![]() The Khlebnikov, with 24,000hp, was able to smash through it cleanly. Now we began to encounter serious ice, some of it 10 feet thick. After a stop at Kolyuchin Island, where bleached-white skulls of polar bears and rusting batteries from an abandoned weather station litter the ground, we set course across the Chukchi Sea for Wrangel. The ship blew its horn while passengers celebrated. Back on ship and traveling north, we crossed the Arctic Circle. He reminded us that it was yesterday over there, as Alaska is on the other side of the international date line. It was a gloriously clear morning, and Vladimir pointed out the faint coastline of Alaska to the east. Cape Dezhneva, the farthest eastern point, was our goal. On day four we reached the Bering Strait, the 50-mile-wide stretch of water separating Asia from North America. ![]() At Uelen I was given a wild ride in the sidecar of a friendly motorcyclist.Īt sea we heard lectures by Ellen Bielawski, dean of the University of Alberta School of Native Studies, who described the history and customs of Asian and Alaskan Eskimos Arthur Ford, a geologist and polar explorer who explained Siberian plate tectonics and the colors of icebergs and Roger Lovegrove, a British ornithologist who introduced the bird and whale species we would encounter. Yanrakynnot staged a gymnastics show-jumping, dancing and strength exhibitions. Vladimir Bychkov, a crew member and Siberian native who had pull with local communities, saw to it that we were welcomed warmly when we came on shore. Our route would take us east and north, through the Bering Strait up to Wrangel, with stops in the Chukotskiy Peninsula towns of Yttygran, Provideniya, Novoye Chaplino, Yanrakynnot and Uelen. With the ship only half full-44 paying passengers from Australia, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and other countries-we had plenty of room in which to mill about. On board was a well-stocked bar, dining rooms served by Austrian gourmet chefs, a gym, a pool and a sauna. Helicopters then took us to the 390-foot-long Khlebnikov offshore. ![]() Quark's hiring the ship and its crew of 60 for two weeks pumped roughly $480,000 into Russia's coffers.įrom Anchorage we flew a Russian TU-154 airliner 1,100 miles west to Anadyr, a depressing city of a few thousand Siberian souls. Since the collapse of communism, military and science personnel in the Arctic receive reduced pay, if any at all. Like all trips from the West, Quark's help keep an ailing Russian economy afloat. (For this trip my employer paid cost for my berth-$1,500-plus airfare.) The Wrangel excursion-only in its fourth year-offers travelers a look at the other side of the Bering Sea, across from an Alaska cluttered with cruise ships. Since 1992 Quark Expeditions, the Darien, Connecticut adventure company, has run Arctic and Antarctic trips aboard converted Russian icebreakers. Twenty-five years later, the Cold War long over, I boarded the Russian icebreaker Kapitan Khlebnikov, bound for this strange island. Did Alex have his finger on the button? As for surroundings, I imagined an Ice Station Zebra-type setup: gray metal shack, giant drifts of snow, 100mph winds, 70-below-zero air, polar bears. Who was Alex and what was he doing on Wrangel? Surely the Siberian outpost had to be a military base, maybe with nuclear missiles pointed toward the U.S.
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