Kamchatka, Russia | Where the Salmon Rule, National Geographic Magazine: Motorcycle with Sidecar in Russia

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After about three days of travel in remote Kamchatka, you might come to a place in the north like Khailino where original inhabitants are indigenous. Dogs run wild in the street and this motorcycle is racing to where our helicopter landed to try to get this woman on for medical attention. Northern Kamchatka is a very different place than the one main city in the south.  Here, indigenous Koryak people and Russians came for “Northern money” when the Soviet Union wanted to tame the area. Income paid was eight times more than a similar job in Moscow, so some people figured out how to get all the necessary permits to work in these areas. When default happened, no one in these remote outposts received any salaries at all.  People made a living off salmon caviar and created fishing brigades and distribution systems. Living in a very small community of 700 residents, and the temperatures drop to –40° in the winter, everyone works hard to merely survive and are kind to each other.