Horses expedition report

Dear Friends

First of all hope that all of you and your relatives stay healthy and safe, and thank you for your support to our project at these complicated times. On our side everything is good, and virus haven’t really reached our remote place. 

There hasn’t been too many news in the Pleistocene Park itself. Temperatures are getting milder, but still can drop at night down to -30C. Days are mostly sunny and animals feel themselves comfortable. No new offspring has arrived yet, but expecting soon. 

""Bison hanging out on the river next to the basecamp""

However of the big event which I want to share with you is our expedition to bring 10 new horses for the Pleistocene Park. If you are ready for some long-reads then follow along:)

Up until this moment we had around 20 horses in the Pleistocene Park. They are native yakutian horses, you can buy in the region from native yakutian people who keep them for meat. Some of the horses we have in the Park live there for over 10 years, and it been a while since we last introduced new blood. Population of horses been stable in the Park. In 2017-2018 was the most severe winter in terms of snowdepth in the entire climate records and population shrank, slowly recovering now. However since the genetic variability is small we felt that we need to bring new blood for the Park.  We had a plan to do that in previous years, but either we lacked resources or herders (who also suffered from extreme climatic event in 2018) couldn’t sell us any. 

Since our region has no year round road connection, only way to reach remote villages where people keep horses, is using the winter roads, which are open usually from January to mid-April. Since January-February might be too cold and risky for both animals and trucks, and in April quality of road goes down, there is quiet a narrow window when animals can be brought. Earlier this year we did negotiations with “Aleko Kuel’” horse farm, which holds over 800 horses, who agreed to sell us 10 animals. I requested 2-3 stallions and 7-8 females of the age 2 years+. However they agreed to sell only 2 stallions of the age of 2 years and 8 females of the age 1 year, all thanks to the winter of 2018 when there was almost zero birth rate. 

We secured finances for this expedition from three sources. First is the money raised by our Pleistocene Park Foundation over the last year, second is the first money transfer from the Patreon (thank you for this), and third money were coming from the Russian/French filming crew, which is making a 90 minute documentary about the Pleistocene Park. For the movie they critically need the “extreme animal expedition”. So for exclusive rights to join the expedition, they planned to cover half of all off the expenses. 

So about a month ago all the plan was settled and it seemed like an easy task. Classical “what could possibly go wrong?” situation. And as you all know things did go wrong over the last month. 

First of all it became clear that with all quarantines and restrictions there will be no visitors on our research station. And money we raise on the research station is the main source of funding for the Pleistocene Park and for my family living. Expecting sharp decline in profits, I seriously doubted that I should spend money to bring extra animals, rather than saving those money to buy forage for animals for the winter. It would be a bad situation if the number of animals will increase over the next year, but the amounts of forage will decline. 

Second problem is that filming crew agreed to fund the expedition only if they will be able to film it, and as deadline for the expedition was approaching all countries started to close borders and international visits to the Park became hard/illegal/risky/impossible (choose any). Fortunately production company managed to gather operator and director/soundman from Russia, so the team arrived on time and didn’t fall into the 2 week quarantine restrictions. 

And third unexpected problem was that I had a hard time finding the proper truck for the expedition. There is a huge copper mine opening in the neighbouring state of Chukotka and all private truck drivers are now working on transporting materials to the mine, while the winter roads allow that. And making good money transporting pieces of metal no one want to waste time on dealing with dozen of horses in the back of the truck. 

Fortunately my close friend in town bought himself a truck a week before the expedition start. Unfortunately it was the Ural truck made in 1983 (exactly my age), which didn’t operate for few years, and was in good conditions, only according to the words of the guy who desperately needed to sell it. 

So last few days were busy preparing the truck and the trailer to be able to hold animals and to be able to drive 1600km (thousand mile) over the hard conditions of Siberian winter roads. 

So afterall after weighing all plos and cons we decided to make the expedition happen…. Well probably not true, if we would really weigh plos and cons we would stay home, since cons were way too many. So more correctly would be to say that we just followed the typical Russian philosophy of first do then think.  

Yet another problem was the social issues caused by the coronavirus and media about it. As I already said there is nobody in the region who is sick, but people do panic a lot and rumours and fake news spread way faster than the virus itself. So the day before the expedition we figured out that all the villages on our way , where we planned to refill, get food and potentially stay overnight, closed there roads and put “no outsiders are welcome” signs.  And leaving for the expedition I wasn’t even sure that when we finally reach the final destination we will not be banned from entering and will not have to turn around. 

Anyway on the very early morning of March 27th our expedition left the research station. Expedition consisted of 4 people. Me, my friend Yaroslav – new owner of the truck, and two people from the filming crew, Denis and Dmitriy. We had Ural with the trailer and Nissan Patrol jeep as the support car. We took enough food for the week, and got all fuel tanks of the truck filled. Since gas stations are rare in these regions, local people tune their trucks to hold more fuel. Our truck took 1.5 tons of fuel. Amount we thought would be plenty. 

""Expedition, seconds before departure""

First 240 kilometers of the road is plowed on top of the ice of the Kolyma river, and is considered good road. Patrol could drive over 100km/hour on it, but the maximum speed of the truck was 50km/hour, so that was our limit speed. 

As soon as we left home town of Cherskii and drove down on ice truck engine stopped. There seemed to be the fuel problem. Fortunately replacing the fuel filter helped and this problem didn’t rise after that.  Morning was quiet cold with temperatures lower than -30C, and truck repair wasn’t the most pleasant of all activities. 

Next 5 hours went smooth and we successfully reached the ground part of the winter road. Winter roads are plowed over rivers, forest, lakes and all other possible landscapes in the winter. There is no pavement, and surface is quiet uneven. 

"" First 240km are on the nice ice road""

Since soviet trucks were never made for comfort it wasn’t really possible to drive faster than 15-20 km/hour. So the 800km one way took 2.5 day of travel. On the way we ate precooked food we prepared. We had the portable gas stove so we could make tea or instant noodles, but overall it took time and we tried to use it as little as possible. For the night filming crew slept in Nissan and me and Yaroslav slept in Ural. 

""I was driving the truck part of the time to let Yaroslav rest""

In most cases it was way too hot in the cabin, so sleeping was not the most comfortable. As I earlier said staying in the local villages for the night was no longer an option. 

""Route from our home town of Cherskii to Aleko-Kuel' ""

On the afternoon of the day three we successfully entered the village of Aleko Kuel’, which as someone told us in Yakutian means Alexandr lake. It is the native yakutian village with population of 400 people, 300 cows and 1000 horses. Want to note that unlike many other indigenous people in Russia and outside of it, many Yakutian people keep the tradition lifestyle, culture and language. Village looked clean and rather cozy. At least compared with half abandoned industrial soviet towns like Cherskii which you can find in the Russian north. 

We left truck outside of town and drove in to find out the situation, where are our horses and how can we get them. Problem that the owner of the big farm and the second man were both in Yakutsk, and for a few days I couldn’t connect with them, even to let them know that we are coming. Streets of the village were empty and we couldn’t really see many people. Finally we met one elderly guy who told us that all bosses are in Yakutsk and he has no idea whom we should talk to. “Thanks for nothing”. Second guy we met was way more informative. We saw him next to the small building with Russian and Yakutian flags on it. As we later figured out, that was the building of the local administration and the person was working there. He told us to follow him, jumped on his snowmobile and drove around village, entering some houses looking for the proper person to solve our problems. 15 minute later he found the person who was in charge for the farm in the absence of the boss. He told us that, yes, our horses are ready and are staying in the small fenced area ready to load. 

""Our horses ready to load""

However another 4 horses which I promised to bring to our local reindeer herders are not yet ready and we will go to the field where horses graze and catch them tomorrow. The person from local administration (his name was Afanasiy) was so friendly and welcoming that he even found us a house where we could stay overnight, warm garage where we could leave the truck and organized the sauna where we could wash ourselves after 3 days in the trucks. Everything seemed perfect. However an hour later local authority figured out that we are in town, and told us to leave (thanks for the coronavirus panics). So we had to drive at night to the camp where the horses are. Anyway people at the farm were friendly and provided us with dinner. 

Next day we picked 4 horses at the camp and returned to town to load our horses. Preparations finally took whole day, and animals got loaded to the truck only at the sunset. 

"" Path between Aleko-Kuel and camp with horses wasn't plowed well""

There was one event at the loading. When preparing the trailer I prepared plywood sheet which would separate the trailer into two rooms in the first my 10 horses were kept, and in the smaller room at the back 4 horses which I planned to unload earlier. However when the second group of horses went into the truck, they quickly broke the plywood, and all horses mixed up. Which wasn’t my plan. So finally we had to bring all 14 horses to the Park, and later separate them and send those 4 back to there original destination. 

Want to note that young horses which were prepared to us, were in extremely good conditions. Often sellers of animals tend to sell their worst animals, and this time it clearly wasn’t the case. And for that I am particularly greatful.

Trip back took another 3 days. They had some hay underneath their feet to eat and twice a day we were throwing snow to them to drink. Fortunately all horses felt fine, no one got injured at loading or on the way. So with minor problems on the road we arrived back to the station. 

""Horses on the back of the truck leaving Aleko-Kuel' ""

From the station it is 40km on the small channel to the Pleistocene Park. Normally we maintain the road there and I didn’t expect any problems, but either due to opening of the dams up the stream of the Kolyma or with the cyclones, water in the channel rose and in many place water went on top of the ice. This made a very complicated layered snow/ice/water/ice conditions. In which Patrol couldn’t really drive and even the Ural got stuck once and it took us more than an hour to clear the path with axes and showels. 

""Nissan got stuck and Ural is preparing to pull it out""

Unloading went super easy. We just opened the back door, and all horses jumped down to the snow and we quickly led them to the quarantine area, where they are now. 

So after all expedition did go well and smooth, and we are happy that everything worked out. 

""Horses in the quarantine area in the Pleistocene Park"

With the current situation in the world, it is not very clear when we will be able to organize next animal transportation. 

But there are lots of things to do in the Park apart from animals. But that will the topic for our next update which you can expect in the beginning of May. 

There is another update from us, about the logos for the Patreon which we made, but I will do it in the separate email, since I suspect not everyone made it to the end of this long post.

All the best and take care of yourself.

Nikita Zimov