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There was a clue though. It was the nickname of Kolkma Highway aka “Highway of Bones”. Anything named as “Devil”, “Death”, “Hell”, “Tears”, or anything else ske

• xyzelement 6y ago
  I think that's hardly the problem. First, the highway of bones I think refers to the Stalin-era political prisoners that died building the road. Second, Kalyma colloquially refers to an incredibly far away place. Like in English you may say "it's on the moon" to mean that something is ridiculously far, in Russian you say "to Kalyma" Fundamentally, you don't end up anywhere near that region randomly. It's not like they were going for milk and died on the way to the store. It's hard to really understand what they were thinking - but there's no way they didn't understand that the whole area was ... challenging.
• throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  It held that name back when it was a major highway. It's not a particularly dangerous road by the standards of the region. The other commenters is right that the name comes from the prisoners who died building it. Allegedly they were buried in the road. I say "allegedly" because everyone who's ever built a road knows that the road base is key to longevity and that adding things that will decompose to it is the opposite of what you want to do.