Far Eastern Russia

Introduction

The Far Eastern Russia is the largest federal district in Russia. However, its population of over 6 million is the lowest amongst the seven federal districts in Russia.

Regions

The Far Eastern federal district of Russia consists of eight federal subjects:

• Amur Oblast
• Jewish Autonomous Oblast
• Kamchatka Krai
• Khabarovsk Krai
• Magadan Oblast
• Chukotka Autonomous Okrug
• Sakhalin Oblast
• Primorsky Krai
• Yakutia - The world's largest sub-national entity, with the lowest recorded temperatures of the northern hemisphere

Cities

• Vladivostok
• Khabarovsk - the region's administrative center
• Yakutsk - quite possibly the Earth's coldest city
• Blagoveshchensk - one of the oldest cities in the Russian Far East
• Birobidzhan - the capital of Soviet Zion
• Magadan - in the heart of the Kolyma Gulag network
• Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky - gateway to nature lovers' paradise
• Komsomolsk-on-Amur
• Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk - the Russian Far East's island capital
• Tynda
• Anadyr

Sights and Activities

• Atlasov Island - a volcanic island renowned for the pure beauty of its perfect conical shape
• The National Parks of Kamchatka - some of the most stunning landscapes in the world, full of volcanoes, geysers, and lakes of acid.
• Kolyma - the terrifying Soviet gulag system of Siberia's coldest, remotest, and most hopeless mining region
• Pole of Cold - the coldest place on earth outside Antarctica, in the heart of Yakutia. Temperatures below -70 °C have been recorded here!
• The Sikhote-Alin mountain range - the region home to the famous Amur Tiger as well as an enormous meteorite crash site, and designated a UNESCO World Heritage site for its diverse ecosystems ranging from Siberian to subtropical.
• Wrangel Island - an arctic island and UNESCO World Heritage site at the end of the earth, of dramatic mountainous tundra landscapes, biodiversity, walruses, grey whales, and the world's highest concentration of polar bear dens.

Weather

Far Eastern Russia has very cold winters but there are differences between places more inland and coastal areas. While Yakutsk for example sees temperatures below -30 °C from November to March, and sometimes temperatures below -50 °C are possible. Summers here are warm (around 20 °C) but short, lasting from June to August. This is also when most of the precipitation falls. In winter, there isn't much because it is simply too cold. Most of the snow falls between the end of September and early November and only starts melting in May.
Further southeast towards the Ocean, places like Vladivostok are milder, but still cold. Temperatures are around -15 °C in winter and well above 20 °C in summer. Most of the precipitation falls in summer here as well, with more snow compared to the inland areas in winter, because it is relatively mild.

Getting There

The principal transit hubs, with good sized international airports, are Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, and to a lesser extent Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. In general, you will either arrive by plane or the Trans-Siberian Railway. But it is also possible to arrive by boat from Japan to destinations on the Russian Pacific coast.

Getting Around

Distances between cities and towns in the Russian Far East are huge, and most of the region is roadless. A combination of using the Trans-Siberian Railway, the Baikal-Amur Mainline, and for destinations off the rail system, domestic flights, reaches the majority, but not the entirety, of the region. In particular, Northeastern Russia is almost entirely without interregional transportation infrastructure and is off the Russian rail network - the one exception is the long, lonely, seasonal, and partially maintained country roads connecting Yakutsk to Magadan.

Kamchatka's road network is isolated from the rest of Russia; heading north from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky by road will only take you as far as Esso, road tracks passable by half-track vehicles in March extend as far as Palana; from Palana onwards, overland travel becomes wilderness adventure.

This lack of roads and rail network makes travel by sea along the coast a much more accessible option, with expedition cruising companies (such as Heritage Expedition) operating their own ice-strengthened polar research vessels on several trips from Sakhalin in the south to Kamchatka and Kamchatka north into the Russian Arctic including Wrangel and Herald Islands, famous for the density of polar bears.

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