From the Plains of Nepal to the Siberian Arctic: My Week In International Arctic Volunteer Corps

Ok, so you clicked on the link and now you have landed on this article, and you are skeptical about whether you should continue or skip. A quick search on the internet confirmed that it takes a few sentences or 10 to 15 seconds of reading before someone skips any article they found on the internet. I am already 3 sentences down with no time remaining, and I have not yet started what I should. Well, well…

Давай поехали!

It started with a boring Tuesday night notification.

I was doomscrolling in my ITMO dorm room laying down on limited real estate I rent, half-heartedly avoiding looming commitments to friends and acquaintances, when my phone buzzed. A familiar notification sound, which I often ignore. But this day was different, and I found out that a good friend had sent a message. The message went like this "Buddy, check this out. They're calling for applications to the International Arctic Volunteer Corps."

I have a long, shameful history of ignoring these kinds of suggestions. Procrastination is practically my second nature. But for some reason, this time felt different. Maybe it was the word "Arctic." Maybe it was just the sheer absurdity of the idea. Within an hour, I had filled out the form, made a video in the broken Russian that I could speak and sent my CV to the organizers to check. A few weeks later, after an interview, I got the news: I was in.

What next? THE ARCTICCCCCC!!!

A Boy from the Southern plains

Let me rewind a bit. I am Nepali. When people hear that I am from Nepal, they think Mt. Everest, the Himalayas, and snow. But no! I was born in the southern plains. And yeah, I didn't see snow for the first time until I was already at university. Moving to Russia in December 2025 was a shock to my system, to say the least. I remember the day I landed in Puklovo. It was a cloudy day and everything other than tarmac was white. Pancake, snow! (Блин, снег!)

Yet here I was, a Master's student from ITMO, boarding a flight to Khanty-Mansiysk from Puklovo which was not covered with snow but surrounded by beautiful green forest, ready to trade the canals of St. Petersburg for the tundra of Yugra.

Day 1: First impressions in the "capital"

After landing at Khanty-Mansiysk Airport, we checked in at the hotel, dropped our bags and there was a surprise waiting for all of us in our hotel rooms: expedition merch. Pancake! (Блин!) It's official now, the expedition begins here. We quickly dropped our bags, and left for our very first program at National Center "Russia".

Our first program was an exhibition called "See Yugra — Fall in Love with Russia". After this exhibition at the National Center, I doubt there will be any soul who would not fall in love with this country. I don’t know about others, but I totally fell in love.

I was accompanied by our crew of participants from different cultures, countries, and backgrounds. Strangers united by a shared curiosity to know more about the Arctic in this exhibition. The exhibition itself was designed as a journey where visitors could immerse themselves in the region's identity through videos, interactive games, and illustrations. There were different halls where we got to know about the nature and all the municipalities of Yurga.

It was there in those halls I learned about the indigenous Khanty and Mansi. I had been saying the name "Khanty-Mansiysk" since I got selected for the expedition without actually knowing its actual meaning. During the exhibition, it finally clicked. The city is named after two indigenous peoples who have lived here for generations, namely Khanty and Mansi. The same day we visited the Ethnographic Museum "Turum Maa". The name "Turum Maa" translates from Mansi as "Sacred Land". This open air museum is a reconstruction of the traditional lifestyle of indigenous people. In this museum we saw the summer camp of Khanty, the winter settlement of Northern Mansi, and a lot of everyday items like traps for large and small animals and birds.

Next, we went to other parts of the city for sight-seeing.

For me, a foreigner who landed in St. Petersburg last December, I quietly assumed all of Russia looked something like that. Busy roads. Crowded metro. Everyone and everything moving fast, heads down with headphones in a hurry to be somewhere. But Khanty-Mansiysk proved my hypothesis wrong. The city has a good public transportation infrastructure. I saw buses running, and people waiting for buses at the bus stops. The roads were wide, and practically empty. Compared to St. Petersburg, the traffic was non-existent. Pancake! What a contrast.

Day 2: Privet! Beloyarsky

We flew to the town of Beloyarsky, and the view from the window was absolutely awesome. Endless taiga, and the rivers appearing out of nowhere. The houses got fewer and fewer the more we travelled until it was just nature, no houses at all. Then the small, beautiful Beloyarsky appeared on the horizon where we landed and were welcomed by a folk dance by locals and vkysni (tasty) traditional bread with berries. What hospitality! I really loved the warm welcome we received. On our way to the hotel we were taking pitstops, seeing important places. The interesting fact about Beloyarsky is that it is small. Really small. Just a few decades ago, the place didn’t exist at all. The town grew up around the gas industry.

The district is home to approximately 30,000 and surprisingly more than 4,600 of them are volunteers for different causes. Pancake! One in six people is a volunteer for a good cause.

The same day we had a meeting with the Head of the Beloyarsky District, Sergey Manenkov, at the Model Central District Library. He has led this district almost since it was established — the district was formed in 1988 and he took the top post in 1989, making him one of the longest-serving municipal leaders in Russia. One more fact about him: he is also famous as the happiest head of a district. You don't trust me? Just look at his social media posts.

Day 3: First work day, first blisters

I overslept and missed the morning workout. But others didn’t. At 7:00 AM, while I was still snoozing my alarm, my fellow participants were doing their morning exercise led by Zaira Kalinina, an IFMA Amateur Muay Thai World Champion, and a Russian wrestling champion. Pancake! I missed my chance.

After the workout and breakfast, we were transferred to the Un-Novynklor and Ay-Novynklor Lake Systems Natural Monument, where we would be working for the next three days.

We were welcomed by the staff, genuinely warm, patient people who cared about the place. They were happy to have us there. Alongside them, there were mosquitoes, in battalion, excited to meet the fresh taste of blood from around the world. I had never seen mosquitoes so big and so persistent and focused. Even with the protection, anti mosquito spray, and what not, they were biting.

Here we were taken on a guided eco trail tour called Secrets and Mysteries of Lake Svetloye. We gathered near the guide and walked on the trails, which were not just paths through forest, but were made for teaching visitors to move through the fragile landscape without harming the flora.

During our eco trail, we saw some of the planks destroyed and some damaged by water. And our work for the next three days was, yes, to repair them. Not just that, there were also murals, two of them, which also needed to be redone.

This is where our volunteering work started. We were divided into teams: eco volunteers for the trail, artists for the murals, media volunteers to collect photos and videos and promote the place through social media, and builders for the ramp. Having an engineering background, I was team builders.

Before the work even started, the staff walked us through how to use the tools. What to hold, what to cut, and what not to do. Everything was done under supervision, and safety came first. Then all the teams got to work at the same time and the site came alive. We were no longer tourists, we were volunteers for a good cause.

With one third of the work done, we had another program in our schedule for that day at the Sputnik Youth Center. We had an interactive program with Yuri Orlov, the man who is the Russian voice of Tucker Carlson and has also dubbed Lex Fridman. He is from Beloyarsky himself, which made his presence feel less like a celebrity appearance and more like a neighbor dropping by to talk. He shared his story with us, how it started and the projects that he is currently working on. One thing that stayed with me is that his voice is famous enough that he can afford to live anywhere. Moscow, St. Petersburg or even abroad, but he chose to live in Beloyarsky. His home. For a man whose voice is recognized by millions, he was remarkably down to earth.

By the end of Day 3, I had learned more than I expected. Firstly, the Arctic is not some barren land mass with ice, snow, polar bears, and plenty of minerals. Secondly, arctic mosquitoes deserve their own spot on the food chain, preferably away from me. And thirdly, volunteering is more than photos for social media posts. It means getting your hands dirty, meeting people, learning from people who know and love their land and their way of life.

I had come all the way from Nepal, with nothing but curiosity, with my broken Russian and no experience with arctic mosquitoes. Now, I was doing something meaningful, building things in the forest of Yurga, meeting souls whose stories need to come out and be heard, discovering the side of Russia I didn’t know existed until I went there.

And the funny thing? We were only half way through!

The planks were still half completed. The murals needed paintings. I was beginning to understand why these people chose to spend their time and energy on something that is so big and will last longer than they will.

So, if you made this far in this blog without skipping, спасибо вам большое (thank you very much)! And congratulations, you survived the first part of my Arctic adventure. In the next part, we will be baking bread, swimming in a cold Siberian lake, and much more.

See you in Part 2. Pancake!