika ac / Flickr / Kommersant

When it fell apart Soviet Union, the residents of Kadykchan immediately felt the changes: salaries, food, transport connecting with the mainland - everything decreased sharply. The state ensured the transportation of coal to Magadan and further across the sea “through teeth.” In 1996, an accident occurred at the city-forming enterprise. The explosion killed six people. The city was resettled. More precisely, they decided to resettle them - the process itself lasted ten years.

People continued to live in half-empty Kadykchan with the centralized heating supply turned off. The name of the city, which is translated from Even as Death Valley, turned out to be prophetic. By 2010, there was no one left here.

The buildings seem to be familiar - dilapidated, like on the outskirts of many Russian cities and towns. You constantly expect to see people, but they don’t. Instead there is silence, broken by some strange rustling. It seems that dozens of eyes are watching you - and they are watching. The new local inhabitants are animals that have regained these lands and taken the place of people.

The doors to the apartments are open: inside are calendars from 1997 or 1999, sideboards, tables and chairs from a common Soviet childhood, photo albums, rotten clothes.

The Kolyma region is famous for its prisons and camps. There really were a lot of them along the Route before Stalin's death. Then they began to be actively closed, and in the 1960s they were destroyed so that no traces remained.

Today they are not easy to find. In total, two abandoned camps remain in the region. The closest one to the Route is “Dneprovsky”. Near the non-residential village of Myakit, you need to turn into the hills and cover another 13 kilometers along the “zekovskaya” road. “Dneprovsky” was part of the Berlag system - the Coastal forced labor camp. Functioned from 1941 to 1955, prisoners mined tin here.

Around the camp there are hills with mines and pits in which ore was mined, guard towers and rows of barbed wire. Ore was transported from the hills down in wooden boxes. Below, along the Dnieper stream, there was a crushing factory - everything was made of wood: prisoner barracks, administration houses, the remains of household equipment. At the entrance to the camp there is a wooden lorry cabin.

You can get to Dneprovsky either on your own and for free, or with an organized tour for a lot of money (renting an SUV from Magadan will cost 70-100 thousand rubles).

Whales in the city

The locals are the antithesis of the abandoned "ghosts" of the Route and its camp monuments. They have hospitality, responsiveness and seemingly endless warmth. There is this in the people both in the villages on the Highway and in Magadan itself. It may happen that the locals will approach you themselves - they accurately identify visitors. So after a couple of days it turns out that you have a lot of friends among the residents of Kolyma.

When we drove far, far into the Far East, it was difficult for me to realize that almost a quarter of the country (from Primorye to Chukotka) lies even further than our extreme point of travel to the East. And what is quite surprising is that highways there's practically none there. Until recently, Magadan was an island from which it was impossible to leave by regular car. But roads are being built and near Chernyshevsk we met jeepers who told us a little about the roads of Magadan.

The first thing that catches your eye is that they are covered in clay from head to toe. The second is the wheel size. The guys from the Nord-Trophy.ru club said that 35-inch wheels are not enough for the road in Magadan. 38 inches - already here and there. And there are up to 52 inches. This is a dire necessity. True, it turned out that on the mainland such wheels are not accepted for tire service. There is no equipment, and the cargo landing is not the same.

In this case, you have to put up additional steps to climb into this monster. Another important addition to Magadan cars are rockers - additional fuel is not a whim for Magadan. Gas stations on the roads of Magadan are rare. Compared to Konstantin’s aka Nordphil, our rather small car seemed like just a toy. But such is the harsh life in Magadan.

According to the assurances of the guys from the club, we would not have made it to Magadan in the summer. That is, you can still drive through the Magadan region in the summer, but the road from Skovorodino to Yakutsk is just hell. To understand this, just search

Federal highway M56 Lena “connects” Yakutsk and Magadan with the mainland

The problem is that the road lies along permafrost. And if in winter you can even get to Yakutsk in a Lada-Kalina, then in summer only trucks and jeeps can do this task. To build the BAM, it was necessary to actually build a bridge on stilts along the entire road. Such a route has not yet been built here. At the base of the road lie larches, planted here by Gulag slaves. But that doesn't help. So, driving through Yakutia, as Magadan residents say, is the most difficult thing.

Nord-Trophy.ru crews at the Nadezhda cafe, which no traveler from Khabarovsk to Chita will pass by

The guys went to Baikal, hoping to return home by October. Since it was already cold there at that time, we planned to buy warm clothes along the way. In August there are already frosts, and in September there may already be snow.

Vitaly Vdovichev tells us about the harsh everyday life of Magadan Dmitry Balykov told us how trucks are used on the roads of Magadan

In winter, by the way, driving on Magadan roads is safer. With the exception of treacherous roads along rivers, where you can fall through the ice. By the way, water can escape from under the ice, then you can easily fall under the empty ice, and water will flow over the ice at any moment.

By the way, the guys from the club traveled to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. In winter, of course. This must be a trophy! There are no roads there at all.

Motor rally Magadan-Kamchatka. Has nothing to do with the crew. :)

According to Mikhail, Viktor Borisov aka victorprofessor was going to go to Magadan in a regular car, but apparently there was construction own home pulled it tight. Well, Kamchatka, Chukotka, Yakutia are still poorly connected regions with the rest of Russia. Until 2009, it was impossible to drive through Primorye - several hundred kilometers of road with granite crushed stone forced one to drive with complete set spare wheels, and tire fitting and welding were working hard. Now you can even get to Khabarovsk by city car. Full photo report of the meeting in .

As often happens in Russia, the most terrible things sometimes coexist with the most beautiful and amazing things. This is to briefly define the Kolyma federal highway.

What is a federal highway anyway? This is the most important transport artery that connects key cities of regions or regions. In other words, this important road. Very important. For example, Kolyma connects Yakutsk and Magadan. And despite the fact that we are talking about two largest cities Far East, there is almost no asphalt on the federal highway. At the same time, I declare with all responsibility that this is the most beautiful road I have ever driven on in Russia. The views opening on both sides of the grader force you to constantly stop the car, go outside and be drawn to the endless expanses of the taiga. This is what today's post is about...

I already traveled along this route in winter with Tema during the Chukotka EthnoExpa. Then all the locals told me that it was better to go in the summer. Finally, we were able to compare.

So, the first 100 kilometers from Magadan there is asphalt on the highway. Moreover, if closer to the city it is more or less normal, then it starts to get so bad that it would be better if it didn’t exist at all. The whole road is full of waves, ruts and holes:

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A small ford. Don't worry, he's not on the track. It was we who decided to play pranks and took a detour to the main road:

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After 100 km there is a grader. The speed limit is 80 km/h for cars and 60 km/h for trucks. Yakutsk is 1860 kilometers away. And here the main problem of the entire route begins: endless, tiring road dust:

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You have to keep a large distance between cars in order to somehow drive:

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But you can visually determine the distance to the nearest cars:

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Cars instantly gather dust and lose their presentable appearance. However, there is no one in particular to show off for the next 1,800 kilometers. But you can practice your wit:

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It is very difficult to separate from the trucks. They are very heavy, clumsy, and because of the dust it is completely impossible to see who is driving behind them. Imagine what it’s like to overtake in this case? Perhaps at this very moment someone passes him in the oncoming lane. This is one of the disadvantages of traveling along the highway in the summer:

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Locals drive Japanese SUVs with large wheels:

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The most common occurrence is a flat tire:

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At some point it started to rain and the dust stopped. Now you have the opportunity to drive calmly and admire the beauty:

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Kolyma is a gold-bearing region. Many rivers have been dug up in search of precious metal. I will tell you about how gold is mined in one of the following posts:

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There are many abandoned or semi-abandoned settlements along the road:

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Apparently, those who mined gold used to live here:

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Now all the houses are empty and there is not a single living soul nearby:

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Along the way we meet many funny names. Pass "Grandfather's bald spot":

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"Gavryushka." These funny names were given by geologists who came here to look for gold. Well, as you understand, there were no local protesters:

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Over your behavior!

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Abbey Road in Magadan. Suddenly we came across a small paved area with markings. A small one is about two hundred meters:

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The name of the federal highway comes from the Kolyma River. A little later we will stop by Sinegorye and visit the Kolyma Hydroelectric Power Station:

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Most of the road the route passes through the mountains. There are a lot of passes, and they are all incredibly beautiful:

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Look at the colors. I've collected a few landscapes here, but there were so many along the way that I'll probably make a separate post:

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Regarding gas stations, we can only say one thing: there are few of them. Fortunately, we had a supply of fuel in cans:

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Well, let's face it - not BP. And there are no shops with goodies here:

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Fuel is stored in huge open-air tanks:

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The situation with hotels is even worse than with gas stations. There is one in Susuman, but we didn’t have time to get to it on the first day. Because of the dust, 300-400 kilometers a day here is a good result, you can’t count on more. We had to spend the night in tent camps:

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Breakfast for a Magadan tourist: caviar, squid, crabs:

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Our team. I forgot to say that this is another Land Rover expedition, which is taking place for the 15th or 16th time (I admit, I’ve already lost count). Traditionally, the Land Rover expedition is an excellent company, great cars and exciting adventures! There are many posts about Kolyma ahead!

"The next day, in the morning, loading began. They loaded the cars with a crane. Then we moved onto a barge. There was another car there - a heavy-duty one. The driver was moving it somewhere. On the barge we pitched a tent and prepared for a long journey along the Aldan River, then along the Lena River and further to the Skovorodino station. We should have had enough food to reach the final destination of the river journey. Finally, the tug gave the signal and our barge set off and went along the river.

The mood is good, everything is going according to plan. There is endless taiga along the shores.
A few days later, when we woke up in the morning, we did not hear the usual noise of the tug. The barge was anchored at the mouth of the Aldan River. It turned out that our tugboat had been recalled to remove the ship that had run aground. This did not upset us; we hoped that he would quickly return to us. A few tens of meters from our barge there was another one, the tug from it went there.

We, as I already said, are great optimists, but I gathered a family council and suggested starting to save food. I didn’t find any support, and I was also criticized for causing panic. We, as always, prepared lunches for everyone, and breakfasts and dinners with our family. After a few days, food began to run out. The men also became worried. We kept listening to the river to see if we could hear the sound of a moving ship. The “Skipper” told us a story that a year ago she had already spent the winter with her barge and now she always carries several bags of flour with her. This scared us a lot. We ran out of sugar, canned food and all other supplies. The “skipper” fed the children pies once a day. The men were fishing, although there were only two fishing rods, but reinforcements still arrived from time to time.

The barge was not far from the shore, and our men went into the taiga in the hope of shooting something. They were afraid to go far; if a tug had come, they would not have waited long. Every time I persuaded them not to walk for a long time. They found wild garlic in the forest. It was impossible to eat these green vitamins without bread; I added it to fish soup.

One night I woke up because I heard a splash. The boat was launched into the water, and a steamboat whistle was heard on the river. Our starving men swam closer and explained the situation, that a tug had abandoned us, and there were children on the barge. They asked the captain if they had any extra food. They were very upset that they could not help us, but they gave us several loaves of dry black bread. They promised to inform us about our plight. We soaked this black bread and ate it with wild garlic and fish soup, which gave everyone heartburn. My younger son, Valery, asked me: “Well, maybe a small piece of white bread is lost somewhere?” I persuaded the children as best I could and encouraged the men. Two or three days later, the whistle of a passing steamship was heard again at night. He “slowed down” his progress and waited for the boat from the barge to reach them. This time we were given food: condensed milk, all kinds of bread, canned food, etc. My husband woke us up in the middle of the night and put the kettle on to heat. And the boys drank tea with condensed milk and white bread. We were also warned not to leave the barge, because... They promised to send a tug. They continued to catch fish, but did not go ashore.

Finally, after two weeks of idleness, a tug arrived. We hooked up to the barge and with cheerful horns we set off towards Yakutsk. Everyone perked up."