How they Deliver 12 Tons of Food to Siberia’s Arctic North

This is Ruslan.

And this is (the ass of) his truck.

For ten days and nights I rode with Ruslan and his young helper as they rumbled along this river to deliver 12 tons of food to the town of Belaya Gora in Siberia’s Arctic north.

Half the journey from Yakutsk, the region’s big city, to Belaya Gora is along the Kolyma Highway, built by Stalin’s gulag slaves. The second half is along the frozen Indigirka River.

Things started out fine. With solid (if slightly slippery) earth beneath our wheels as we rolled through the mountains of the Kolyma highway.

With three of us in the cab the nights were cramped and sweaty. Siberians love heating the way Emiratis love AC (too much is never enough)

Meals were cooked on a little gas stove inside the cab.

The landscape had none of the bleakness you expect of Siberia: Clean white hills rippling away in all directions. We made good progress in the clear weather.

Until this. Ruslan’s friend Andrei, who’d been sitting in the cab of our truck just a few minutes before this, had sped off, taken a corner too tight and flipped.

Crazy Andrei with his semi-automatic shotgun at a truck stop. His hand banged up from the crash.

In a cab designed for two people, we were now four. Trying to get to sleep in here was a miserable game of human tetris. This is the scene after the first night with four in the cab.

Then, at the halfway point we rolled onto the ice and things got heavy.

We were sailing along in hazy light, then Ruslan suddenly crunched down through the gears and stopped short of this truck-shaped hole in the ice.

The spring melt was well underway.

Through the ice you could see the current moving beneath.

Ruslan showing a picture of a friend’s truck on a previous run.

We hugged the riverbank where we could, but had to traverse the river at some points. This was the last crossing we made before things went wrong for us.

When the ice started shattering under the wheels on my side. I pushed open the door, jumped out, and, as the truck toppled above me, scrabbled across the ice to get clear.

Somehow, the truck caught and held there, and they managed to back out, ready to try again.

And then it got worse. In the darkness we kept pushing on and on, crossing and re-crossing the river, with everyone yelling directions at each other.

And then, this. At 3 in the morning, while the others slept next to me, the horizon started twinkling green. It was the first time I’d ever seen the aurora borealis.

It’s a little hard to write this with clarity but at the that moment I felt like somehow, everything would be ok.

Then the next day dawned bright and clear, and the road was rock solid.

At the end of that day, we visited the tiny church at Zashiversk.

As we neared Belaya Gora the whole crew were in good spirits – humming along on under the empty Siberian sky.

Finally, after five straight days without a shower or a change of clothes, we arrive at Belaya Gora, where Ruslan has a small apartment.

Groceries were delivered to Belaya Gora, then the guys carried on further up the river.

This little lass (possibly) got her groceries from the fresh batch of deliveries from Ruslan.

Ruslan’s apartment block on yet another night with no sign of him. (Cellphones have no coverage outside the towns in this region)

Finally, after I’d started to get worried for the guys, Ruslan showed up and we were on the road again.

Ruslan leaving an offering to the Shaman spirits at before we hit the dangerous parts of the river.

Ruslan greeting other truckers on the road. It was bliss being just the two of us.

Towing another truck we were occasionally slithering on the ice.

And the road was melting away fast. (This was the view from the roof of our truck as we let another past)

Again Ruslan wanted to push through the night. I bailed – pulling on my coat and standing on the back of the second truck, ready to jump out if we went through the ice.

We were literally feeling our way through the dark. The other trucker used a pole to test the strength of the ice and waded through the surface sludge before waving Ruslan forward.

Drinking water came straight from the river.

Crunching through, getting ever closer to the safety of solid ground.

Safety being a relative thing on the Kolyma highway.

But, on March 8, 2016, the terror of the ice road was behind us and we were rolling on solid ground.