The farthest corners of the Kolyma highway. Federal highway Kolyma: beauty and horror

Sergey Dolya says: “As is often the case in Russia, the most terrible sometimes coexists with the most beautiful and amazing. This is if in a nutshell to define the federal highway "Kolyma".

(Total 39 photos)

1. What is a federal highway in general? This is the most important transport artery that connects the key cities of regions or regions. In other words, this is an important road. Very important. So, for example, "Kolyma" connects Yakutsk and Magadan. And even though we're talking about two largest cities Far East, asphalt on the federal highway is almost completely absent. At the same time, I declare with all responsibility that this is the most beautiful road on which I traveled in Russia. The views opening on both sides of the grader make you constantly stop the car, go outside and stick to the endless taiga expanses. Today's post is about this...

2. I have already traveled this route in winter with Tema during ChukotEtnoExpa. At that time, all the locals told me that it was better to go in the summer. Finally managed to compare.

3. So, the first 100 kilometers from Magadan on the highway there is asphalt. Moreover, if closer to the city it is more or less normal, then it starts such that it would be better if it did not exist at all. The whole road is in waves, ruts and pits.

5. Small ford. Don't worry, he's not on the track. It was we who decided to play pranks and drove around the main road.

6. 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 begins the main trouble of the entire route: endless, tiring road dust.

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

8. But you can determine the distance to the nearest cars by eye.

9. Cars instantly gather dust and lose their presentable appearance. However, there is no one to show off the next 1800 kilometers. But you can practice wit.

10. It is very difficult to disperse from trucks. They are very heavy, clumsy, and because of the dust it is completely impossible to see who is following them. Imagine what it's like to overtake in this case? Perhaps at this very moment someone is driving in the opposite direction with him. This is one of the disadvantages of traveling on the highway in the summer.

11. Locals drive Japanese SUVs with big wheels.

12. The most common occurrence is a punctured wheel.

13. At some point it began to rain, and the dust stopped. There was an opportunity to go quietly and admire the beauty.

16. Kolyma is a gold-bearing region. Many rivers are torn apart in search of precious metal. I will tell you about how gold is mined in one of the following posts.

20. There are many abandoned or semi-abandoned settlements along the way.

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

23. On the way we meet a lot of funny names. Pass "Grandfather's bald head".

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

25. ... over your behavior!

26. Abbey Road in Magadan. Suddenly I came across a small asphalted area with markings. Small - it's two hundred meters.

27. The name of the federal highway comes from the Kolyma River. A little later we will drive to Sinegorye and visit the Kolyma hydroelectric power station.

28. Most road track passes through the mountains. There are a lot of passes, and all of them are of insane beauty.

30. See what colors. I collected a few landscapes here, but there were so many of them along the way that I will probably make a separate post.

November 24th, 2015 , 11:31 am

Those wishing to conquer the vast expanses of mother Russia are faced with the fact that there is very little information about the state of the Kolyma highway, or rather its most distant section, from the village of Khandyga to the village of Ust-Nera. The fact is that this is the only serviced road that has the ability to put any car into the bowels. Magadan region through Yakutia. She will be discussed..



After passing the first 350 km from Nizhny Bestyakh, you will find yourself at the ferry crossing across the river. Aldan. In this place in twenty years, when our country goes through all the crises, they will definitely build good bridge. Ferries run as they fill up, during daylight hours. Particularly profit-hungry ferrymen may agree to go at dusk and this is dangerous.

Having crossed to the other side, after fifty km we will pass the village of Khandyga. This is where the main traffic of cars ends. Further go extremely rarely and reluctantly.
The flat landscapes end and we fall into mountain country Verkhoyansk ridge


For a long time, even before the advent of Soviet power, merchants from Yakutsk reached the Okhotsk settlements only in winter on horses or riding reindeer. The journey took months.
The guides were local, worth their weight in gold. By the way, Kolyma gold attracted many seekers, but it was not easy to get to Kolyma ..

The highway began to be built in the dashing 40s, and completed in the middle of the hairy 50s with the labor of thousands of prisoners of the Gulag system. Few people know, but the connection between Kolyma and Yakutia was carried out by three separate roads.
Two of them were completed, and the third ... Due to the mistake of the designers, the builders, having overcome the most difficult passes, ran into the impenetrable swamps of the so-called. Goose lakes and the project was stopped. All ZK were taken to other areas, and the engineers were shot. This would be the most short cut. But on this moment, oddly enough, the northernmost and long road. She covers more territories rich in minerals.

Red- federal highway M56 (about which see photo)
Violet - old unserviced. Passable for prepared jeeps.
Green - erroneously designed.

The whole mechanism of the construction of the track is reflected in these unpretentious drawings, one former prisoner ..

Brigades of prisoners with guards were located on segments of 10 km. having completed their section of the road, they were transferred to the next piece, etc. From the memories of those who squeezed out the ZK, the waste was 50%. The slave force was replenished with new stages. The dead were buried near the road, in winter often just in the snow. Drivers have seen more than once how legs and hands of the unfortunate stick out of the melting snow.

So they built it in the summer ...
Equipment in the early 40s was primarily supplied to the front, although the supply of the Dalstroy trust was equated to the military, much was not enough.

And so in winter.

The first road settlement.

In some places the road differs little from its original appearance. A narrow ribbon winds between the mountains, one and a half tracks wide.

The track is included in federal program for reconstruction, work is being carried out in parts and most dangerous area do in the first place.

Yellow and black clamps.

We are approaching the yellow clamp ...

Admiring the folded structures of mountains...

Clamps are sealed with steel mesh but, for some reason, not in all areas.

There are brake embankments on steep descents. To go to such a wonderful " observation deck", will not work. A loose gravel coating, which should help stop any truck without brakes.

The builders have done a global work to expand the clamp. Before the reconstruction, there was a one-track roadway with regular rockfalls.

And this is the most a nice place. The bridge was built a year ago.

old bridge

Construction 2013

The cliff was filled with 100,000,000 tons of granite, and security steps were made. The work was done colossal, but there was not enough money for asphalt?

From Magadan, Hamer met with the numbers of the European Union.

No matter how good the road winds, it ends.

There are bridges from the 40s.

In this place, the road is often washed out after rains. You can stand for a long time, waiting for the road builders.

During prolonged rains, a small stream turns into a mountain river.

This is the most northern section trails, and the Arctic Circle is within easy reach, 200-300 kilometers. And if you turn south here, then after 100 km. we will find ourselves in Oymyakon, the Pole of Cold.
Yes, I can’t believe that in winter there is an icy hell at -70C.

We traveled 370km without civilization and arrived in Kyubuyme. Population - 0.3 thousand people. (1989), 30 people (2000) 0 people (2010). The village had a road administration, a gas station, a club, an incomplete secondary school, healthcare and trade institutions. This is from Wikipedia... But not true. There is life here.

Famous gas station in the middle of nowhere. This is definitely an important checkpoint for many travelers. Yes, there is gasoline... and sometimes electricity, so I recommend taking a canister with you.

The good cafe "Cuba", its owner Seryoga was not caught, he went to Yakutsk to buy food, he even appeared all over the world in one of the films "To get in spite of".

They cook on the stove, they heat it with a potbelly stove in winter. Works all year round. You cannot convey what a joy it is to be in this modest tavern, after many hours of driving along a narrow road.

Everything is short and clear.

Menu... The prices are quite reasonable.

Made with love. Delicious.

In the meantime, we were overtaken by a Yakut minibus with tourists from Germany. And now attention! Sasha is a driver from Yakutsk, he picked them up in Irkutsk, and now he is taking them to Magadan. I met him at a gas station in Khandyga. They're going to Magadan! together, spend the night in hotels, but Europeans know how to relax)).

It remains a little to the village of Ust-Nera, where we spend the night.
On the way there are such bunkers for soil. From above, the bulldozer pushed the soil, poured it into wheelbarrows or lorries and filled the road. Half-rotten bunkers are found along the entire route.

Suddenly....

The day is over. The goal is no more than a hundred miles away. The road is like an arrow. Olchansky pass 1400m will soon appear. altitude, descent and Ust-Nera, but it will be a very dark night and nothing will be filmed.

The next day, we head to Magadan. Having crossed the bridge Nera, we meet a checkpoint ... At the moment, this is the watch of the Energia artel, but according to some information, during the Gulag, there was a high tower with a real machine gun and guards at this place, a thorough search was carried out of all those passing through the only bridge connecting Kolyma and Yakutia , for fugitives and bandits, but they came across.

Nera

Some landscapes and one more dangerous clamp

Here, around the corner, the truck driver stops, gets out, walks and looks to see if the road is empty in order to pass with the oncoming traffic ..

"need to be cultivated!"

Having driven a car along this road, you will get a charge of vivacity for many years, crazy landscapes will be remembered for a lifetime, and the time spent behind the wheel will give you invaluable experience, tempered your will and character.

Welcome to Kolyma, on your own!

I think I won’t be mistaken if I begin to assert that the vast majority of the inhabitants of central Russia, and especially the inhabitants of the main metropolitan areas, have an extremely poor idea of ​​\u200b\u200blife in the remote regions of the country. I have to go there often, so I know something about this life. Single topic this life is transport accessibility, or more precisely inaccessibility. This is especially true of the North-East of the country. Now I am talking only about land roads, which are practically non-existent, although other modes of transport are not properly developed here and the cost of local transportation is extremely high. The most important road here is the Yakutsk-Magadan highway. It stretches as a connecting chord for two thousand kilometers. Not many roads leave from it, leading to remote villages, and most of them are winter roads, that is, roads that exist only in winter. This road is also called the Kolyma highway, and sometimes figuratively “the road on the bones”. This is because it was built by prisoners of the Gulag, and in this imagery there is a considerable share of reality. Times are now, fortunately, different, but even now this road requires its sacrifices. I have already had to drive along the Kolyma highway more than once and I am familiar with its surprises. I told about how in the summer of 2013 we traveled from Yakutsk to Tomtor for three days. But this is summer, and winter is a completely different matter here. For a long time I wanted to take a ride in the winter with truckers along these parts, and not so much along this route itself, but along winter roads. And now such an opportunity has happened, although it is not quite winter. Now I am in the village of Khonuu, for the third time in my history, and I came here on the road. And now I intend to tell a little about what the trip turned out to be. Yes, what is there, I’ll immediately say that I have never had a more difficult road ... ..

We left Yakutsk with two Urals with trailers on March 26 early in the morning. Basically, the cargo was the so-called cold cargo, that is, it did not require special temperature conditions, but there was also one heated kung, where food for Mom merchants was transported, which could not be frozen. By the way, I also had a warm-up trip on one of these trucks from Yakutsk to Tommot, where I had to get an all-terrain vehicle at the cargo station, put it on a truck and deliver it to Yakutsk. Tommot is more than 400 kilometers from Yakutsk and the trip took two days.

It has long been clear to me that truckers are a completely separate caste of professionals, with some kind of special life of their own. But it’s one thing to be a trucker somewhere where there are a lot of roads and relatively good ones, and another thing is a trucker who works in such regions as Yakutia, the Magadan region, Chukotka and so on. Where good roads basically no, but climatic conditions they are extremely severe, especially in winter, when fifty kopecks is considered quite normal temperature, and it can be even colder. In addition, most of the roads here are winter roads, which exist in winter and it is at this time of the year that local truckers have the most "haymaking". At the end of this winter, I also had a chance to drive from Yakutsk to Khonuu with real local truckers and see their life in reality. To drive here along the Kolyma highway for a thousand kilometers from Yakutsk to Ust-Nera, and here I did not expect any special difficulties, but I turned out to be completely wrong. But then go on a winter road a little more than three hundred kilometers, which goes straight along the Indigirka River, and here I expected difficulties, and here I turned out to be right and even beyond that ...

In any story, of course, there are heroes, specific personalities. Here I had to share a difficult road with two truck drivers from Yakutsk - the Bakunovs.

Bakunov Alexander, founder of the dynasty, father of a large family.

Bakunov Evgeny, son of Alexander, one of the successors of the dynasty.

The first day was no different, well, except that I had to change a punctured tire on one of the trailers. Although there was, there was some feeling that everything was going somehow wrong. By the way, on the frame with the camera there is one more passenger accompanying the cargo, besides me. This is my friend from Khonuu, Mikhail Cheryomkin.

The presence of trailers, of course, prevented us from going fast. During the first day we covered about half a thousand kilometers and stopped for the night at one of the parking lots. There is a fork in the road, a side road to Batagay departs from the Kolyma or Magadan highway. As it turned out later, it was the longest daily run. We had to spend the night right in the cabins. There are no motels on this route.

You can spend the night on this route only in own car, but in some places there are occasionally eateries, which are called tea houses here and where you can have a bite to eat.

But teahouses are rare here, and the food there is not very good, and truckers are a people who can adapt to everything.

On the second day of our journey, the weather brought a surprise, a thaw, which was abnormal for this time of year, came, snow fell from the night, which covered the track right in front of our eyes. Our drivers put chains on the wheels.

There were many other trucks in the parking lot where we spent the night, and no one was somehow in a hurry to move today. So it would be better for us today to just stay where we are.

From the night stop we went very close, just a few kilometers. We bumped into the Kamaz, which splayed out on the rise. KAMAZ with a trailer and a load of saltpeter for some Magadan artel. There was not enough power on the rise, I turned back and the trailer folded and blocked the road. Everything until you get through.

The Kamaz driver, a young guy from the southern town of Tikhoretsk, has been hauling loads along this northern route for the third season.

Truckers do not leave their own in trouble, and anyway, you still can’t drive through, you need to somehow remove the trailer and help Kamaz climb the hillock. But it’s better for him not to go further until the track is in this condition.

There are jobs for us photographers too.

There is a road service on the track, but its capabilities against such weather are far from being sufficient.

Few dared to go that day, but that was enough to collect a traffic jam in this place.

Nevertheless, it was possible to remove the Kamaz trailer and open the passage, but even with the joint efforts of our two Urals, it was not possible to pull it out onto the hillock. I had to leave the guy until better weather.

It was in this spirit that we rode that day and beyond. As a result, our run was only about twenty kilometers per day. As a result, they simply found a suitable place on the side of the road among snowdrifts and settled down in the overnight parking lot.

On the third day we left very early, it was not even dawn yet. The snowfall mostly ended in the evening, and by that time the road had somehow been paved. In addition, as it turned out later, a lot of snow fell not along the entire route. After the famous "Black Press" there was not so much snow on the road and in the vicinity. We were already planning to get up for lunch at the parking lot at the Vostochnaya weather station and I peered at the milestones running past, just about waiting for the sign with the number 666. The road in this place is narrow, barely two cars pass. In addition, her profile is humpbacked, that is, a pronounced slope to the roadsides, which turn into ditches, now hardly noticeable under the snow. And this is where the worst happened. The oncoming car somehow raced too freely close to the middle of the road and Zhenya, in whose car I was driving, had to take a little to the right, but my father said so, be careful with the roadside in this section. The car immediately rolled over and slid to the right. For a couple of seconds, the car leaned more and more towards the ground, then something cracked behind and the cabin took some kind of stable position, although far from horizontal. My nervous system was frankly not ready yet to perceive reality. But he still looked in the mirror ... So it is, the all-terrain vehicle fell off and lies on its side, leaning against a snowdrift. Well, that's all, it seems to have arrived ....

Yes, frankly speaking, we could hang here not just for a long time, but for a very long time. Here, in the midst of the snows and cold mountains, it was quite possible to hang for a week or even more. Settlements there is no nearby and without a tap the problem cannot be solved. But, as it turned out, it was not an extreme degree of bad luck. The crane was found just a couple of kilometers on the highway. By a great chance, this crane was also going to Honuu for the construction of a school. He had another car with him, which had seriously broken down, and now they had been waiting for the third day for a spare part to be delivered. Well, it just so happened, the guys were unlucky, but it turns out that we were lucky that they were unlucky. Such vicissitudes of fate happen.

Of course, we have collected a traffic jam on the road with our manipulations. But they still understand and therefore patiently wait.

But the road here is really clumsy. When they put the all-terrain vehicle in place and cleared the road, the assembled cars began to disperse. And right there, this handsome Volvo made a similar mistake, took a little extra to the side of the road and was ready to fall on its side if the rather elderly driver hadn’t reacted correctly.

Now we had to tear it off the roadside with our two cars, holding the trailer with one car so that it would not fall on its side.

Then we still had to spend a lot of time to pull out our trailer, which was stuck in a snowy ditch on the side of the road. Of course, we did not go far on this nervous and unlucky day. We stopped for the night somewhere behind Kyubyume.

Looking at such exhibits along the harsh Kolyma highway, you begin to understand that your bad luck is absolutely some kind of trifle. It happens much worse.

The fourth day of the difficult road finally passed without incident. We nevertheless drove this thousand kilometers of the route and finally got to Ust-Nera.

This is the Olchansky pass. It remains only to go down, and there is already Ust-Nera.

Ust-Nera. I have been to the capital of Oymyakonya more than once. But before that, only in the summer.

Yes, but the journey didn't end there. There are still 320 kilometers of the winter road from Ust-Nera to Khonuu. It seems to be a little, but this is a winter road that goes right along the Indigirka River. And the Indigirka is not an easy river. I already had to walk on it, but in the summer and on a catamaran. You can read about this journey in my big series "101 Days in Yakutia". Now I had to drive along this river by car. But... but... There was no road at that moment. Ice has come out in several places, that is, water has come out on the surface of the ice and no one can drive through yet. We spent the night that day on the outskirts of Ust-Nera. And how we drove on, I'll tell you next time.

Here begins the winter road along the Indigirka.

This long-suffering road has many names. Modern official - federal highway P504 "Kolyma". Before that, the M-56 highway. But much more it is known as the Kolyma highway, the Kolyma tract and the "road on the bones."

It really exists - a giant transport artery 2032 km long, laid on the permafrost between Yakutsk and Magadan. 1197 km - Yakut, 835 km - Magadan. At the same time, Kolyma is not even the record holder in terms of length among federal highways- it is several tens of kilometers ahead of the Amur and Ural highways. The prefix "P" according to the modern classification means that the P504 road connects "only" administrative centers RF. Since 2003 zero kilometer moved to Yakutsk, but historically the route starts from Magadan, the city avenue named after Lenin, the former Kolyma highway, passes into it. It is here that the asphalted section of the road is located, the first 200 km. The coating on the remaining hundreds and hundreds of kilometers is mainly soil and gravel. On the pavement, it shakes, perhaps even more, but black dust swirls over many areas of the primer, even in winter. On its way, the route crosses many rivers, rivers and streams, and the main problem is the construction of bridges (ferry crossings operate in summer, ice crossings in winter). The absence of a key bridge across the Aldan River near the village of Khandyga has long been a byword. Its construction is planned to start only in 2014.

But those horrors that were recently told about the Kolyma highway are almost outdated today. Since 2008, the road has been considered year-round (when a “new” section of the road was opened between Kyubyume and Kadykchan via Ust-Nera). True, the off-season is still difficult to call a pleasant time to travel, but in winter and summer average speed movement approaching 80 km/h. Of course, "Kolyma" is not a highway European level, like Chita - Khabarovsk after Putin's visit, but not the same attraction for extreme people, for the sake of which people went to Kolyma even from Moscow.

The road, vital for the whole region, is slowly being improved. The previously impassable section of Kyubyume-Selerikan was repaired, bridges across the Bolshoy Selerikan, Elga, Brungade rivers, the Deering-Yuryakh stream and others were put into operation. Active work is underway on the most difficult section of the road - from Ust-Nera to Khandyga. Until recently, rare cars were moving in the middle of the track at a snail's pace, and now even the legendary clamps, where two cars could hardly pass, have been expanded. The views from the road are simply magnificent, but you can’t be distracted and relaxed, especially in winter - you can often see broken trucks on icy sections of the route.

The Kolyma highway, of course, is not, but by the standards of such a remote and harsh region as the northeast of Russia, it is quite popular with travelers. In summer, with favorable weather conditions the entire "Kolyma" can be driven even in a passenger car, albeit with adventures. Other options are hitchhiking, which is not very difficult here (almost everyone stops), or public transport. From Magadan to Susuman goes scheduled bus(about 2,000 rubles), in other areas, travelers are collected from local hotels by "taxi", however, you will have to fork out a lot for their services. So, in winter, travel from Yakutsk to Oymyakon (the old section of the road) or from Ust-Nera to Susuman will cost 5,000 rubles. Some bargaining is appropriate, but you should not go too far.

In addition to difficulties, on the Kolyma highway, the traveler is waiting for numerous natural attractions, strings of BELAZ trucks, traces of gold mining, and also, especially from the Kolyma River to Ust-Nera, many abandoned and half-dead villages. There are few colorful villages of Yakuts and Evens along the route itself, but if you wish, you can get to them if you have suitable transport.

At the 140th kilometer after Khandyga there is special place, which is mentioned by all guidebooks on the track. This is the so-called "Magic Forest". The trees in it are hung with colorful patches and amulets. The Yakuts consider this forest sacred and call it the "Shaman Tree". Anyone passing by should stop and donate something to the local deities - even just a coin. There is another attraction in this forest: a stream that does not freeze even in the most hard frost. The water in it is very tasty and, they say, can remain fresh for more than one month. Although there are quite a few other non-freezing streams in these parts.

Old road to the Pole of Cold

About the old section of the Kolyma highway, the segment between Kyubyume and Kadykchan, it is worth telling separately. In the villages of Kyubyume (from the side of Yakutsk) and Kadykchan (from the side of Magadan), the Kolyma highway bifurcates into a new (Northern) and an old (Southern) road. It is clearly seen on the map that new road makes a big loop through Ust-Nera in the north, and the old one, built in the 1940s-50s, seems to be a convenient straight line between the two settlements. old road shorter than the new one by 200 km, moreover, it passes through the Oymyakon depression, where the famous “Pole of Cold”, the coldest inhabited place on the planet, is located. It is known as Oymyakon, in fact, these are three villages - Oymyakon, Tomtor and Uchyugey. On the obelisks in Tomtor and Oymyakon, the minimum temperatures recorded here are indicated: -71.2 ° С. Oymyakon is becoming more and more popular with tourists - in March, the Pole of Cold festival takes place here.

However, the short, straight road between Kyubyume and Kadykchan only looks tempting on a map. From the Yakut side, you can still drive along it, although old bridge across the river of the same name is destroyed, and a new one is promised to be delivered only in 2014. On the other hand, the 100-kilometer section from Tomtor to the Magadan Region can be considered one of the most extreme: road services have not been monitoring it for fifteen years. An abandoned site, eroded soil, rivers without bridges - even an all-terrain vehicle can get stuck here in the summer. But the more extreme, the more interesting: lovers of such adventures really appreciate this route.

Important

The Lena and Aldan rivers in summer can only be crossed with the help of ferry crossing, in winter - on ice. There is no crossing in spring and autumn. The construction of the bridge across the Aldan is planned to start in 2014. The construction of a combined (railway-road) bridge across the Lena in the Yakutsk region is also planned - it will connect the existing and under construction latitudinal highways Kolyma, Vilyui and Amga with the Berkakit-Tommot-Yakutsk meridional railway under construction.

Items medical care and there are no traffic police posts on the Kolyma highway. Tire stations are found only on the initial stretch of the Kolyma highway, from Yakutsk to Khandyga.

cellular now available in all major cities. Often this The best way make a call because the long-distance wired connection often does not work or is unstable.

Gas stations are located in the following settlements: Palatka, Atka, Strelka, Yagodnoye, Berelekh, Artyk, Ust-Nera, Churapcha, Ytyk-Kyuel, Khandyga, Teply Klyuch, Kyubyume. In the village of Ust-Nera, the cost of fuel is the highest, since it is brought from Magadan.

Hitchhiking along the Kolyma highway is very popular. Almost all drivers stop. Need to find an even open space, where the voting person is clearly visible from afar. In the dark, you will also have to make a fire. In winter (and winter hitchhiking is even more popular than summer), it is by no means recommended to travel alone, without experience in such travel and special equipment. In Yakutia, frosts down to -50 ° C are considered the climatic norm, -60 ° C is also not uncommon. It is imperative to stick to residential villages, where no one will refuse help, they will always let you warm up, feed you and leave you to spend the night. The old section of the road Kadykchan - Oymyakon - Kyubyume, extreme in summer, is generally impassable in winter.

Feel free to ask for help - the locals will help any traveler in trouble. If you run into problems along the way, many passing vehicles will stop and provide the necessary assistance, but in some areas with less traffic, you can wait an hour or more.

You should be prepared to meet wild animals - mostly bears. In autumn, in hotels, you can run into robbers and swindlers who are hunting for the tight wallets of artel workers returning from their shift.

Local Features

The highway with the M56 index officially no longer exists - recently its sections were divided into P504 Kolyma and A360 Lena. The latter is often called the Amur-Yakutsk (automobile) highway. "Lena" goes south from Yakutsk to Never in the Amur Region. At the same time, the docking with the Kolyma highway is not in Yakutsk, but in Nizhny Bestyakh.

Story

Roads (tracts) existed in these parts in the 18th century. But the construction of the Kolyma tract began only in 1932. The starting point was Magadan, then still a village on the coast Sea of ​​Okhotsk. The need for construction highway was obvious: the industrial development of the richest deposits of gold, silver, tin and coal began in Kolyma and Yakutia, and it was supposed to export valuable cargo through the Nagaev Bay of Magadan - the most convenient port on the Sea of ​​Okhotsk.

One snag: the route had to pass through permafrost regions, cross many rivers and streams, cross mountains and hills. This is now the Oymyakon Pole of Cold - entertainment for well-equipped tourists, and then these were remote villages at the same temperature, up to -70 ° C. But in Stalin's time, the question of "who and how" will build in such conditions was solved simply.

In 1931, the first batch of the future labor force arrived in Magadan: prisoners, "enemies of the people." Of course, they also attracted civilians - engineers, builders - but the proportions are striking: in Dalstroy (the organization that in 1931 was responsible for the construction highway) there were more than 44 thousand convicts and 5700 civilians.

The roads were designed unpaved, 3rd class, with a clearing width of 30 m, with artificial structures of the 2nd class under the load of an 8-ton car. Already in the summer of 1932, the first 30 km of the Kolyma highway and 90 km of the winter road were put into operation. The remaining 1042 km to Ust-Nera were built until 1953.

On the regional portal Kolyma.Ru there is an exhaustive description of the construction process: “In the 30s. 20th century there was practically no special road-building equipment for laying roads in Kolyma. Therefore, the development of the soil was carried out by the muscular strength of the prisoners - a pick, a pickaxe, a shovel, and the haulage was carried out by wheelbarrows and grabbars at a distance of tens to hundreds of meters. Rocks were developed by explosion. The forest was brought in by horses. For transportation of soil in winter conditions, ice paths were used, along which wheelbarrows were rolled (a ski was put in place of the wheel). In addition, overpasses, sledges, cranes were used. But the work of the prisoners was hard labor. The working day began at sunrise and lasted 12–14 hours in summer, and in winter the entire daylight hours. Here is what the newspaper Sovetskaya Kolyma wrote on January 6, 1936 about the labor heroism of the prisoners: “From Strelka to Khatynnakh, from the Disputable to the Duck camp, the strike teams were given passage in 1935, only genuine enthusiasm helped the strikers overcome the icy slopes, swamps, mari, permafrost, quicksand."

Road engineers followed the terrain as much as possible, so there are still many curved sections on the track. In the early years, cargo was transported along the Kolyma highway, passengers were hardly taken - according to the instructions of 1933, only one car was allocated for them in a convoy. People were given special insulation for travel - sheepskin coats and so on. This concerned free passengers, not "labor force".

The construction was all-season, and the Kolyma climate literally “dead horses”: according to documents, in one winter of 1931-32, more than 2,000 horses died, delivering goods to local mines. By 1941, the road had been completed to Susuman. During the war, construction progressed more slowly, but did not stop, moreover, in 1943, rich gold deposits were found in the Indigirka basin. However, the most difficult geological and climatic conditions made it possible to complete the laying of the remaining 1042 kilometers of the route to Ust-Nera only by 1953.

For comparison - now, if available modern technologies, construction machinery and equipment, construction and repair are carried out at a snail's pace. And this is almost normal, given the conditions. Abnormal is just the speed with which the track was laid in Stalin's time. The Kolyma road will be called "the road of death", "the road on the bones" for a long time to come. Numerous monuments, to which local population treats with unostentatious respect, and genuine remnants of the camp past: dilapidated wooden loaders and dilapidated fences along the road. In 2008, upon completion of the construction of a new section of the Kyubyume-Kadykchan road, a memorial stele "Kolyma rose from tears" was opened on the hill at the entrance to Ust-Nera.

Many wrote about the Kolyma highway. Brighter than others - Varlam Shalamov, a former Kolyma prisoner: “The track is the artery and the main nerve of the Kolyma. Loads of equipment are constantly moving in both directions - without protection, products with an obligatory escort: fugitives attack, rob. Yes, and from the driver and supply agent, the convoy, although unreliable, is still protection - it can prevent theft ... Immediately the prisoners are taken in clean, orderly parties up into the taiga, and in a dirty heap of garbage - from above, back from the taiga. Here are the detectives-operatives who catch the fugitives. And the fugitives themselves - often in military uniform. Here the authorities ride in ZISs - the masters of the life and death of all these people.