Word: petropavlovsk
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...peninsula's capital, Petropavlovsk, founded in 1740 by Danish explorer Vitus Bering?Xfor whom the Bering Sea and Strait are named?Xis a morass of Soviet-style apartment blocks and potholed streets, incongruously framed by a mist-swathed harbor and snowcapped volcanoes. Its few hotels and restaurants are drab. Yet we found a certain eccentric charm in menus featuring "fern salad" and "boiled pieces of paste" for breakfast and "burning mussels with rice" and "cowberry drink" for dinner...
...first outing, to the 2,323-m Mutnovsky volcano, was a day's bumpy ride from Petropavlovsk in a six-wheel-drive bus. Rockslides blocked the road at one point, so we piled out, doing calisthenics to keep warm, while the vehicle roared and slid around the frozen lava. That night we camped at the foot of the volcano, in a meadow carpeted with yellow rhododendrons and crimson bearberries. While we hauled water from a freezing stream, Elena, our cook, served up meat stew, brown bread, fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, cheese and chocolates?Xone of many feasts...
...others curled up inside sleeping bags in a fetal position, trying to stay warm. The second day, we set off in drizzle, trekking up steep ice fields encrusted with ash. Soon it poured again. We crossed paths with a group of drenched Austrians. Only upon our return to Petropavlovsk did we discover that we had hiked seven hours through an 80-km/h storm. Nonetheless, the spectacle had been worth the effort: a vast crater licked by glaciers, steaming vents encrusted with yellow sulfur crystals, sputtering mudholes and a turquoise acidic lake...
...After a night's rest in Petropavlovsk, we set off by helicopter, briefly stopping by the Karymsky volcano, which, since its 1996 eruption, has been spewing ash into the air every 10 minutes or so with sinister rumbles. No wonder the native Itelmen people once thought the volcanoes were inhabited by gomuls?Xghosts that roasted whales over huge bonfires, sending forth clouds of smoke and rivers of boiling fat. After camping by the Sestryonka River, we hiked through birch forests and fields of wild purple irises to the Valley of Geysers...
After a night's rest in Petropavlovsk, we set off by helicopter, briefly stopping by the Karymsky volcano, which, since its 1996 eruption, has been spewing ash into the air every 10 minutes or so, with sinister rumbles. No wonder the native Itelmen people once thought the volcanoes were inhabited by gomuls--ghosts who roasted whales over huge bonfires, sending forth clouds of smoke and rivers of boiling fat. After camping by the Sestryonka River, we hiked through birch forests and fields of wild purple irises to the Valley of Geysers...