Pavel Tsoroyev, Nazran. Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
The expedition headed by the traveller, geographer, geomorphologist and Ingush citizen Konstantin Merzhoyev “The Ring of Fire” was a 900-day journey along the circum-Pacific seismic belt. They returned to Krasnodar on July 4th, 2013. The wide-scale project involving three years of travelling came to an end. The team members travelled 70,000 km on skis, bicycles, cars, a yacht and on foot. Merzhoyev and his team provided various studies along the whole line of their trip. At the moment they are preparing a report for the Russian Geographical Society.
“The Ring of Fire” expedition is thought to be the first time in the history of humanity that such a multi-year round-the-world trip across the Pacific Ocean crossing all continents along their maximal length has been completed. Some members of the expedition fell out: on one of the islands of Papua New Guinea aborigines stole the yacht engine and pirates cut off landfast ropes. Moreover, some tribes of Papua New Guinea are still cannibals. They say local aborigines ate six deputies. There were no radical changes since Cook’s times. At the same time, in Australia the travellers were warmly welcomed. Local Russian migrants gave them money which the travellers needed very much.
After they passed the Philippines, Merzhoyev remembered that a nacelle of the twin-hull boat had been holed. A storm began in the open ocean. The crew managed to fix the craft and get to the nearest island.
There was a two-month trip in Antarctica: they had to sleep in tents when the temperature was 40 C below zero. “Of course physical conditions are important in such expeditions, but psychological preparation is much more important,” Merzhoyev says. “First of all, it is a closed group. I have been participating in expeditions for 20 years; and I know that after 4 months people stop talking to each other because there is nothing to talk about. Weather conditions and lack of food greatly influence and put pressure on people. Sometimes it is very hard.”
In his “stationary” life, Konstantin Merzhoyev takes the position of the head of the health resort office of the Complex Resort and Tourism Development Department of the Krasnodar Territory. He restores the traditions of active and walking tourism as an alternative to beach-related relaxation. The Russian champion in sporting tourism has participated in such extreme expeditions as “Trans-Caucasus”, “The North Pole-1994”, “Russian Roads”, “The 100th Meridian”, “From the Varangians to the Greeks” and “Eurasian-2007”.
