Culture exchange is what we intend to do

Yesterday I recieved a Christmas card from my Finish friend Rainer K. Lampinen. He is a very active person. A great photographer (www.panoramicimages.fi). A great public worker. He is Chairmen of Finish-Turkic Association. Just as a joke his non-profit organization established a very small and modest photo gallery - Underground Photo Gallery. After 2.5 years it became very popular in Finland.

Let's make flashback. Four years ago I worked on www.arctictravel-yakutia.com, the website of Arctic Travel company. At that time the site aquired popularity among international Internet users, because it had English version. Now this resource, unfortunately, doesn't exist anymore, we lost domain, just because a hosting company couldn't accept online payment made by our Visa card issued in Yakutsk. Whatever. Sometimes a debit card (even Visa) doesn't work well.

So I posted many pictures of Yakutia on www.arctictravel-yakutia.com. There was Evgenia Arbugaeva's collection as well. Rainer K. Lampinen saw her works. He liked them and immediately proposed her to come to Findland and have her first abroad photo exhibition in Helsinki. That event happened and had a great success. I even wrote an article about her breakthrough for Molodezh Yakutii Newspaper three years ago.

So I was happy to hear from Rainer K. Lampinen again. He is so active. Many projects he launched, many events he initiated. He may serve as a great example for all public workers, including me, certainly. I sent him my own Christmas card. He replied me quickly.

He wrote "If you need I can send one of my art photo exhibition to your country. "

Hm-m-m. Sounds great!

"And we can exhibit art photos from Sakha Republic if somebody might be interested in," he added.

Oh, we have many talanted photographers. We are always ready to promote them abroad. That's what Sakha World XXI Century activity is about. Cultural exchange is what we intend to do.

The way to go! Let's see what we may do together in the near future.

Merry Christmas!

Sincere and cordial greetings with these really precious holiday.
Wish all the best to you, dear site visitors, your family, beloved and relatives!
Let the upcoming year be happy and healthy, prosperous and victorious, and, certainly, full of exciting, delightful, remarkable events. Let your cherished dreams come true.
Good luck in 2007!

P.S. Right now we have -40°C (feels like -48°C). Tomorrow, on Christmas, it's gonna be -37°C (high), -42°C (low). Cold again. Just a few days ago Yakutians happened to enjoy warm weather with minus 20 Degrees centigrade. Can you imagine such quick temperature change? That was surprise even to us.

Links I found

Yakutia - land of diamonds, frosts and mysteries
Quote: "Many know Yakutia (Republic Sakha) only as a spot on world maps and do not even guess that it's the coldest inhabited place on earth, rich in diamonds and legends..."
Comment: Absolutely. I agree.

A case study: Nomadic schooling of the indigenous Evenk children in Yakutia
About: An Yakutian student Sargylana Zhirkova's master thesis in indigenous studies is freely available in the digital library of the University in Tromso (Northern Norway).
Comment: Look very very interesting.

YAKUTIA: Mark Chorzempa's world adventure
About: Mark is a biker. Last posts he wrote are dedicated to Yakutia. He traveled from Magadan border through the Kolyma road, the Verkhoyansk range, Yakutsk to the south part of the republic.
Comment: Oh, that was him whom Krasnoyarsk drivers saw somewhere in the Verkhoyansk range last August. By the way, our interns has translated the story about off-road adventure on the route Krasnoyask - Yakutsk - Magadan for YakutiaToday.Com .

Viva Mr. ZUEV! & Local Peculiarity of Public Work

It is astonishing! There are many locals who deserve international audience's attention and actually wish to see information about themselves, works or activity on YakutiaToday.Com. To reach verbal understanding with them is easy. They say 'Certainly, I (or we) would like to cooperate with you. This is in my interest.' They even ensure me not to worry about translation into English, for they can translate texts themselves or with someone's assistant. 'Everything will be cool,' they say and disappear (in a literal sense).

As time goes by, I arrive at a conclusion that the reached agreement is not the reason to stop reminding about promised materials. Everything might happen. Busy work schedule. Absence of time to gather data. Hardship with writing in English. Laziness. And, by the way, public service is what may wait. Many obstacles to find. Besides, I am not sinful. I have almost the same troubles. THAT'S THE VERY PECULIARITIES OF PUBLIC WORK IN HERE. That's why we experience difficulties from time to time with updating the site demanded by Internet users very strongly according to the web statistics.

However, there are exceptions. The last one is Alexei Zuev whose hobby is photographing. He had been living in Yakutia for a long time. But a few years ago he moved to Kaluga, West Russia. Nevertheless, he comes to the republic regularly for a short trip around the republic.

Several months ago I happened to acquaint with Alexei. I told him about the Internet-project. He liked it sincerely and said, 'Sure, I will collaborate with you. But I have to go back to Kaluga! Let's do it on my next trip.' Here we go. Another promise I hear. 'He will certainly forget about our talk,' I thought. But he didn't. Two days ago Alexei appeared at my work place. Smiling. 'Do you remember me?' he asked.

You know what? He gave me a bunch of perfect photographs taken during his travel across Yakutia. Mountains, taiga, reindeer breeders, Lena Pillars, Yakut horses, hunting, fishing, rivers - Lena and Tokko - and many other northern features found reflection in his pictures. I cannot but wait for weekend to edit and display them on the site.

The first year of the site's existence is coming to the end. And here is my point. YakutiaToday.Com is volunteers' project. Nobody is obliged to work with us. It is all about good will and sacrificed time. Sounds like pathos. But that's reality.
P.S. The first portion of Mr. Zuev's pictures have been already posted. Check his gallery.

Blog must live

Hello, web-site visitors!

Here we are. Since now we have YakutiaToday.Com Editor's blog. Hope to make the site more interactive and attractive thanks to Google's endeavours. And do believe you, dear site visitors, will help our team to improve the Internet resource dedicated to the biggest and coldest Russian region.

Just curious. What do you think about YakutiaToday.Com? Like it or not?

Best Regards,
Bolot.