A film by Bogdana (SnowKitty) Vashchenko on how, with what and under what conditions Viktor Lyagushkin made pictures in Chukotka on land and under water in the Bering Sea during his trip in August 2021.
The fence surrounding the house of the Speleologists’ base of the “Cyclop” club now is decorated with wonderful photographs by Viktor Lyagushkin.
“Cyclop” is a Lviv (Ukraine) speleo club which discovered Optymistychna (Optimistic) Cave (the longest gypsum cave in the world), and now continues exploration, mapping and other work in the cave.
My and Viktor’s article about Alexei Molchanov’s record, which he set for the Guinness Book this spring on Lake Baikal. The goal of the record was to draw attention to the ecological problems of the lake.
The entire May issue of National Geographic (Russia) is dedicated to the seas and oceans, and it’s great that we succeeded to become a part of it.
Text by Bogdana Vashchenko, photo by Viktor Lyagushkin.
The piece can be reached also at NAtGeo (Russia) website here.
From February 23 to March 13, our team of two people – Viktor Lyagushkin and Bogdana Vashchenko – worked in the Optimistic Cave, where they spent 19 days underground. We lived in the underground base camp Oasis located 12 kilometers from the exit. All this time we spent wothout seeing the sun and sky.
I must admit that it was not easy, we became very tired. It was strange to go to the surface, we had to get used to the sunlight again. And the coronavirus epidemic, which managed to spread around the world while we were underground, almost made us come back into the cave. 🙂
In the photographic sense, this expedition was extremely successful. Now we have dozens of magnificent photographs, live and new in our luggage. And all this had been shot in places of the cave that few humans saw.
It should be noted that neither this expedition, nor the project would have been possible without the active participation of the Cyclop Lviv caving club. Its members posed in the photo, helped to bring (and take out) photo and camp equipment, food, and provided all possible assistance.
Special thanks to Bogdan Markovich and Natalia Yudina for organizing expeditions and vigilant monitoring of the safety of participants.
My article in the German magazine HEINZ about the starfish of the Northern seas, the northern lights and underwater photography. The magazine is published in German and English.
I swear that everything was as it was written in the article, including the filling of pies and the fear of imaginary bears.
Many thanks to the editor for the lovely lead in the contents.
See the Amazing, Ethereal Creatures Living Under Arctic Ice is the title of a story which is now live on National Geographic site. It features Viktor Lyagushkin’s photos and text includes my answers and captions.
Viktor is proud to have his work being so highly estimated and I am happy that my captions have been preserved almost in its original form, with only minor editing.
Thank you, Sarah Stocke, for good questions and thoughtful work!
//www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/09/white-sea-arctic-underwater-marine-life/
Dear friends, we are happy to be back from our White Sea 2018 expedition. We spend behind the Arctic Circle 4 weeks, from the middle of the March to the middle of April, did 75 dives under the ice, feasted our eyes on aurora borealis and take hundreds of gigabytes of amazing photographs. Now it is time to look through them, to select the best of the best for our project Until The Ice Melts.
Many thanks to the Arctic Circle Diving Centre for their kind invitation and open-armed welcome.
Here in Moscow the spring is in full power, and only photos may help us to travel down memory line and bring to mind an old joke: “There are two states of water: warm and solid”. Here is the proof – Bogdana SnowKitty and Nikon Ambassador and National Geographic photographer Viktor Lyagushkin did dive into solid water. 🙂
