I have never done such posts before, but on the last day of the outgoing year, I decided to tell you about important events for me that have happened in the last three hundred and sixty-five days of my life. Unfortunately, I haven't written anything here for a long time — a lot of interesting events happened, and I just didn't have time to tell and show everything, so this post is not only a summary, but also some kind of announcement for the future.
Despite the global pandemic, I managed to travel, although my two planned trips to Turkey were canceled, and I did not get on a short trip to Serbia due to lack of time. So this year I mostly had travels in Russia, but still not only.
One of the first big trips of this year was a trip to the north of Russia: in our car we got from Moscow to Teriberka — a village in the Murmansk region on the shores of the Barents Sea. Approximately 5,500 kilometers round trip.
Sunset on the beach "Dinosaur eggs" near the end point of the trip - Teriberka. Despite the bad weather, the sun still appeared in the evening.
The road to Teriberka ran through many interesting places.
For example, the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery on the shore of Lake Siverskoye, within the town of Kirillov, Vologda region.
And this is the Kizhi Museum-Reserve — a masterpiece of Russian wooden architecture. On the way to it, we flew off the road, and later at sunset without skis or snowshoes we tried to get along the frozen Onega Lake closer to the island on which the Kizhi Museum was located, and got a little stuck in the snow :)
A little later, having bought snowshoes, we moved to Kandalaksha town, Murmansk region. We climbed the Volosyanaya hill with its strange snow-covered fir trees twisted in the wind. We arrived there in March, the snow was already melting and the tree branches were beginning to bare. I'll tell you a secret: we decided to return there in February 2022 and live for a few days right at the top and try to see the northern lights over completely snow-covered trees.
Well, this year we saw the northern lights in the small port near the village of Ura-Guba in the Murmansk region.
We returned back through the Arkhangelsk region. This is the Church of St. John Chrysostom near the town of Kargopol.
Last winter, we did not forget to travel around the neighborhood close to home. Winter fog is beautiful even in the absence of sunlight.
New Jerusalem Monastery in the Istra town, Moscow Region, which was founded in 1656 by Patriarch Nikon. Cold but beautiful!
I really like to play board games, and this spring I began to learn how to paint miniatures. Playing with painted figures is more interesting, and creativity gives new emotions!
In the summer we went to Suzdal, an ancient town in the Vladimir region with many well-preserved old churches.
And on the way back we stopped at the village of Bogolyubovo to look at one of my favorite churches — the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl. We saw a beautiful sunset there.
Three of my photographs this summer were featured in an open-air exhibition dedicated to the beautiful island of Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands that we visited a couple of years ago. It was nice to remember this trip.
Our search squad "Soyuz" continued to search for planes that crashed during the World War II. At this place, near the village of Barsuki in the Kaluga region, a long-range IL-4 bomber crashed. Three crew members were killed, one survived and was taken prisoner.
One of the main events and trips of this year was the longest expedition in my life. Also in Russia, about seven weeks of flights: Moscow, Khabarovsk, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Anadyr and several small settlements, almost the entire ALSIB route along which the Lendlease aircraft flew from the Bering Strait to Baikal.
I saw these places as part of a joint expedition of the Russian Geographical Society, the Center for Contemporary History and the Ministry of Defense of Russia. The purpose of the expedition was to survey the airfields of the air route between Alaska (USA) and the USSR, built and launched in 1942.
On this huge Mi-26 helicopter, we flew about 8000 kilometers.
The expedition began on the Chukotka Peninsula, the farthest point of the route in Russia was the village of Novoye Chaplino. This is the real end of the earth where Eskimo whalers live.
And in this photo you can see the village of Tomtor in the Oymyakonsky ulus of Yakutia region. Not far from there is Oymyakon, one of the "Poles of Cold". The officially recognized minimum temperature recorded by the Oymyakon meteorological station is -67.7°C.
We were there on September 1st and it was about 10 degrees below zero at night. It was not very warm in the tent :) I took a lot of photos there. I will tell you more about this expedition later.
After a long break, I started playing the Splinterlands game again and started drawing again. I drew such a lion for the Splinterlands contest.
The next mini-expedition this year took me to the shores of the Barents Sea again. We examined the current state of the Russky Lighthouse on Bolshoy Oleniy Island, Murmansk Oblast. Instead of two planned days, the expedition lasted for a week — for several days the weather did not allow to go to the open sea.
And in early December, 
The year ended unexpectedly not in Russia — we went to Egypt to go on a dive safari in the north of the Red Sea. We saw many underwater beauties ...
... and underwater inhabitants. Thousands of colorful fish, moray eels, and even several times we met dolphins.
And most importantly, I finally fulfilled my dream and saw the wrecked ship SS Thistlegorm. Here is
It has been an interesting year. More details will come later :)
Until then ...
Happy New Year 2022 everyone! May it bring only positive emotions to all of us, give us the opportunity to travel freely again, may we jointly triumph in the fight against viruses. Let everything will be alright!
It's better to watch photos in high resolution.
Camera: OLYMPUS E-M1 Mark II, OLYMPUS OM-D E-M5 Mark II, DJI Mavic 2 Pro and my smartphone :)
You can also see my photos in my blog LJ and in my profile on NatGeo. You can read a short interview with me here.
