Lavrentiya
11th April 2006
E-mails have been received from both Karl and Dimitri, still in Lavrentiya (population 1200). It would appear that within the next day or two a federal judge will decide if and when this case will be brought to court. The charge will be entering the country at a none authorised entry point. They have a local lawyer to defend them and also a translator. Some of their possessions have been returned to them, including their passports (unstamped). However, all their electrical equipment, as well as skis, poles, dry suits, underwater gloves and sled have been retained for examination. These will be examined by experts as part of the current investigation. K and D state that they are OK and get lovely home-made meals from their friend Father Leonid, the Orthodox priest who gave them a place to stay. They have managed to find a radio station from Anadyr that plays a mixture of Russian/ US rap and rock which helps to pass the time. They are progressively learning Russian in order to be able to adapt to their new surroundings, relying heavily on a phrase book and dictionary borrowed from the local library.
The map shows their starting point on Cape Prince of Wales (W), the landing point near Uelen and their location now at Lavrentiya (L).
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Someone told me this, and I thought to share it, in case anyone has a sense of humor:
If Dimitri and Karl were sentenced to hard labor in Siberia, they would comment to their superiors: “Hey, this is easy compared to what we have had to endure in the last couple of months.”
Anyway, their arrest has increased the publicity and awareness of their expedition — which was astonishingly minimal beforehand — by at least ten-fold. All this publicity will help assure the two will be treated very gently.
Wishing Karl and Dimitri all the best, in every sense.
free loading in russia? or are they paying for there meals?
If they get tired of listening to Russian radio they can tune in KOTZ, the station I work for. We are at 720 AM. My news is on at 9:00, 13:00, and 17:30. I have followed their crossing and detention on the news.
We’re in Kotzebue, Alaska, about 110 miles linear from Lavrentiya.
WHEW!!!!!!!
CHARGES ARE DROPPED! YAY!!
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/04/12/freetravellers.shtml
Good luck on the second half of your journey!
It’s not the time for celebration yet. The fact that CRIMINAL CHARGES were dropped is known for a few days. That means they won’t be charged with illegal entry to the country and won’t be convicted for 5 years. But the ADMINISTRATIVE CHARGES, e.g. crossing the border at a non-authorised entry point, remains and will be decided by the court tomorrow. If they are found guilty, they will be fined AND MAY BE EXPELLED from the country. So the crucial decision will be taken tomorrow
No free loading. They are paying for all food and accomodation.
congrats on the successful crossing and good luck with the legal process. Sounds like you are taking the right steps upon arrival (aside from the handgun…) Both of you have picked an interesting way to learn russian, but I’m sure you’ll be fluent by the time you walk your way out. Let’s hope for that and I’ll have a drink on behalf of you two international criminals. I look forward to reading your book.
Brad
Seattle, WA
Sorry, I realise now I jumped the gun a bit on my *whoop*. I will bring it back out the second I hear the good news that the journey is a real bona fide go. Thanks for the clarification uh, “jeanne#2″.
Keith, was your son as focused and tenacious growing up? Congratulations on Karl’s achievement.
Jeanne, that was me to clarify.. I wanted to adress the message to you, but was too drunk and failed to choose the right field in the form
If there is an upside to this delay it has to be the increased media coverage of your journey. I had never heard of the Goliath Expedition before, but am now very interested, after having seen articles on BBC and CBC online. They mentioned your site, so I looked it up. Hopefully the outcome will be good, and the increased media interest will help sponsorship.
The suspence - the suspence!
How about bestowing Freedom of the City for everywhere they pass through in Russia!
ITV say it may be £165 fine - they may have to miss out chips for a month to pay that!
Hull beckons you Karl
http://www.newsru.com/russia/14apr2006/chukk.html
The situation looks very bad. They will be expelled from the country. Here, in Russia, money can make almost anything. But now everything can become harder
I think that K and D have 10 days to appeal now.
The russians better let them stay or it would be some very bad PR for them.
It would be very sad if Karl couldn’t complete his journey, but still what he pulled off so far is very impressive :).
Uh oh. My piece of advice is that they’d better try to fix the papers while they’re still there, and than arrange it so, that they are expelled by crossing the border somewhere in Provideniya airport, for instance, and then immediately check-in back. But they need a permission to stay in the restricted area, wich Chukotka is, in fact. And they have to talk to people. It’s a big mistake that is typical for the Western in Russia. If you feel that you’re right, don’t shout about that and don’t appeal for a public hearing. If you say you’re right, even if you are, you make people angry, and they decide your fate. It is they who decide. You’ve got to talk to them personally, ask them, persuade them. Maybe even bribe them
It’s called “to arrange” sometning. If I were in Karl’s shoes, I’d go to the local mayor or FSB head, and I would ask him to understand the circumstances and I’d ask him, what he can advise.
Vassilij said:
“I think that K and D have 10 days to appeal now.”
They need to appeal in region center, in Magadan few hundred kilometers west from Lavrentiya. They can’t do it.
And nobody return they unregisterd revolver. Carrying pistols is prohibited in Russia. They can use hunter gun, but it is hard to take a permission. And GPS is a problem too. Everybody use it in Russia without any order, but it is illegal.
“… in Magadan …”
In Anadyr, of course…
try to give this trouble a meaning: probably u both had needed a rest!
have a mzing trip!all italyis reading aout u!
Just heard an item on UK national news(!) about Karl’s expulsion from Russia. This may seem naive but is there someone we could all email or write to to support Karl’s case and/or support his cause?
All countries have rules
All countries have authorities to apply those rule
All countries have strong and sensible people to apply dispensation appropriately
The international community is watching for acknowledgement of a historical human achievement that dissolves political boundaries
if you entered american with an unregistered fire-arm you would be charged with a felony and thrown into a real jail. they are lucky and should be grateful.
Maybe you should see deportation and the end of your journey as good news. Go find Catty! (Havent read about her since your last visit to Colombia. Did something happen?) Otherwise you’ll regret it forever
With all the attention this is getting, has anyone considered a letter writing campaign to the russian government. Here’s a link to an english send a letter to Putin page that goes to the presidential directorate. http://www.kremlin.ru/eng/articles/send_letter_Eng1a.shtml. maybe if enough people raise a stink…..
I suggest NO letter writing campaign. To walk from Siberia’s east edge…to England…would be — in itself — one of the most difficult walks in history. Sure, Karl has the best track record, but he is a mortal human being.
If we all campaigned for him to do this, and he harmed his health (or worse) on his last leg, we would all feel bad that we contributed to this.
Let’s all wish him the best, on every level of his life. And root for him, whatever he does. And help him. But we have to remember the incredible difficulty of this kind of walking.
God has saved Karl a few times, but let’s not push it…
Good luck lads, gently gently with the Russians.
Have only just discovered this site after hearing about this trek while in Canada a few months ago. Thi is an incredible attempt and i wish all the best Karl.
You are now bookmarked and i will be checking in often.
All the best, stick with it, you guys are inspirational
Brett
I don’t get it why such hype around the issue. I’m sure that during the American leg of his trip Karl did not try to crawl into the US under the fence but legally entered the territiory at a checkpoint. Imagine if he DID enter the US illegally. The US authorities would rise absolutely the same fuss as did the Russians, and would be absolutely right to do so. No country in the world can afford to neglect it’s border security. Karl should consider himself lucky the consequences are this mild, in case of breaching US security he might’ve ended up in Guantanamo Bay prison or something.
In fact, I have a strong impression that we are witnessing a little plot — Dimitry, who by a strange coincidence has a Russian name, being a local at the border region and undoubtedly knowing how to create tension, helped Karl to hype up his trip, which otherwise would be absolutely unnoticed by the media and therefore was becoming a disaster.
If this is the case, a million dollar for a book of memoirs “How I escaped the Russian barbarian man-eating coastal-guards from KGB” will prove a nice cushion for the bruised sense of self-importance.
Is this guy above me nuts? Half a million people enter the US illegally every year…probably more, actually. None of them end up at Guantanamo. They are working at Wal-Mart and picking vegetables.
A plot is afoot because one guy has a name that can be considered Russian? I don’t think “Reality Bites” understands why Karl is doing this walk. If he wanted to make a bundle of money he certainly could have found better ways to do it. As far as hype goes, I don’t think you can call it hype. Even in Alaska it gets very little attention.
There are no KGB border guards. And I don’t think any publisher is going to write these guys a check for a million bucks because they were deported from Russia.
The border guards are from KGB, actually :)) Border Guard used to be one of KGB’s departments; during Yeltsin’s times it was independent, and Putin has subordinated them to FSB, wich is the new name for KGB.
reality bites might be nuts, but he is correct. In the U.S.A. it is a felony to have an unregistered fire-arm, and unlike russia(from what I gather from this incident) you will be put in a real jail for carrying such, be it if you are illigal or not a legal citizen.
Also there is a movement to make it a felony in this country for being here without proper paper work. Either way, if you are here in the usa illigally and get caught you will be deported.
International borders and laws are easy to find on the internet. Yes paper works sucks, but people do manage to visit forigen countries without being arrested, even if there entry points are non-standard. On a side note why else would you tell everyone what you are doing, and beg for sponsors instead of getting a “real job” unless it was about the money. Book deals, radio interviews, newspaper reports, give me a break. Folks in Alaska do all sorts of unworldly human feats, crawl home, throw back a shot of scotch, and maybe, and I mean maybe, they tell there friends of there deeds after the bottle gets near empty. It’s not what you talk about doing, its not even what you do, its the style you do it in, and part of that style involves not self-promoting oneself. So the next time Karl puts on fifty-pounds will he keep it on, this time? I can see it now, covering a bar stool with his behind, begging beers for tales of when he walked around the world, not for money(because he didn’t except any-not!!!). That said, Karl good job, and sorry that you now have to find gainful employment….
Actually, both reality bites and been there are only partially correct. Not all illegals that are detained by law enforcement are deported. The US simply does not have the funding or man power to do this. If there are no wants or warrants the majority of the time ICE directs local law enforcement to let the illegal go. With regards to firearms, there is no national law requireing firearms registration. An individual cursory background check is required for all dealer sales, but is NOT required in most places for private party sales. In alaska you can carry a weapon openly at any time, and after a recent change in laws, even concealed with our a permit. Personally, I would have ditched the gun once in Russia, but hindsight is always 20/20.With regards to the FSB, I have had the opportunity to work with them on one occasion in the Bering, and I found them to be rag tag and highly unprofessional. You all really should know or research what you put on here or you’ll just hurt your credibility and cloud a sticky issue further.
“Been there” is wrong in stating that it is a felony to have an unregistered firearm in the US. There is no federal law that requires the registration of firearms. I have four unregistered guns myself.
The pair was not arrested by border guards in Uelen, but by regular army soldiers. The closest FSB is in Providenija, 450 km away.
true true enough, though there has been a large push of late to make all illegal entrance to america a felony, that is in north america, i mean, the usa. laws in america are not always enforced, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a law. take j-walking for one. smot potting for another. just because they don’t deport illgals doesn’t mean they don’t have the legal right to, which in most cases they do. cubans get special treatment, but haven’t seen any boat people coming to the northland of late.
when one considers that in russia it is illegal to own a gps unit in some places, one does wonder what there take is on illegals with firearms?
Question: If Karl had gotten stranded on the Russia side of the International Date Line (in the middle of the Bering Strait) — who would he have called to get a helicopter ride? Would the Alaskan helicopter guys have gone across the Date Line (which is also the border) to get him? Or did he have the phone number of some Russia helicopter service?
Gundu is thinking of the “exclusive economic zone”, mirroring the date line, not the russian border. The U.S. (and many other countries) only recognize 12 miles out to sea as territorial. Anything past that is international water, although most countries do claim 200 miles from shore for the above mentioned EEZ for natural resources. And been there is incorrect again. Cubans do not receive special treatment UNLESS they reach shore. If the Coast Guard or ICE intercepts them at sea, they are returned to Cuba (repatriated). And there is a steady stream of attempts to cross, they just don’t make news unless force is necessary to halt them. Again, if you are going to post something as fact, please do your research.
or if the cubans reach a piling for a bridge, didn’t know I needed to point out the obvious
Has anyone looked into…the 2 men who crossed the Bering Strait on skis (Siberia to Alaska) in 1998? They would have had a similar problem as Karl — reaching USA at a point other than an official entry point.
Did they get in trouble with USA? Had they received special permission from USA…to enter at the west-Alaska point?
How they were handled by USA…might be useful information to share with the Russians.
One thing that seems to have gotten lost here is that Karl and Dmitri not only didn’t get an entry stamp in their passports, they also did not get the necessary permit to enter Chukotka, which IS still considered a sensitive border area. It takes 40 days to receive the permit and is relatively simple to get - you write a letter to the local administration with a copy of your passport and Russian visa. The local administration then passes it on to the FSB and waits for the approval. It would seem that Karl’s support team would have contacted someone Russian speaking to handle this (a travel agency, for example?) or at least notified the local administration to get their help dealing with the FSB.
Also, despite the non-federal nature of US gun laws, I think you can all safely assume that anyone caught illegally crossing the US border with an unregistered firearm would be jailed regardless of which state he/she arrived in. The same would be true in the UK. I find the press coverage of this story where blame is consistently placed on Russian bureaucracy and red tape to be entirely unfair (and I’m not Russian).
That said, I hope the Russian court shows mercy and lets Karl return immediately upon getting his papers in order.
Just to shed some light on the gun situation. The handgun they came ashore with had been part of their anti-bear protection. They had had a shotgun but this had been dropped into the sea some time before along with a lot of their equipment to lighten the load. They came ashore near Uelen with the intention of making contact with the authorities and handing the handgun in. They could have saved themselves some bother by throwing it away when they reached the coast however that would not have been the correct thing to do. the authorities after initial inquiries obviously saw this and have not pursued this particular infringement.
Dybrom: if you visit Chukotka for business, leisure, or to visit a relative, etc. — it may be possible to get a permit. However, if you say you will be walking across the ice at the Bering Strait, and entering Chukotka there…you will be forever denied a permit.
40 days? You won’t get a permit in 40 years. Just ask the Ice Challenger Expedition, and other expeditions.
And if they clearly deny you, and you cross the ice anyway, then you will see much bigger trouble than Karl found.
Some say, “Oh, Karl should have done this, or that.” But things have worked out for Karl amazingly well, considering what he was up against.
Dear Goliath, this is David. Wow a 72 dollar fine! That’s harsh, no wonder you are appealing. If it does not work out, I will be happy to send you 22 dollars, and perhaps you can also get help from the local elders in Chukotka. It would only take their monthly pension to cover the remaining 50. I am sure they are deeply concerned about your situation and would love to help.
Heard that Karl is thinking of getting married.
Karl, if you ponder the possible dangers of walking across Siberia, and contemplate the possible perils of marriage, methinks you will choose Siberia.
Think this is a joke? Just ask some married men.
You think South America was difficult? And the Bering Strait? You have no idea…
A man is never complete until he is married. Then he is finished.
Robert: I know people that have done expeditions (i.e. not arriving by normal channels) and had no problems getting the permit. It takes a couple months maximum, but less in practice. They only deny you if your a fellon or a known spy or something.
Dybrom, where are you located, that you know so much? Karl could have used the info you have. And many other expeditions too.
Why did expeditions like Ice Challenger get such firm denials (come and we will immediately arrest you with copters)? They seemed to be upstanding folks, not spies or felons.
Trying to get a hold of Karl. Want to write about him in Men’s Journal mag in the US. I walked with him a few years ago through Lake Havasu in 124 degree heat. IT was hell, fun hell, but hell. INteresting to see the hell he is in now.
Let me know if anyone has spoken with his family or if there is a way to call to where he is in Russia…anyone know? email me with any details: shanti@shantisos.com
Supporting Ernest original idea:-
EMAIL TO
http://www.kremlin.ru/eng/articles/send_letter_Eng1a.shtml
Be polite!
Karl’s literary agent here. All that silly stuff about million-dollar book deals. For the record. I secured him a much, much more modest deal with Time Warner three years ago when nobody had ever heard of him, because I read his diaries on the web, really believed in what he was doing - and managed to convince the guys at Time Warner as well. With the money from the book Karl could afford to buy the specialist equipment he needed to cross the Bering Strait, but no more. One of my proudest moments is to think that I actually helped someone like Karl to achieve his aim - as without the book money he couldn’t have afforded to make the crossing.
If you read the book (GIANT STEPS - you can get it on Amazon), you’ll know that he set off with a borrowed £500 in his pocket and no sponsorship over seven years ago and has often survived by eating whatever he found on the side of the road. That’s not my idea of a get-rich-quick scheme!