- [Mike] In the last episode of the TransSibChallenge,
we arrived in Vladivostok,
the last destination of our journey.
Here, we caught some fresh seafood and explored
some Soviet ruins.
Little did we know that even more surprises
were waiting for us in Primorsky Krai.
(funky, exotic music)
All right, as we were exploring the fortification
we met a man who had the key and a generator,
and I guess it's a little bit of museum.
Either way the door is open and we can go inside
the giant cannon.
Oh, guys, my adventure senses are tingling!
We're on the coast of Russia,
the far southern, southeastern tip,
next to North Korea, next to Japan, next to China.
We're about 100 kilometers away from Vladivostok,
and this area had supreme strategic importance,
especially during the times of the Soviet Union.
They built a gun emplacement here,
wanted to protect them from specifically the Japanese,
and it's been laying here abandoned, rusty, dripping
on the coastline.
I've never explored anything like this before in my life.
And you can tell, it's going to be nine shades of epic.
And away we go.
(moody music)
What is this place?
Imagine being down here.
As the cannons thunder overhead, hot, wet.
This is unreal.
(moody music)
This was one of the most southern points
of the Soviet Union's defence.
And it was a fortification, a gun emplacement
to protect the ocean from ships
of enemies coming ashore.
Vladivostok and the surrounding area
was very strategically important.
And it was also important for them to protect it.
This must be where the soldiers slept
to man the cannons.
They were saying that no cars were allowed
to be parked next to the gun emplacement,
and at one point someone forgot
and parked an armed vehicle beside,
just actually on the parking lot
maybe 50 meters away.
And when the guns fired they knocked the vehicle
off of the cliff and down into the ocean.
These guns were immensely powerful.
I mean if you're sinking battleships,
you've gotta have some horsepower, right?
You've gotta have some serious ammunition.
(wondrous music)
This might be one of the most interesting abandoned places
I have ever seen.
I'm getting soaked.
(laughs)
This is definitely the set if I ever wanna film
a horror movie.
I'm guessing all of these shelves
were used for artillery,
and they just bring them up.
Wow!
I'll use the middle.
Incredible.
- [Man] Oh, yes.
- [Mike] I love these ancient pipes,
dials and nozzles.
Just rust.
Rust like it's a plague.
Rust like it's an epidemic.
Just slowly peeling the paint off the walls
and eroding the steel.
This part of Russia constantly gets hurricanes.
Well, I guess they're called typhoons here.
Just endless rain and wind
eventually will tear something like this
right back down to the earth.
Though for being 80 years old or so,
it's looking really good.
Look, looking up you can see all of these notches.
This is actually the cog that would turn
the entire emplacement to aim it
towards different parts of the ocean.
It's actually still greasy.
From the old oil they would use.
Oh, wow, it still moves.
(laughs)
Oh, imagine the work it would take
to spin this entire, entire tower.
There must be more than one.
There's no way one man could do that himself.
Boys, found something cool there?
- [Man] Yeah.
Oh, yeah, this is the spot.
- [Man] The guns look like bazooka.
- [Mike] Again, lead us to the gun.
So it's like four levels isn't it?
- [Man] Yep.
- [Mike] Crazy.
All right.
(chuckles)
Oh, and here's the beginning of the cannons.
You can see, and the crank to aim them, I'm assuming?
Yeah.
- [Man] It looks like it is still working.
- [Mike] All right, next level.
- Next level.
- [Mike] Oh, cannons!
Look at this.
(imitates explosion)
There, so there's two, and oh, my god,
they're so huge!
Imagine being inside here when one of them exploded,
one of them shot.
So we know there are two of them.
Yeah.
Wow.
(laughs)
And here it is, the peephole.
(laughs)
Guys, check this out.
Whew!
Not a bad view.
(laughs)
(wind gusting)
Listen.
There's the abandoned exploration.
And then there's an abandoned gun emplacement
on the coast of Russia next to China,
North Korea and Japan.
It's taken abandoned exploration to a whole new level.
This is incredible.
(wondrous music)
This is really cool.
While not everybody's a fan
of these old Soviet relics, I find it very interesting.
Times have definitely changed.
But these places paint stories.
And searching out stories is why I travel.
This was our last day in Russia.
So that night we went back to Vladivostok
for our big farewell party.
It's the last night unfortunately.
We have a giant table full of friends.
And between the friends we have
one of the most delicious looking seafood feasts
I have seen outside of the fan.
- [Man] Eat up.
- [Mike] Come on, first you gotta do
the mussels here, I forgot to tell that.
And this.
The feast is nonstop.
We have mussels with blue cheese,
and then we have these little potato medallions
with different kinds of fish eggs and raw fish.
It's just delicious.
It never stops being delicious the whole time.
It is a feast, a seafood feast here in Vladivostok.
Cheers, everyone.
- [Man] Cheers, everyone.
(whistles)
- [Mike] The last night.
- [Man] The last night!
(man cheers)
What an adventure.
(upbeat music)
And then the night got a little bit blurry.
Guys, I can't believe we finished
the TransSibChallenge.
This was a giant journey starting in Moscow
and going all the way to Vladivostok.
And I never would have believed a country
could be so diverse.
Russia is easily one of the most incredible countries
I've been to because everything changed
on every stop along the railroad.
I would love to know in the comments
which segment was your favorite
and which one got you most excited about Russia?
For us this trip was two years in the making.
And most of it was done by a guy named Yaroslav,
who was actually on our trip with us.
He works for Svoya Tropa,
which is an incoming tour operator.
And if you wanna go to Russia, you should contact him.
It is in below.
It is in in below in the description below
if you wanna go to Russia to experience
what we did in this beautiful country.
As well, big love to the other two members of the team,
Gareth and Ruben were so much fun to travel with.
And if you wanna see their channels
or see their angle of this story, this journey,
they've been posting their videos already.
They got a bit more of a headstart than me.
So they're already up right now.
The link for their channel is below
in the description as well.
If you want even more Russian content,
I have a Patreon page where I put content
that's a little bit too much for YouTube.
There was a segment in Eritrea
where the shaman sacrificed the goat, or the sheep,
that was, oh, a little bit too rough, raw,
in a way I'd never actually seen before,
or knew they slaughtered animals that way.
Watch another man reach up inside.
That's on Patreon,
as well as, oh yeah, my birthday night.
Whew!
Which was a crazy night
that I couldn't put all of the footage on YouTube either.
But let's just say things got a little crazy.
- [Man] Feel the power of gun.
- Boom, boom.
- [Man] Did you like it?
- Go again, load it back up.
You can find both those videos
already posted on Patreon.
There's a link and a card as well in,
you know where it is, on the bottom.
And lastly a big hug to the Russian Geographical Society.
They were the ones who put up the money
to make this happen.
And I hope we made them proud with our coverage
of the beautiful country of Russia.
Thank you, dragons.
This concludes the chapter on the channel,
and a chapter in my personal life
because I have done the Trans-Siberian Railway.
If you'd like to do it, please contact Yaroslav.
Message me, I'll give you tips.
It is honestly one of the coolest journeys
on the planet Earth.
Chase Your Fears.
And I'll catch you on the next video on Fearless & Far
(shimmering music)