Due to its position on the ‘Pacific Ring of Fire’ Kamchatka has more than 30 active volcanoes including Klyuchevskaya Sopka which has been emitting steam and smoke for at least 8,000 years.

The peninsula is the home of the Itelmen, Eveni and Koryaks, some of whom live by their traditional ways of hunting, fishing, reindeer herding and gathering wild plants. It is also home to the largest brown bear in Russia.

Kamchatka’s rivers teem with at least five species of spawning salmon and its rugged coastline is home to thousands of seabirds, including tufted and horned puffins, guillemots, cormorants and harlequin ducks, as well as seals, sea lions and sea otters. There are many endemic plants which, in the valleys, grow at an incredible rate during the summer due to the volcanically-warmed and minerally enriched soil. On the tundra, cassiope and dwarf willows grow alongside the crimson rhododendron camtschaticum and Lapland buntings breed there. Valleys and hillsides are clothed in mixed woodlands with many wild flowers including fritillaria camtschatcensis, tiger lilies, yellow rhododendrons and wild roses. The astonishing birdlife ranges from migrating waders through black-billed capercaillie, rosefinches, rough-legged buzzards to the auks and Steller’s sea eagle which has a wingspan of three metres.