Delayed in Provideniya

We arrived in Provideniya on Monday evening, and anchored in the port yesterday (Tuesday) at 7am. The immigration process was long but completed around middle of the day. Customs, however, took an additional 24 hours – in fact we’ve just been told that we can go into Provideniya this afternoon, with passports and a border patrol check.

This is a deep water port town in a fjord that opens to the Bering Sea. It was established in 1938 as a Soviet military site – in it’s heyday, there were around 8,000 people here, including at the military base on one side of the harbour. The military base looks to be deserted, although no-one really knows if this is actually the case!

It was once the Soviet Union’s eastern “Gateway to the Arctic” and as a major port on the Northern Sea Route, it was common to have 500 ships visiting each year.

The town is now home for about 2,000 people, predominantly public servants –buildings look to be utilitarian, with panels of various colours of an alcobond-like material used to protect from the extreme Siberian weather and to add colour. A very tall and old brick smoke-stack rises above the main buildings, and the town includes a school, hospital and museum, and we have been told, a very good bakery!

Steep mountains surround the fjord, some have small patches of snow amongst the gravelly rock surface. When we arrived yesterday they were covered by low clouds, and it was raining with the temperature a balmy 8°C, a big change from the cold dry Arctic weather we’ve enjoyed over the last 4 weeks. The grey weather seemed to fit with the greyness of the port and the buildings, other than those with splotches of colour – in fact it was how I imagined this town to be.

We are in an area that is surrounded by the Beringia National Park – two Park managers, Oxana and Natasha, joined us yesterday and gave us a presentation on the parks systems across Russia. It will be good to see even a tiny part of this tomorrow. I’ve decided to stay on the ship for the afternoon and look forward to seeing even a small part of this tomorrow.

Then tomorrow night, as we sail towards Anadyr, we’ll be packing up and preparing to leave from there on Friday morning – arriving in Anchorage on Thursday evening (due to the dateline change).

Since the email system on the ship shuts down later this evening, my next post will be from Anchorage or somewhere along the way home. I’m also working away on photos and look forward to being able to share the first round of these with you soon!