Karl has hit a setback. Let’s hope something can be negotiated with the Russian authorities within the next year, after the media spotlight dies down. I don’t think they’re going to let him go on now, due to political reasons. Here’s the story:
Russians order man who crossed Bering Strait deported
By JUDITH INGRAM,
The Associated Press,
Published: April 15, 2006,
Last Modified: April 15, 2006 at 02:29 AM
MOSCOW – A court in the Russian Far East region of Chukotka ordered the deportation of a British explorer who walked to Russia across the Bering Strait for entering Russia without going through a border checkpoint.
The court also fined Karl Bushby, who made the trek as part of an effort to walk around the world, and his French fellow-traveler Dimitry Kieffer 2,000 rubles (U.S. $72), Bushby’s father Keith told The Associated Press by telephone.
Bushby and Kieffer, a U.S. resident, have 10 days to appeal, and Keith Bushby said his son would do that in the hope of saving his quest. “Oh, God, yeah, it’s not over yet,” the elder Bushby said in a telephone interview. “He didn’t come all this way to just give in easily.”
The two have been staying in the remote village of Lavrenty, 500 miles northeast of the provincial capital, Anadyr, since arriving in Russia April 1 and being detained. It took them 15 days to make the trek on foot across a 56-mile stretch of the Bering Strait.
Bushby is a former paratrooper who made the Bering Strait crossing from Alaska to Chukotka as part of a round-the-world walk that began in 1998 at the southern tip of South America. He wants to be the first person to walk all the way around the world.
Since the beginning of his journey on Nov. 1, 1998, he has covered 17,000 miles, walking through South, Central and North America. Kieffer accompanied him on the Bering Strait leg.
Bushby said that his son was not surprised by the conviction, but that he had hoped that "given the unique circumstances, the court might have shown some leniency.
"But it’s just the carte blanche guillotine, i.e., ‘go away and don’t come back,’ " he said.
Bushby said Russian officials had told Karl he would not be permitted to return to Russia for at least another five years – a development that would end his round-the-world quest.
“The full enormity of the situation hasn’t struck him, I think,” Bushby said. “It’s like the death of a loved one, it takes time to sink in. You can sit by the bed of a loved one for months, but when they die it’s still a shock.”
The appeal process could take up to four months to work its way through the court system.
Snow stomp
