Moscow news
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13-May-2007
Snowstorm separates two travelers in Chukotka
ANADYR, May 13 (Itar-Tass) -- A heavy snowstorm separated travelers Karl Bushby and Dimitri Kieffer who travel on skis across Chukotka. Late on Friday, Kieffer alone came to the finish site -- the village of Amguema, a source at the traveler's headquarters in Seattle, the U.S., told Itar-Tass on Saturday.
Kieffer and Bushby lost each other about two days before, and Kieffer was the first to come to Amguema to wait for his companion.
Kieffer said Bushby had navigations means and food reserves for several days.
Kieffer reported about his whereabouts to the Russian Emergencies Ministry's regional department, saying to rescuers that Bushby had not yet come, but there was no reason to worry.
The travelers went out together from the village of Neshkan on April 28. They changed their initial plans and decided not to go to the village of Nutepelmen on the Chukotka cost. The travelers went a shorter route to the village of Amguema. They planned to go almost 200 kilometres across the desert tundra in two-three weeks.
Bushby and Kieffer resumed their travel this year, starting out from Uelen on April 12. Precisely in the village border guards stopped them last spring. U.S. citizen Kieffer and British citizen Bushby came to Chukotka from Alaska across the Bering Strait, bypassing customs and border guard control and having no special permission.
They could be expelled from the country and banned from visiting Russia for five years. But the district court took into consideration all the circumstances and ruled only to impose a fine on them. The travelers can finish the launched expeditions. Kieffer plans to go on skis to Magadan and from there to go by a bicycle to Europe. Bushby plans to finish his travel on foot around the world and return to Britain. He began the travel in South America in 1998.
Itar Tass