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Posted by: Cheburashka

The Moscow Times, Wednesday, April 5, 2006. Page 1.

FSB Stops Brit's 7-Year Trek
By Carl Schreck and Yuriy Humber
Staff Writers

goliath.mail2web.com
Dmitri Kieffer, left, and Karl Bushby posing in a photo on Bushby's web site.
Following a perilous two-week journey by foot across the frozen Bering Strait, a British adventurer attempting to walk around the world has been detained in Chukotka for failing to register his visa.
Border guards detained Karl Bushby, a former British paratrooper, and U.S. citizen Dmitri Kieffer, a specialist endurance racer, near the village of Uelen on Saturday, a day after they completed a trek across the Bering Strait from Alaska. Kieffer teamed up with Bushby in Alaska for the trip across the strait and had intended to fly home.
Bushby and Kieffer entered Russian territory without having their visas verified, a crime that carries a sentence of up to five years in prison, Federal Security Service spokesman Vadim Shibayev said Tuesday.
At the time of their detention, they were carrying a satellite global positioning system, or GPS, a topographical map in English, a DVD camera and a Brazilian-made, 44-millimeter Colt Magnum with six live bullets, as well as snow equipment including a boat-sledge and skis, Shibayev said.
Since their detention, the two travelers have been staying in a hotel in the village of Lavrentia, a duty officer at the Federal Security Service's northeastern border guard division said by telephone.
"FSB officers are with them at the moment, trying to work out the situation," said the duty officer, who declined to give his name. "They are in good condition."
The detention threatens to end Bushby's attempt to "walk around the world with unbroken footsteps," as the web site tracking his journey says.
Bushby, a native of the city of Hull in northern England, set off on Nov. 1, 1998, from the southern tip of South America, and over seven years made his way up through the Americas to Cape Prince of Wales in Alaska. From there, he and Kieffer set out for Russia across the Bering Strait on March 17.
The trek across the icy strait was treacherous, according to to Bushby's satellite phone accounts on the web site http://goliath.mail2web.com.
Currents carrying the ice northward, rather than west toward Russia, proved problematic, as did the poor condition of the ice. In a March 21 post on the site, Bushby compared crossing the ice to "two ants attempting to cross a car-park full of powdered glass."
A March 25 post said a "minor drama" arose "when the ice started breaking up and parting under their tent. They had to move quite sharply to shift it to more stable ice before the lot disappeared." A similar incident happened the following day, when "the ice started breaking up all around, forcing them to just grab the tent and run, dragging it behind."
The British Embassy confirmed that Bushby was having his documents inspected in Chukotka because he lacked stamps indicating he crossed the border from the United States into Russia.
The U.S. Embassy said its consulate in Vladivostok was following up on the incident.
Bushby's father, Keith, said he last spoke to his son on Friday.
"He called on the satellite phone and said he'd landed on terra firma," Bushby said by telephone from Hereford, England. "He said they were about 3 miles [5 kilometers] from Uelen and that they planned to make their way to the village. He said he'd phone the next day, but I haven't heard from him since."
Bushby, a former Special Forces soldier, said his son had expected to run into problems after attempts to inform Russian authorities of his itinerary were unsuccessful.
"For about 12 months, I phoned various departments, but after hearing such a strange request, they just kept passing me from department to department," he said. "No one wanted to make a decision."
He said he had even tried to contact Chukotka Governor Roman Abramovich, the billionaire Chelsea football club owner who lives in London, for assistance in arranging the trip. "I know some people that worked on his security, but it's easier to talk to the queen of England than to Abramovich," he said.
A woman who answered the telephone at the Chukotka administration's representative office in Moscow said no one was available to comment.
Waiting any longer was not an option, as warmer weather would have made it impossible to cross the strait, Keith Bushby said.
He said he hoped Russian authorities would let his son continue on his way. "This is the longest continuous journey on foot, and there can't be a big gap. That would be the end of the journey."
Karl Bushby's onward journey was to take him south into Mongolia, through Kazakhstan and Ukraine, on into Europe and back into Britain via the Eurotunnel.
Shibayev, the FSB spokesman, said Bushby and Kieffer "not only violated border legislation but also put their lives in serious danger."
Before his detention, Bushby had completed more than 27,000 kilometers of the 57,600-kilometer trip, which would see him return home to Hull in 2009, according to the expedition's web site.
A March 31 post on the web site said Bushby and Kieffer would be traveling down Russia's eastern coast to the town of Providenia, "where they hope to sort things out with the authorities.
"That could be a whole other adventure," it said.