About us

Yamal Peninsula Travel is one of four websites run by the Russian-registered tour operator Argish LLC. “Argish” is the Russian word for a caravan of reindeer sledges. This reflects our main area of expertise: the indigenous nomadic peoples of the Russian Federation. On our other sites we offer trips to Dolgan, Chukchi, Khanty, Komi, Saami, Even and Evenki reindeer herders and Yakut horse herders. We also specialise in wildlife tours. On our other sites you will find tours to spot polar bears, walrus, whales, muskox, birds, brown bears and plenty of other animals. In fact, anything that is of interest in the Russian Arctic can be found on the pages of our sites, be it mammoth tusks, wooden architecture, long overland expeditions or anything else.

Arctic Russia Travel – tours in all regions of the Russian Arctic

Travel Yakutia – tours in Yakutia, the coldest inhabited part of the planet

Lake Baikal – tours to Lake Baikal, the world’s largest lake by volume.

 

 

Meet the team

Edward Adrian-Vallance

Edward Adrian-Vallance studied French and Spanish at the University of Exeter in the UK. After graduating with a 2.1 he moved to Russia in 2007 and began learning Russian.

As a keen traveller, he began exploring Siberia, the Arctic and the Far East in 2008. He has visited all of Russia’s Arctic regions and most Far Eastern and Siberian ones. He first visited the European Arctic Nenets in 2008 and the Yamal Peninsula Nenets in 2010.

Shortly after his first visit to the Yamal Peninsula Nenets, Edward published the first English-language travel blogs about them. The blogs caused a lot of interest and Edward received a few offers to guide people to the Yamal Peninsula. In 2011 he gave up his old job as an English teacher, created a website and set up a company. Argish LLC and Yamal Peninsula Travel were born. They have been growing successfully ever since.

Edward has personally guided over 100 trips to the Yamal Peninsula. He has worked as a fixer with most of the TV channels and photographers listed on our Media Services page.

Edward now has dual Russian and British citizenship and is based in Moscow. However, he spends up to six months a year in Siberia, mostly on the Yamal Peninsula and in Yakutia. He is considered a local in many areas. He has contacts on every level of society, from nomads to government officials. His contacts and experience have led to great success running the most complex trips in this remote area.

Edward’s articles on the Nenets and the Yamal Peninsula have been published in the Geographical magazine and The Calvert Journal.

Dmitriy Eskin

Dmitriy Eskin

Dmitriy was born and raised in Moscow and spent most of his life trying to get away from it as often as possible to explore the wildest and remotest parts of his homeland. He has always been an active outdoorsman, and from a young age has had a passion for all sorts of adventure travel, including skiing, climbing, mountaineering and trekking. He has travelled all over Asia, Africa, Europe and Russia, including to many remote and hard to access areas.

He has learned English and Chinese languages since childhood and has spent several years in China teaching English. He uses his time off from Argish LLC to organise and guide trekking expeditions for Russians in the Tibetan areas of western China.

Dmitriy has been working for Argish LLC since August 2013 and has guided dozens of trips to the Yamal Peninsula. He has had great success at successfully building a close working and personal relationship with the nomadic Nenets families there, while helping his guests to achieve their goals at the same time.

Dmitry always gets rave reviews from the guests he brings to Yamal. The fun, caring and professional attitude with which he approaches every trip makes sure guests achieve all their goals and go home with many happy memories. He is an indispensable part of the Argish LLC team.

Ekaterina Adrian-Vallance

Ekaterina was born in Yakutia, the coldest inhabited part of the world. She is a member of the Yakut indigenous people who, like the Nenets, have their own completely separate language, culture and religious beliefs. She probably has more experience than anyone of the freezing cold temperatures that Siberian winter travel involves.

Yakutia is a Russian republic the size of India but with a population of only 1 million. Of this, 350,000 live in the capital Yakutsk. The rest of the republic is sparsely inhabited wilderness. It was in a small, isolated wilderness village that Ekaterina was born.

Upon completing school, Ekaterina won a scholarship to study for free at the Arctic State Institute of Arts and Culture. After graduation she moved to Moscow for her postgraduate studies. There she met her husband-to-be, Edward Adrian-Vallance. Not long after their marriage, Ekaterina began working as manager of Edward’s company, Argish LLC.

Ekaterina’s upbringing gave her an excellent understanding of the hardships and rewards of Siberian travel. She also has extensive experience of international travel on six continents. Ekaterina provides our team, our clients and our partners with indispensable support throughout our tours.

Ekaterina has a deep understanding of the very different mentalities of Siberians and foreign travellers. Bringing them together so that everyone fulfils their goals is what makes a successful Siberian tour operator. In this, as in so much else, Ekaterina is an invaluable member of the Argish LLC team.