Kamchatka is the newest area on earth,save for a few islands, and has 15 active volcanoes, is snowbound most of the year,is bigger than California, with only 387,000 people – most of them in Petropavlovsk.

Major boiling points below:

About 100 miles away, over an ice or deep mud road,snowbound 11 months of the year, high into the mountains is a geothermal plant – to harness volcanic energy. Here is one of the buildings. Getting the power to the city is problematic.

A five hour climb brings you into a volcano that sometimes erupts . This is foul smelling hot sulfur gas escaping from the blowhole.One must walk carefully – sinking into the hot earth would turn your leg into charred bone instantly.

Back down in the valley – boiling mud bubbles out of the Earth everywhere – creating a beautiful,surreal scene.

Marketplaces are always a fascinating place to learn about local populations. Here in Vladivostok,Primorye the meat is fresh from the farm. ArcticTropic will have many locations throughout the Russian Far East – a vast land of adventure.

In the Far East Russian City of Khabarovsk were some dingy old Soviet era factories. The old motto in these places was “We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.””They” being Soviet slavemasters creating make-work factories to churn out shoddy useless products – and have shortages of such products. ArcticTropic leads adventure travelers to explore everyday life in distant points of the Earth.

In Petropavlovsk,Kamchatka a 50 meter high statue of Lenin keeps watch on the now booming port – off limits to outsiders in Communist times. There will be plenty more still shots and videos of Kamchatka and other Russian adventure destinations. On ArcticTropic there are two ways of reaching Russian listings – from both the European and Asian map entry points.