Yakutsk

Jeez.

Um, there is a study of a Yakutsk ram, um, which, uh, f- found an average body weight of about 30 kilos, um, combined testicular weight of about 193 grams, which is about roughly, uh, 0.64 of the body weight.

0.64?

Comparatively.

He believes in the chief law of God, the law of all religions, to act toward others as one wishes others to act toward oneself.

of such men more or less consciously recognizing this law there are in our time not in the christian world alone but in the buddhistic mohammedan confucian and brahminic world not only thousands but millions There exist true heroes, not those who are now being fated because, having wished to kill others, they were not killed themselves, but true heroes who are now confined in prisons and in the province of Yakutsk for having categorically refused to enter the ranks of murderers, and who have preferred martyrdom to this departure from the law of Jesus.

there are also such as he who writes to me, who go but who will not kill.

But also that majority which goes without thinking, and endeavours not to think of what it is doing, still in the depth of its soul, does now already feel that it is doing an evil deed by obeying authorities who tear men from labour and from their families, and send them to needless slaughter of men, repugnant to their soul and their faith.

Peasants, you know, they would wear their little baptismal cross, but they would also wear these folk charms, thinking the bear's physical remains could help them sniff out and destroy evil spirits and curses.

So what? Well, do you remember Alexander Gabyshev, who was this Yakut shaman who in 2019 embarked on a rather quixotic 5,000 mile walk from Yakutsk in Siberia to Moscow to, as he put it, exorcise Putin, whom he called a demon and a beast.

Now, it didn't work out so well for him as he's now in psychiatric detention.

But maybe...

It was in February.

So Yakutsk was the place where I actually learned that Russia started the all out invasion in Ukraine.

Something I didn't believe.

I think people who followed me on Twitter saw that I was basically projecting confidence that Russia is not going to attack.

Nice to be here.

Rico completed his engineering studies and then he embarked on a mission trip to Russia that sparked a 25-year missionary career in Siberia's Yakutsk region.

Perhaps that's a good place to start.

Rico, how do we even pronounce that name correctly?

Yakutsk.

You have it well.

Yeah, you've got it.

Rico, I've so enjoyed hearing all of these beautiful stories.

But yeah.

And then they had the World Cup, uh, that year was in, in Yakutsk-

Uh-huh

...

I got a problem.

[laughs]

But, so I was roaming around Yakutsk looking for some soda.

[laughs]

In Far Eastern Russia, starting to get colder right now.

Yakutsk is starting to get colder too.

Magadan's getting colder.

Moscow's getting warm weather for one day and things like this.

What on earth happened? When the invasion began, I'm sure we all remember where we were when we first heard about it.

I was in a small supermarket in Yakutsk, the regional capital, having not yet flown up to my start point.

I remember being, you know, the shock, the claustrophobia, this idea of, you know, is this about to be a world war? What's going to happen to Ukraine? Is Britain going to...

How did you

And I realized that although I could leave, I was very far away from the war.

It was about 3,000 miles from where I was to the Donbass.

Yakutsk is marginally closer to Vancouver than it is to Moscow or Kiev, dramatically closer, considerably closer to the North Pole.

And so I felt that distance maybe might be in my favor.

Tamping down his concerns, Charlie continued on his journey, meeting indigenous people and ice road truckers along the way.

Yet his trip ended in fear and confusion, with an arrest and a month in a Yakutsk jail.

The story of his new book, On Thin Ice, an explorer's memoir of Siberia, surveillance, and survival.

Charlie is an award-winning explorer, author, and international keynote speaker.

The original plan was to fly into Yakutia or the Sakha Republic, which is this enormous region in the far east of Russia.

It's 94% the size of India, so really, really vast and very sparsely populated, only about a million people.

And I plan to fly into Yakutsk, the regional capital, and from there travel along the Lena River on the frozen surface of the river for roughly 1,000 miles up to the coast on the Arctic Ocean.

And along that course, drop in to various small communities.