Why go to Kamchatka? There are no luxury hotels or international spas;no jolly pubs or swanky wine bars and even if there were glamourous beach resorts there are almost no roads to get to them. Although thereis a plethora of fish, nowhere can you find it more wonderfully cooked than on a Kamchatkan campfire! This extraordinary country is not for the faint-hearted.

But it has some of the most stunning and dramatic volcanic scenery in the world and an inordinate amount of wildlife. Tosit on a berry-covered hill and watch reindeer floating down a valley against a backdrop of volcanoes, to go fly-fishing on the Paratunka River or sit in a boat on Lake Kurilskoye and discover a brown bearonly yards away; to climb an active volcano and peer down into the depths of its crater are all privileges not afforded to many. Gleadhill’s diary account of two Irish ladies “d’un Certain Age” in Russia’s Far East draws us into this magnificent landscape.
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