Day 1 Moving to Briacan

At night, you will transfer to the Briakan village on a large comfortable bus (45 seats). 400 km of the way to Komsomolsk - on asphalt, and then 300 km along the BAM - on a dirt road. Travel time is 12-14 hours.

Day 2 Helicopter transfer to the Ongachan base

You will go by helicopter to the Ongachan base (1.5 hours). Ongachan Bay is located on the Tugur Peninsula. Already here you can practice shooting picturesque landscapes - the base is located next to a large lake and a river. Red fish enter the river to spawn, and whales and killer whales are in the bay. If you're lucky, you can photograph bears and foxes in their natural environment. The bay is closed from the winds, so it is quiet here. The nearest islands are 5 minutes by boat. Here you will find rest and a festive dinner in the evening.

Day 3 Nasha Bay

You will drive to the bay of the Big Shantar island. On the way, you will stop at the most scenic spots to shoot amazing beauty landscapes. Driving along the shores of the islands, you can see bears that have gone fishing. Mark Podrabinek will tell you what angles are best for photographing animals.

Day 4 Weather station on the Big Shantar island

On this day, you will meet the only inhabitants of the island: only four people keep records of the weather and transmit data. And then go to Cape Wrangel. This is the place where there is a high probability of seeing whales. Giants jump out of the water for a very short time, most often showing only their tail. You will learn how to capture the right moment to shoot.

It is convenient to shoot sunrise and sunset here. To learn how to photograph the evening colors, you will stay on the cape until dark, and then spend the night in tents.

Day 5 Utichiy Island

The length of the island is about 2.5 km, the width does not exceed 500 m. The largest colonies of spectacled guillemots in the archipelago are located here. In the 90s 17,500 pairs nested on Utichye. You will take pictures of bird colonies, as well as seal and seal rookeries.

In the evening, Mark Podrabinek will share his mastery of sunset photography, after which you will spend the night in tents on the island.

Day 6 Bay of the Tugur Peninsula

The peninsula is on west coast Sea of ​​Okhotsk, in the Shantar Sea. It separates the Tugursky Bay (in the west) and the Ulbansky and Akademii bays (in the east). On this day, you will photograph the unusual mountainous terrain of the peninsula. In the evening, Mark Podrabinek will sort out the mistakes with you and give you recommendations for shooting.

Day 7 Squirrel and Bird Islands

First you will visit Belichiy Island. Its area is about 70 km², length - 20 km, width varies from 1.5 to 7 km. It is separated from the mainland by the Lindholm Strait, and from the neighboring island Maly Shantar by the Dangerous Strait. The island is covered with larch forest. You will have a beautiful shooting of green areas.

Then head to Bird Island. It is small - 2.5 km long and 1.5 km wide. The coast is littered with fin, and along it there are beautiful boulders. The decoration of the island is a snowfield. Against the backdrop of these picturesque landscapes, you will photograph large colonies of spectacled guillemot and other birds.

Tatiana Solomatina

Mysterious and harsh Shantar Islands

Good afternoon friends! I continue to publish about the amazing corners of the Far North of Russia. I am attracted to these distant, harsh, non-mainstream tourist destinations.

If at heart you are an extreme tourist, a lover of throws into the unknown and untouched, comparable to flying to other planets, if you are seething with a thirst for primal happiness from meeting the corners of nature with a cool temper, but full of treasures of the Earth, if traveling around your country attracts you more, than overseas beauty, the mysterious Shantar Islands will surely interest you. It is about them that we will be talking about today.

There will be no tourist information here, if fate allows me to visit it someday, I will definitely give you all the attendances and passwords. But while this is only a dream, I will tell you about the nature and life of this distant land.

The Shantar Islands are part of the Tuguro-Chumikansky District of the Khabarovsk Territory. It is an archipelago of 15 islands in the Sea of ​​Okhotsk (see on the map), located on the edge of the Russian world, between Sakhalin and the mainland. Islands with a truly Russian soul, mysterious, unpredictable, violent, unapproachable. And the same sacrificial one.

Island vacations are especially romantic. But getting here is not easy. A dash to the Shantar Islands is like a pioneer expedition, an action adventure. Even on the way to the islands, the road is as long as to Mars, and includes all types of transport: by land, air, sea, remaining one of the most expensive in the region and requiring space equipment. The cost of tours here is extremely high (from 150,000 rubles).

Shantarctica

The Shantar Islands are protected by all the canons of military strategy. For ten months a year, there is a blockage in the sea in the form of ice blocks that do not melt even in summer: the Sea of ​​Okhotsk is not warmer than the polar ones. And because of the winds and circular current, the Shantar corner receives ice from all over the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. Without an access code, which is the grace of the islands and the lady of luck, there is always a risk of being captured by the Shantar “wilderness”.

"And I am driving, and I am driving behind the fog ..."

Another trap is fog business card and the Shantar Islands' sophisticated defenses. Their thick "milk" spills out suddenly, making them blind. Without GPS, you risk getting stuck among the waves, stumbling upon a kekur, or bumping into the underwater Dragon's Teeth. The winds drive the white monster with such force that it looks like an animate substance from horror films. The nebula of the Shantar Islands gives rise to many not devoid of plausibility tales about mirages and islands of the "Flying Dutchmen".

Buyany Islands

A disaster for sea crossings - the tidal breathing of the islands. The speed of water flow on the Shantar coast is one of the highest in the world ocean 15 km / h. A wave of 5–8 m turns back the island rivers, forms giant eddies, boiling boilers, knocks down the magnetic field (Dangerous Strait, Cape Severny, Diomede Stones Island and elsewhere). Travel agency yachts look suspiciously like arks. And the sign of Shantar is that deadwood-fin along the banks looks like the wreckage of a shipwreck.

And it turns out, to this taiga land, only by helicopter can you fly. But the unpredictable nature of the Shantar Islands can frustrate all your plans and dates with storms, barrel rains, hurricane force winds. Therefore, if you really get to this "Bermuda Triangle", you can get stuck in non-flying captivity. Tour operators reserve extra days and advise not to plan anything close to the trip.

Proud and unconquered

The inaccessibility of the archipelago makes it a truly uninhabited and wild ecosystem just 100 km from the mainland. Many times people tried to subjugate and inhabit the Shantar Islands. But even the enthusiasm of the Soviet era was powerless. Air space around the bastion, only Morse code callsigns from the reference weather station in the TDS status (hard-to-reach) are stitched. Its staff consists of 3-4 Robinsons, who live here constantly almost under a state of siege. Delivery of goods by helicopter 2 times a year.

Bear services

There is one ruler here - a bear (brown, grizzly and "Shantar panda"). Neighborhood with the owner in his house is a yellow hazard level. More often, the beast is sympathetic to the laws of hospitality, but it can also be neglected. The group is accompanied by 3-4 instructors with weapons. But without a bear, nowhere and nowhere! Bear trails - "cultural" guides in the Shantar "jungle". And photo extreme with clubfoot models and a free circus with teddy bear fishing are part of the local entertainment service industry.

There is no need to explain that the conquest of the Shantar Islands with their abnormal weather, lack of comfort of civilization and constant force majeure requires the qualities of a stoic, a Spartan and a Tibetan monk.

You ask: and what is all this for? What attracts here and does not allow you to forget the island again? Yes, all this extreme on the verge of a foul, intriguing the soul of any Russian. But Shantara must be protected so formidably by some unprecedented wealth. There is something to see with delight!

Shantar X-Files

The pristine beauty of these places is not immediately revealed to the traveler. To recognize them, the scientist G. Roslyakov, a zealous romantic of the islands, believed, you need to live on each one for a year. You come here in another summer (July – August) and you will not see anything, except for signs of spring, barely waking up from the winter torpor. The mainland is languishing with heat, and here it is snowing in summer.

A year later, the Shantar Islands suddenly boast of their secret and, in fact, inexplicable riches. Behind the myth of inaccessibility will appear a fragile world, vulnerable in the fullness of its prosperity. You will be delighted by the gentle, even hot sun in the cold ocean wind, a riot of herbs and flowers next to snowy ice floes, abundance of berries, mushroom rains. As if, as in Andersen's fairy tale about 12 months, all seasons will arrive in Shantary.

"Floating" encyclopedia

Sea life fascinates with its scale: spotted seal seals, heavy sea lions, mustachioed bearded seals - bearded seals, ringed akibs, striped lionfish. Almost all of the Red Book fish fauna frolic in the sea. Killer whales, beluga whales, dolphins, porpoises, sperm whales immerse themselves in wild delight. Shown are fin whales, northern drifters, humpback whales, southern whales, arctic whales and 130 ton blue whales.

Historically, the Shantar Islands are a grand marina and a maternity hospital for sea giants: in the 19th century, up to 800 individuals were counted in the water area in 4 hours. And now it is an unforgettable sight to see a relict gray whale, 30 million years old, feeding on near-bottom pastures just 20 meters from the coast (Constantine and Academy bays). Despite the arctic cold, the bottom around the islands is teeming with life, like on reefs southern seas: molluscs, sponges, jellyfish, echinoderms, crustaceans, thickets of rare kelp angustates.

In the sky "there is nowhere for an apple to fall"

From the hubbub of 240 species of birds near the bird colonies, one can become deaf (Utichiy Island, Yuzhny Island). The rocks explode with a white cloud of thousands of flying axes, gulls, guillemots, cormorants, and ipats. The main endemic and emblem of the region - the Pacific eagle, a descendant of dinosaurs with a 3-meter wingspan, found an ideal refuge on the Shantar Islands (M. Shantar Island, Belichy). There are also feathered rarities of paradise in their beauty: black stork, osprey, fish owl, Okhotsk snail, Aleutian tern, snipe, peregrine falcon.

General of the Fish Army

And Shantar fishing is a separate fantastic story. The wealth of rivers (B. Anuar, Yakshina, Srednaya) and lakes (Bolshoye, Karpino) is off scale from the species quantity (35) of delicious fish with fighting qualities: chum salmon, linok, pink salmon, rudd, char, kundzha. But on the legendary mykizha, a rare khaki fish with a red stripe, only sports phishing: caught - released. Its habitat on the planet is too narrow: Alaska - r. Deer, B. Shantar.

Open air laboratory

On the capes Red, White, Marble, Raduzhny, about. The duckling in front of you will see the geological treasury of the Shantar Islands. For centuries, the nature alchemist has conjured here over the creation of the most beautiful rocks: marble, pink limestone, malachite, multi-colored jasper in especially large sizes. Where can you see whole rocks made of semiprecious stones and placers of gems instead of sand on the seashore? These pantries of the Mistress of the Copper Mountain, opened for public viewing, delight both scientists and tourists.

The kingdom of stone exotic

The Shantar Islands are a "klondike" of stone freaks of nature, its millennial art of sculpting. Kekuras, outliers, rocks convey images so accurately that it is not difficult to come up with names for these creations: Eagle, Three Brothers, Stone-Lion. Capes, rock palaces and enfilades, fjords and impregnable cliffs amaze with their gloomy alien beauty from fantasy films (O. Prokofiev, O. Arka). Shantar's cinematic fate is yet to come!

"All covered with greenery, absolutely all"

And yet, in this oasis among the ice, green dominates on a thin layer of frozen soil, on stony ground. Lush taiga is adjacent to the original flora and subarctic: floods of moss, wild rosemary and elfin trees. The mainland plants have a charm of naturalness and “gulliver's” sizes: hogweed, wild rose, meadowsweet. This is the kingdom of relict and medicinal plants, on the coat of arms of which there is an endemic - a golden root.

Flower beds made of irises, lilies are measured by fields. Berry wealth is measured by plantations: blueberries, cloudberries, shiksha, cranberries the size of cherries. Rosehip the size of a ranetka. And around the purity of the spring there is air and meditative silence. You feel alone with the whole universe. These uninhabited islands are an ecotourism lover's paradise. All those who cherish the right of the Shantar Islands to life to a pain in their hearts.

To be or not to be?

Many times this land was tortured, and the question arose: to be Shantaram or not to be? Since the 18th century, the islands have been trampled on by their own and someone else's poaching boots, and have been tormented by fires. The archipelago was a slaughterhouse and fat-melting crematorium for whale blubber. Up to 200 ships from all over the world moored in the water area with predatory targets. Millions of dollars worth of natural resources were exported from here. The islands keep traces of this "Mamaev" invasion (Yakshina and Abrek bays) and "lick" new wounds. Scientists are alarmed. Had to have time to see the Shantar Islands!

For the consolation of the living

The islands have traveled a long way in the minds of officials to the status of protected by the state National park... It happened in 2014. The future is built on the stones of the past. Enthusiasts, led by the legendary F. Konyukhov, have erected a chapel and a memorial (Pankov Bay) in memory of those who did not spare labor and deeds for the sake of the life of the islands. As an act of returning the Shantar Islands under the auspices of Russia in the status of a territory of geographic patriotism.

When tomorrow comes ...

Today a trip to the Shantar Islands is inaccessible to many. And it's not just the high cost of such a trip. This is a truly wild and harsh land. There is no familiar civilization here. Perhaps she will never come here. Although lately it tourist destination trying to develop.

I invite you to watch a special report "Shantar Paths" from the second channel Russia 2:

The Shantar Islands became a national park in 2013. And now they are preparing to receive an inexperienced tourist. The aim of our expedition to the archipelago is to put an end to the study of local trails and lay out new tourist routes.

The transformation of the archipelago into one of best places island recreation in Russia exists so far on paper. But I believe that we will observe live "sensations" here according to the project wildlife from sites for photo and video filming. Travel along the equipped eco trails. Explore the wisdom and beauty of geology as presented by scientists. Descend to the underwater treasures in diving groups. Go around islands on cruise ships... And turn into romantics, crazy with love for this pile of precious stones on the edge of the ocean, which, like a buzzing seashell, will always call to themselves. The dream has a pseudonym Shantar Islands!

Perhaps you are one of those lucky ones who personally observed the beauty and power of this corner of the planet, share information, tell us how you managed to organize such a difficult journey, what feelings you experienced on this harsh land. I will definitely publish your report in the section "Readers' Travels", you will find the details.

Leave your comments, for me the response of readers is very important. Subscribe to blog updates, publications about Lake Baikal and Kamchatka will soon see the light of day, do not miss the most interesting. On this I say goodbye to you, until we meet again.

Tatiana Solomatina

Travel type: Extreme expedition to wild places!Helicopter flights + island tour boat.

Why go:

There are no analogues to the Shantar archipelago in the world: it is a unique and most beautiful corner of the globe.

Phantastically beautiful rocks, whales and killer whales swim in the sea among icebergs, bears roam the shores, the rivers are full of fish. Bird markets with thousands of seabirds, seal rookeries ...

We are going to abandon civilization and vanity and immerse ourselves in the pristine world of wild nature.

V in the northwestern part of the harsh Sea of ​​Okhotsk there is a group of mysterious islands. If you look at them from a bird's eye view, you get the impression that some giant once threw a pile of stones and rocks into the water. And so these amazing appeared on the map of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, mysterious islands on the horizon.

Only for 1.5-2 months are cleared coastal waters from the ice. Back in July, white swans swim here huge icebergs, and already in October it snows, although they are located at the latitude of Moscow. Frequent fogs on the islands alternate with rare but violent storms.

The climate of the Shantar Islands is even more severe than in the northernmost part of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. This is due to the proximity to the cold regions of Yakutia, a complex system of wind and tidal currents. The tides on the islands reach 5-8 m, and the tidal currents are one of the fastest in the entire world ocean, reaching 8 knots in the Dangerous Strait, the North and in the vicinity of the mainland. All the power of the tides rushes into the straits like a bottleneck. The straits resemble fast-flowing rivers and the noise of rushing water can be heard for several kilometers.

The Shantar archipelago consists of 15 large and small islands, as well as a large number of rocks and kekurs. Most big Island- Big Shantar island - 1790 sq. km, the second largest - Feklistova island, about 400 sq. km. km. Next are the islands of Maly Shantar and Belichy. A closed basin has formed between the islands and the mainland, which is called the Shantar Sea.

The shape of Shantar is extraordinarily beautiful. Summer here, though short, but very stormy. There are countless rocks and kekurs on the islands, dozens of waterfalls rush down from the steep Shantar shores. Rivers and lakes are unique. The largest of which is Lake Bolshoye with the Olenya River flowing into it.

Once upon a time there were people on Shantars, but now, except for the workers of the meteorological station, no one lives on the islands. But in the rivers and lakes there is an abundance of fish, bears roam along the banks, there is a hubbub from bird colonies, and whales, killer whales and a huge number of seals swim near the coast.

The geology of the islands is also interesting. The shores are a real geological museum under open air... In many places you can see rocks painted in a variety of colors - pink, red, green, white. These are outcrops of jasper, marble and other rocks.

Fishing is a special pleasure on Shantars. There is a huge variety of fish here. Pink salmon, char, kunzha, lenok, rudd, as well as the rare general fish - mykizha are found here in abundance.

Shantar Islands - a treasure trove of wildlife. The archipelago is far from settlements: 100 km. to the west is the village of Chumikan, at the same distance to the South the endangered village of Tugur, 400 kilometers to the North - the city of Nikolaevsk-on-Amur. This explains the fact that the pristine nature and fauna have been preserved on the Shantars.

In our case, we had to first fly by plane for 8 hours, then take a bus for 14 hours along the roads of the Khabarovsk Territory (in some places and along a badly bumpy and washed-out road), and then, in case of helicopter-flight weather (and we were waiting for such weather 9 hours), fly by helicopter for 1.5 hours ... and here we are on the Shantar Islands, islands that are scattered in the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. We will visit several islands, but so far the helicopter has dropped us on the largest island, which is called so - Big Shantar.

I know there are edges ...

I know there are edges - walk around, look, try
There is such land, there is such grass,
And the forests, like in those places, are nowhere, brother, there is no trace of it.
There, in the lakes, water is like god's dew,
There, stars sparkle with diamonds and fall into the mountains.
I would go there, only where could I get a ticket ..

Shantar Islands- the dream of those who are attracted by wild nature, harsh conditions (here is a short summer, ice is still in July, and in September the sea is covered with ice again). There is often fog here, in some places "crowds" of mosquitoes and midges and sooo big ebb - tides. There are fantastically beautiful bays, rocks. Seals, killer whales and whales swim among the icebergs in the sea. Bears, foxes, deer roam along the banks, there is a hubbub from bird colonies, and the rivers are full of fish. Here are amazing animals that are not afraid of people, and sometimes even smile when they meet.

True, at night I don’t want them to be afraid of you, and I don’t want them to walk around the tent. Therefore, sometimes it was necessary to be on duty at the post, and "shoot back". I don't look very good here, all the same all night on my feet, not spam.

Once I fell asleep at the "post" and this is what I found next to my slippers in the morning ... Well, Misha did not take his shoes, the size did not fit.

The very trip to the islands takes place on boats, in which you can comfortably distribute, and if you are tired of looking for killer whales and seals, you can take a sweet nap. For example, like this:

Or like this:

And of course, you need to experience extreme! What kind of adventure is this if there was no extreme? This is how, for example, we "ran away" from killer whales. We looked out for them in the distance, and in some amazing way they moved directly under our boat ...

And also ...... However, everything is in order.

From Khabarovsk to Briakan (from where we have a helicopter transfer to Bolshoi Shantar) 14 hours by bus. On broken roads in the Far East: somewhere on asphalt, somewhere on a dirt road, in places the road is washed out. At 6 am we arrived at the heliport in Briacan. And the first helicopter, in flying weather, takes off at 9-10 am. There is a small hotel "Hilton" (by the way, we went here by bus "5 stars"). It's still very early and "Hilton" is busy - Ukrainians are sleeping here now (they came purely for fishing, they go to Shantary every year).

They were supposed to take off yesterday, but the weather is not flying, it is raining, and they are stuck here. We whiled away the time in the gazebo. Soon the Ukrainians got up and time passed imperceptibly - with bacon, vodka, and with conversations ...

In the morning the helicopter did not fly away, it was foggy, but at lunchtime the Ukrainians were sent to the island and finally took off and we were at 6 pm. 1, 5 hours of flight - and we are at Big Shantar! They landed promptly, and the group immediately loaded onto the flight from Shantar. Wertak sits right on the shore. In the evening on the shore - "TsU" how to behave in the wild and when meeting a bear (which is very likely here)!

A bear came at night. Or rather in the morning. The Ukrainians (our friends) camp nearby, across the river (and when the tide is low, it’s not a river, but a small stream, and you can walk to the Ukrainians across the “river” on foot). So in the early morning (it was still dark) they shouted “Muscovites, the bear is coming!”, And the second voice adds “with our lard”! Bears may not be very scary for people now (a lot of fish and berries), but they can pick up boats, and boats are our ALL. So the Ukrainians continue to shout “the bear is 70 meters from the boat”, and immediately after another voice “yes no, 30 meters”! Guide Vova jumped out in what he slept (put on only a vest with cartridges) with a gun and a rocket launcher, to scare off the bear. I drove about 30 minutes - and fired and said in a rude voice "get out of here, get out"! It's scary - that he was so close and had to scare him for so long. In the morning it turned out that he had snatched half of a loaf of sausage from us and grabbed butter with his paw.

In the morning the weather is excellent, seals are swimming - but somehow far away. No wind, not sunny. Today we will explore the coast where the camp is - walked along the coast - beautiful rocks, a cliff. The fog stretches, then diverges. The first time we went out to sea - swam to fresh water - by boat for about 30 minutes on the water to the waterfall.

In the morning we rent the camp and drive along the island. A little over an hour - and we are at the weather station. It is here that the only people live on all the Shantar Islands - only 4 people of the population. And these four people - keep records of the weather, precipitation, transmit data, etc.
There was once a mini-plant for the processing of whale oil nearby, the fat was processed into oil. Now everything was smashed in parts, the frames that remained - naturally rusted. While we were walking around the meteorological station (and we only walked for a couple of hours), the water drained away and the boats ran aground. What can we do, then we rest for three hours, wait for the tide - eat, walk, sleep, read newspapers, guess crosswords.

Well, our fishermen (three Khabarovsk residents) went fishing (they returned with their catch - with pink salmon). Anatoly Dmitriech came - a local aborigine, a celebrity. He has been living on the island for a long time, when he caught sables, but he stayed on the island. He lived alone, now he lives at the meteorological station.
At about five, the water came. We load and go to Topaznaya bay. Fresh water is also here - the Topaznaya River.

July 29. Big Shantar. Topaznaya bay. Utichiy Islands

The place is wonderful. There is enough place on the shore for tents, there is where to walk along the shore, and the river nearby pleases.

We sail to the Utichiy Islands. It is sunny on the coast, but in any case it is cooler at sea, and now there is also fog closer to Utichy. The islands are in dense fog and almost nothing is visible. They say that once a small plane crashed here (these islands have not yet been mapped).

Through the fog and returned to our bay. But in our bay it is sunny and joyful!

The guys have built a shower, so we will wash today! Also bathed in the sea, it burns, but bearable. We walked through the woods. Found the remains of a house (lower masonry) and a rusty fire extinguisher. Go crazy, and this is who in the forest cut down the hut and equip it. And this is decent inland (about 20 minutes), and there are mosquitoes here !!!
In the evening, our fishermen went to sea, and delighted us with sea gobies.
A bear came at night. In the morning they understood, because the barrel of food was overturned and the sausage and cheese were scattered over the sand (in the following days, all the most valuable of the food was hung on a tree), and even then we saw footprints on the beach.

We are standing in the same bay. We were supposed to go to Feklistov, but they passed the wind, so we expect the weather. We went up to the cape. The fog cleared, and the view of the bay and the camp opened up. Ascent for about an hour, somewhere there is a trail, somewhere along spruce branches we go.

The guys made a camping bath - a real one. They heated the stones, laid out the floor with juniper twigs, covered with an awning - a real steam room (in the photo behind my back). And the smell !!! And from the steam room - dive into the burning Sea of ​​Okhotsk! Beauty!

We decided to watch the bear at night. The alarm clock was set at 4.30 (it dawns at five, this is to see it at dawn). In the morning they got up, waited, but he did not come ...

And in the morning we still saw his footprints on the beach! In the darkness, it turns out, he came. Anyway. We'll catch him somehow anyway ..

On the eve they gave the weather to go out - the wind decreases. We leave on the island of Feklistov (the second largest, after Big Shantar), on the Swan lip. Walk about 50 km, it is 4-5 hours by sea. The fog is small. We load, sit down .. and it starts to rain! Not a downpour, but it floods from above - from the sky, and floods from the sides, from the sea. But it soon passed. Had a snack on board.

We walked to Feklistov exactly 4 hours. Big bay. And how many mosquitoes! There is a hut (winter hut) above the shore. Of course, abandoned, and of course, walked by a bear. The coast is covered with flowers.

There is a river - and our fishermen immediately went fishing. We dry ourselves. Someone went for a walk on the coast, someone sits on the coast, someone helps in the kitchen.
Some people got wet and chilled - not all got detailed information on equipment, and in general on the specifics of the trip. Because of what they sometimes froze. But a pot of 5 liters (don't think that water!) And a can of canned meat saved you from all sorts of colds!

We leave for Bird Island. We get up at 8 in the morning, breakfast, and at 11 we sail. Swim for about 5 hours. A little foggy, sometimes it starts to drizzle. P.S. our fishermen are fishing again in the morning and, of course, again with fish! We went out on the natural Arch and examined small caves nearby.

The weather is running - there are no waves, the sun is foggy. Snack on board. And here it is, Bird Island! The coast is littered with fin, and beautiful boulders stand along the coast. And the most decoration of the bay is a snowfield!

The island is small - 2.5 km long and 1.5 km wide. Until the fog settled, we went up the snowfield (again - you can't go far, bears!), There are traces (or rather waste) of a bear. True, they say, most likely last year (the question is - did he swim from the island ??). But still, since the island is small, and the only source of fresh water is a snowfield, if there is a bear on the island, he will definitely come here .. so you have to be careful. Fog creeps in and gradually covers the island and us ..

What is good, there are no mosquitoes at all (which tormented us on Feklistov's island).

At night, someone small wandered not far from the tent, pebbles rustled ... But it seemed to me that it was a huge bear walking right next to my tent. In general, I have suffered through fear ..
Morning. Birds-birds-birds (the bird's island). There are large colonies of spectacled guillemot on the island. Nebula on the island. We are going to the mainland. The weather is pleasant, a little cool breeze. We will sail to Ongachan.

They swam about 12 days later, after a couple of hours ice appeared - separately floating pieces, some took bizarre shapes.

On the way we meet surprised seals (probably, we have never seen people).

And then we "ran into" the ice field. They walked around it with extreme caution.

And suddenly there are killer whales ahead! The fins rise above the water. While looking for them ahead (they went under the water), they stopped the boat. And suddenly, somehow magically, they were under our boat! Imagine all the horror! (it costs her nothing to turn the boat over). One of them began to rise just aft. Sergey (the captain of our boat) started abruptly (the boat almost flew over the water). Sensations, of course, are not transferable! Such an emotional outburst! Seeing killer whales so close!

Killer whales are the largest of the dolphins. Their mass can reach up to 9 tons. They are called whales - killers, the ancient Romans called them orcs, which means demons. In the diver's reference manual, it is written about them that if a killer whale attacked you, then everything is already a foregone conclusion for you, there is no salvation. Here is a video of what can happen to those who did not have time to "hide" from the killer whales.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWsN63PRCW8

We are sailing to the Ongachan bay. Space view - ice floes are floating in the fog, the coast is littered with dry forest.

And in the bay itself it is sunny and joyful! That's where heaven is! The river is nearby, the sun is shining, there are no mosquitoes. Our old friends, Ukrainians (fishermen) are standing here. We set up tents, we run to the lake to swim (it seemed that the lake was very close), we forgot about safety. The beauty of the place relaxed us.

As a result, we did not reach the lake - we were stopped by a bear that appeared right in front of us on the trail ... We turned around and ran to our own! So we swam in the river next to the camp.
Soon we hear "bear", "bear"! And where we recently swam, a bear wanders. A general photo-hunt began.

We must pay tribute to the bear, he was not at all opposed to being photographed, and then, when everyone was already tired of photographing him, they could not drive him away from the camp for a long time - they shot (scared), and he walked in circles, did not want to go to his place, and demanding attention.

And on the shore, on the sea, it is beautiful. Fog, ice floes, silence. And in silence, sometimes you can hear how the ice floes collide and diverge again ...

A fox is walking along the shore - a red-haired beauty. A little skinny, but the tail is as it should be - chic. She went along the river - here the Ukrainians fed her with fish. And she allowed herself to be photographed.

And a whale was also sailing. The people heard his "breathing", ran ashore, but they saw only his back. Swam away.

In the evening, the Ukrainians' camp treated us to salmon, watermelon, alcohol (they fly home tomorrow). To a good snack and drink, the Russian soul turned around and sang songs under the stars at midnight ...

August 3rd. Ulban Bay

We reached Cape Zaretsky. We spend the night in the Ulban Bay. On the way we go through the ice. Fog and ice. On the ice floes here and there seals. We landed, set up a camp. Here is a rivulet and silence ...

In the morning we set out and in the afternoon we arrive at the Syran River. (a helicopter will pick us up from here). We arrived on high water, specially in a hurry to make it easier to get ashore. The banks are heavily washed away and we didn't manage to get bogged down in the clay ... This is the extreme we got when we got to the bank of the Syran River.

And the view from above to the river is beautiful.

Here favorite place beluga whales (come here for fish). Only the back of the beluga whale was captured. And there is also an island in the photo - a traveler. With the tide - it floats in one direction, with the ebb - in the other. So we watched him a couple of times a day - it floats there and back.

We stand here for 2 days. We are waiting for the helicopter. Since a swampy place - there are as many mosquitoes as fit in the air .. The heat is still standing (well, the breeze sometimes blows, drives away mosquitoes for a couple of minutes). There is nowhere to go - there are swamps and swamps all around.

Arranged a washroom. Not everyone wanted to wash in the swamp at first, but there was no way out. The fact is that there is no other water. The water in the Syran River is muddy-muddy. The guys went on a boat, looking for a source of water further along the river. They brought it. The color was the same as in the Syran River. So on the second day, even the most persistent (with a persistent aversion to swamp water) could not stand the heat, sweat, mosquitoes, and doused themselves with refreshing water behind the screen.

You won't find anything else to do here, so we just sit all day. The only thing - once they had fun. We saw a bear chasing a moose (it’s true, it’s hard to see far away). But the fishermen are good - they go by boat for the whole day to the river. And, of course, they come with a catch!

We are looking forward to the helicopter. A little worried in the morning. The sky is overcast. Suddenly - not flying weather? And I already want to go to civilization (shower, clean clothes, bottled water). We have assembled the camp, we sit and wait with hope. And here he is, with a delay of a couple of hours flies after us!

The helicopter was not easy to land. A swampy place. I landed on a patch where our tents had recently been. So when he landed, he got stuck in a swamp, and sat down straight with his booty.

After unloading the passengers (he brought well-trained fishermen - with a refrigerator for fish), the helicopter rose and settled down more comfortably.

But everything went well, we took off, after 40 minutes we were in Briakan and an hour later we were rushing to Khabarovsk along the dusty and broken roads of the Far Eastern Territory in a "5 stars" bus (without air conditioning, with a broken fan, with inoperative folding back seats, in a cabin that smelled of gasoline, with occasional stops at night for repairs). But they rushed off with the breeze!

The Shantar Islands are one of the most beautiful places our country. The archipelago is part of the Tuguro-Chumikansky District of the Khabarovsk Territory. On Saturday, August 15, a Mi-8 helicopter, carrying 16 passengers, crashed here, five people died. DVHab.ru figured out why this place is so attractive for tourists.

The archipelago includes 15 islands - Bolshoy Shantar, Feklistova, Malyy Shantar, Belichy, Bear, Bird, Utichy, Sugar Loaf, Kusova, Prokofiev, Sivuchiy Kameni, Sukhotina, Severny, Sredniy, Yuzhny, Diomid Stones and a large number of rocks. The total area of ​​the archipelago is 2.5 thousand kilometers.

The Shantar Islands are called one of the most unusual places the world. The islands are covered with ice for eight months of the year. The melting of glaciers ends by August. The islands are one of the few places on earth where you can swim among the icebergs at the height of the calendar summer.
The landscapes of the archipelago are amazingly beautiful. The islands have a large number of rocks of the most bizarre shapes and colors - pink, green, red, white (the colors are due to the emergence of valuable rocks - jasper, marble and others).

There are many waterfalls on the steep banks. There are several rivers and lakes on the territory, the largest of which is Bolshoye Lake. In reservoirs, a wide variety of fish species are found in large quantities - pink salmon, rudd, Dolly Varden char, salmon, char, mykizha and others.
Brown bears walk along the shores, many birds fly, whales, killer whales and seals swim along the shores.

On the islands there are rare species of animals and plants listed in the Red Data Books of the Russian Federation and the Khabarovsk Territory, there are pinniped rookeries, in the river of the Srednaya Island of Bolshoy Shantar, there is mykizha fish - a unique Shantar population of this species included in the Red Data Book of Russia.

Large islands are covered with larch and dark coniferous forests, in which Siberian spruce, Gmelin larch, dwarf cedar, and birch grow. There are thickets of dwarf cedar.

There are no ships in this part of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. For many kilometers, the only inhabitants of these places are two employees of the meteorological station, who live on the island of Big Shantar. It is almost impossible to meet tourists, barges or other ships here. The nature is almost virgin, apart from the consequences of the atrocities that were repeated by the Americans in the 80s.

There is another way to get to Shantar. From Khabarovsk by bus to Komsomolsk-on-Amur, then by boat to Nikolaevsk-on-Amur. From Nikolaevsk-on-Amur to shuttle bus to the Reineke bay of the village of Mnogovershinny and from there by catamaran or boat (own) to the Shantar Islands. In terms of time, such a route will take 10-13 hours. As a rule, companies provide tourists with all equipment except for clothes, sleeping bag and tackle (if you decide to go fishing).

The group consists of 6-8 tourists, three guides and one cook. At the request of tourists, a professional photographer can join the group, who will take photos and videos during the whole trip.

The approximate cost of the tour is from 450 to 700 thousand rubles. However, this amount does not include airfare and meals. A significant part of the cost is a helicopter flight. The cost of one flight hour will be approximately 160 thousand rubles. The flight time for two flights to the rivers Uda, Udykhin, Maya, the Shantar archipelago is 7 - 8.5 hours, to Shevli - 6.5 hours, to Nimelen - 2.5 hours, to Anyui - 3 hours, to Samarga - 7 hours.

Review of the Khabarovsk tourist:
Despite the external impassability of the reserved islands, it turned out to be unexpectedly easy to get to Shantary. Ten minutes of searching in Google, one single meeting with Alexander Frolenko, head of the dv-tour.ru website of the Far Eastern Tourist Association, and three days to get ready. We agreed on my participation in the campaign in the spring, and the journey itself took place in July. Hiking to Shantary with the participation of tourists, on Far East organized by two people: Igor Olkhovsky, known to many for his books and wonderful photographs of these places, and Alexander Frolenok, who did not write books, but nevertheless experience in traveling through the harsh northern islands and the seas have nothing less. The average cost of a trip with Igor Olkhovsky is several hundred thousand rubles. You will be dropped by a helicopter to one of the islands, taken by boat to several others, shown local beauty, will feed you with delicious seafood, arrange fishing and much more. It sounds good, but spending so much money on a ten-day trip around the Khabarovsk Territory was not part of my plans at that time. And I booked a tour with Alexander Frolenko, which offers about the same, but in a more ascetic style.

Why not? Creating difficulties for myself and successfully overcoming them is my lifestyle.

So, we sailed to Shantary from the Nikolay Bay (the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, the area named after Polina Osipenko). We got to our destination from Khabarovsk by minibus - fifteen hours drive to the regional center of the village named after Polina Osipenko, then we got on a boat and went down the Amgun River to the village of Oglongi, where we got into a jeep and a few hours later were already in the bay. There we were already waiting for a trimaran, on which the next morning we set off on a fascinating sea tour of the Shantar Islands.

Ten days of sea voyages or an acquaintance with the wild Archipelago. The romance of the legendary life, tents, food smelling like a fire ... Sounds tempting! In fact, it turns out not so romantic. To fold and re-lay the tent, fall asleep and wake up in a dew-soaked forest, day after day wearing clothes soaked in salt, dreaming only of a hot bath and normal, freshly washed sheets ... Romance begins at home when, looking at photos, you say to yourself: - Wow! You did it! And how you want to change a one-room apartment in a five-story building for a canvas scarf on Shantars!

Then ... The morning of each day began with the preparation of breakfast, packing up the camp and sailing to the next island. On average, the distance between the islands is 30-80 kilometers. Our trimaran covered this distance in two or even six hours. It is not surprising, at a speed of 13-17 km / h. But the slowness of the vehicle fully compensated for the beauty of the terrain along which we moved. The Sea of ​​Okhotsk is restless and unpredictable. In one sea passage, you can enjoy the calmness and pretty much ruffle your nerves in a sudden storm. Fortunately, there were practically no storms. The sun shone hot all ten days. However, according to our guide, this was rather an exception to the rule.

During my stay on Shantars, I had the opportunity to meet twice with a family of killer whales, see the rookeries of fur seals, wake up in the morning and leave the tent, find bear tracks a couple of meters from the camp and admire the picturesque rocks and amazing mountains that represent the landscape of the Shantars.

However, despite the calmness of the sea, we still had to endure a small shock. That day we walked in our trimaran, the total area of ​​which is three meters squared, against the current. The speed was nothing at all. Three tourists were busy contemplating the beauty around us. A family of killer whales that emerged from the depths of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk fit perfectly into the landscape. Two adult killer whales kept at a distance, but the curious cub decided to get closer to our ship ... Our main goal at that moment was to catch it through the lens of our apparatus. There was no fear. It came later, when we all, one by one, realized what it would be like to touch the little whale with the awkward movement of our trimaran. One scream would have been enough for his mother to scatter our boat to pieces, sending passengers for the last time in their lives to taste sea water.

All other rafting and hiking will certainly be wonderful in their own way. But Shantars, as they say, will remain in the heart forever. There were many interesting things: fishing, evening gatherings by the fire, fur seal rookeries, beautiful sunrises and sunsets ... Part of this beauty is in the photographs.

DVHab.ru readers can discuss the details of travel to the Shantar Islands