8:00 breakfast. Packing of equipment & personal belongings. Final round of instructions, test drives, equipment check. From now on we encounter the real North.
10:00 The adventure begins! We start our snowmobile expedition to the plateau of Manpupuner towards the Mansi settlement of Ushma. We cross several mountain rivers - Vizhay, Toshemka, etc. This time of the year we can cross by wading.
The string of the snowmobile tour route passes on the empty cross-country road. The first part of our route comes to an end in the national Mansi settlement Ushma (60 km ride). A few houses hidden deep into taiga on both coasts of Lozva River clearly resemble traditional "huts on chicken legs" from Russian national fairytales.
One of the sights of the area are remains of the USSR's first GULAG camp, the settlement where the released prisoners lived. Now abandoned it produces an oppressing impression: the destroyed houses, the abandonded farmyard and a heap of the bent metal.
13:00 – 13:30. Lunch (hot tea, sandwiches, sweets).
We pass the Mansi settlement and drive down the river towards Ilyich's base further, on a snow-covered taiga. Today we reach a yurt of the Mansi family, Sambindalovy, who are living in the solitude of a jungle of Northern Urals at the sacred lake Turvat. During the second half of a day snowriders cross the frozen Auspiya and Lozva Rivers, swamps that are impassable in the summer, pass on forest roads and hunting tracks, moving along the Main Ural Ridge strictly to the north. Overnight with a family.