Magadan Oblast.

History

The region's indigenous peoples, including the Evens, Koryaks and Chukchi, lived by fishing along the Sea of Okhotsk or by herding reindeer. Magadan was founded in 1929 in the Ola river valley near Nagayev Bay and became a city on 14 July 1939. From 1932 to 1953 the region was run by Dalstroy, a trust that mined gold with prisoner labour, and Magadan was the main transit point for inmates bound for the Kolyma Gulag camps. Prisoners also built the Kolyma Highway in those years. The oblast was created on 3 December 1953, and after Stalin's death paid labour replaced convicts.

Culture & traditions

Magadan's best-known monument is the Mask of Sorrow, designed by Ernst Neizvestny in memory of the victims of Stalin's repressions. The city has the Magadan Theatre and museums of local history and geology. The Holy Trinity Cathedral was completed in 2008, and the Catholic Church of the Nativity, opened in 2002, ministers among others to former camp prisoners. The region's only university is North-Eastern State University.

Nature

The oblast covers about 462,000 square kilometres of mountain desert, tundra and taiga, nearly all of it on permafrost. The main river is the Kolyma, and the Kolyma Mountains and Chersky Range reach 2,337 metres. The Sea of Okhotsk off the coast is one of the most productive parts of the world's oceans. Snow sheep, reindeer, moose and brown bears live here, and bowhead whales visit the sea. The coast is milder than the interior.

Sport

Magadan's sporting life centres on its Palace of Sports. For lovers of long roads, the Kolyma Highway, a gravel route through mountains and permafrost all the way to the Lena, remains a real challenge.

Food & drink

Fishing is the region's second industry after gold mining, with pollock, herring, cod, salmon and crab caught in the Sea of Okhotsk. Sea fish and crab are the things to try in Magadan.

Practical information

There is no railway: visitors fly into Sokol Airport, named after Vladimir Vysotsky, and the seaport operates all year round. The R504 Kolyma Highway runs from Magadan to Nizhny Bestyakh opposite Yakutsk and has been a federal all-weather gravel road since 2008. Local time is Moscow plus 8 hours (UTC+11). The climate is subarctic, with long, very cold winters and a growing season of only about 100 days. The short summer is the best time to come.

What to see

• Mask of Sorrow — Ernst Neizvestny's memorial to victims of repression
• Kolyma Highway — a road across the permafrost from Magadan to the Lena
• Nagayev Bay — Magadan's gateway to the sea
• Holy Trinity Cathedral — the city's Orthodox cathedral, completed in 2008
• Magadan Regional Museum — the story of Kolyma and its peoples

Cities on the map

• Magadan 95,048