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By Ann Liesowska
01 November 2016
Andrey Solovyev keeps a lonely all-winter vigil in Yakutia in search of the legendary Labynkyr Devil.
Stay warm this winter! Andrey Solovyev will spend winter on shores of lake Labynkyr. Picture: Ykt.ru
Braving temperatures of below minus 50C, and with no other living soul in a radius of 150 kilometres, this 32 year old adventurer walked for ten days to reach one of Russia's most remote and mysterious lakes in a one-man search for the monster that is reputed to inhabit its deep waters.
He has regularly met brown bears roaming these wild shores, although they are now ready for hibernation, and wolves are never far away.
But it is a different beast he is seeking to see and chronicle - Siberia's own Loch Ness monster.
Home for him through the winter is a simple wooden hut overlooking the ice-covered lake. Expeditions here are rare, but usually academics and others seeking to prove or disprove the Labynkyr Devil's existence come in summer, when the waters are unfrozen, and then stay a week or two.
Winter temperatures here in the coldest inhabited district in the world are likely to plummet well under 50C, although this week the nights are milder, only minus 32C or so. Yet Andrey, from Voronezh, is undaunted, having already spent 103 days in solitude on the lakeside, living on fish he catches, wild onion which he gathered and pickled earlier, as well as mushrooms and berries he collected before the big freeze.
Does he believe in the Labynkyr Devil?
Andrey Solovyev keeps a lonely all-winter vigil at Lake Labynkyr in search of the legendary Labynkyr