The R504 Kolyma Highway (Russian: Федеральная автомобильная дорога «Колыма», Federal'naya Avtomobil'naya Doroga «Kolyma», "Federal Automobile Highway 'Kolyma'"), part of the M56 route, is a road through the Russian Far East. It connects Magadan with the town of Nizhny Bestyakh, located on the eastern bank of the Lena River, opposite of Yakutsk. At Nizhny Bestyakh the Kolyma Highway connects to the Lena Highway.
The Kolyma Highway has been colloquially called the Road of Bones (Russian: Дорога КостейDoróga Kostéy).[1][2] Locally, the road is known as the Kolyma Route (Russian: Колымская трассаKolýmskaya trássa).
History
Road constructionA ZIS-6 Lorry in 1938The Kolyma is paved 159 km. from Yakutsk (Nizhny Bestyakh) to Churapcha.The road today near Magadan. Paving extends over the 159 km nearest to Magadan; elsewhere the road mainly comprises gravel.
The Dalstroy construction directorate built the Kolyma Highway during the Soviet Union's Stalinist era. Inmates of the Sevvostlag labour camp started the first stretch in 1932, and construction continued with the use of gulag labour until 1953.
It has been widely claimed that an estimated[by whom?] 250,000–1,000,000 imprisoned labourers[3][better source needed] who died while constructing it were laid beneath or around the road, although documented sources have yet to confirm this with evidence of remains.[4][page needed] As the road is built on permafrost, the popular rumor spread through western and dissident accounts is that interment into the fabric of the road was deemed more practical than digging new holes to bury the bodies of the dead.[5][need quotation to verify]
Records indicate 10,251 people died in the Kolyma region prison system in 1938[6] from various official causes, mainly disease. The CIA's initial 1950's estimate of 3 million victims is stated to be flawed in Martin Bollinger's book on Kolyma prison labor.[7] Norman Polmar's review of that book refers to 130,000 deaths.[8]
Present
In 2008, the road was granted Federal Road status and is now a frequently maintained all-weather gravel road.
When the road was upgraded, the route was changed to bypass the section from Kyubeme to Kadykchan via Tomtor, and instead pass from Kyubeme to Kadykchan via a more northern route through the town of Ust-Nera. The old 420 km section via Tomtor was largely unmaintained; the 200 km section between Tomtor and Kadykchan was completely abandoned.[9] This section is known as the Old Summer Road, and has fallen into disrepair, with washed-out bridges and sections of road reclaimed by streams in summer. During winter, frozen rivers may assist river crossings. Old Summer Road remains one of the great challenges for adventuring motorcyclists and 4WDers.
The area is extremely cold during the winter. The town of Oymyakon, approximately 100 km from the highway, is believed to be the coldest inhabited place on earth.[10] The average low temperature in Oymyakon in January is −50°C.[11] In 2020, a teenage motorist froze to death by following Google Maps directions to use the shorter but abandoned section of the road via Tomtor, on which his car broke down, and his surviving travel mate lost most of his limbs due to frostbite.[12]
on the Indigirka River, east: several mining towns, Artyk town, headwaters of the Nera River, 1,452 m (4,760 ft) pass
alternative:
(Old Summer Road route) 155 km (100 mi) northeast to Tomtor, 250 km (160 mi) road northeast (may not be passable except when frozen), into Magadan Oblast
There is also a scenic shortcut from Magadan to Susuman via Ust-Omchug called the Tenkinskaya Trassa, which receives a lot less heavy traffic than the main section of the M56 between Magadan and Susuman.
Distances: Yakutsk to Khandyga 380 km (240 mi), on to Kyubeme 320 km (200 mi), to Kadykchan (via Tomtor) 420 km (260 mi), Kadykchan to Susuman 90 km (60 mi), Susuman to Magadan 630 km (390 mi). From Kyubeme to Kadykchan north via Ust-Nera (the new, maintained section) is about 650 km (400 mi).
As of the summer of 2010, the Old Summer Road via Tomtor was still passable to motorcycles and 4×4s.
Road to Chukotka
The Anadyr Highway project from the Kolyma Highway to Anadyr in Chukotka passes Omsukchan, Omolon, and Ilirney with branch roads to Bilibino and Egvekinot, involving construction of 1,800 kilometres (1,100 mi) of road.[16] The construction of the first 50 kilometers of the road started in 2012.
^Hochschild, Adam (2003) [1994]. "17: Beyond the Pole Star". The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 237. ISBN9780547524979. Retrieved 14 June 2017. "Secret police authorities in Kolyma today say there are records - sometimes a complete file, sometimes just a name on a list - of two million men and women who were shipped to the territory between 1930 and the mid-1950s. But no one knows, even approximately, how many of these prisoners died. Even historians who have spent years studying Kolyma come up with radically different numbers. I asked four such researchers, who between them have written or edited more than half a dozen books on the gulag, what was the total Kolyma death toll. One estimated it at 250,000, another at 300,000, one at 800,000, and one at 'more than 1,000,000.'"
Bloom, L. R., and Vince, A. E. (2006) Mondo enduro: the ultimate adventure on two wheels – 44,000 miles in 400 days, Findon: RippingYarns.com, ISBN1-904466-28-1
Documentary *** GOLD*** - lost in Siberia[2] was filmed in the summer of 1993 in Magadan, and along the Road of Bones, through Ust-Omchug and Susuman to the Sverovostok Zoloto gold mine, Siberia, by the first foreign film crew ever, visiting the Kolyma District -which had been under control of the Soviet secret service, under the company name Dalstroj, for over 60 years.
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