An unemployed Moscow resident named Kirill has set out for Thailand in an old inflatable boat through city sewers and rivers.
The traveller departed on October 22 after discovering that airline tickets to the resort country were far too expensive, according to Baza, a Russian news channel on the Telegram messaging service. Lacking the funds to buy a commercial plane ticket, Kirill located an aged rubber craft stored at his home and decided to make the journey by water instead.
Kirill launched his voyage from Medvedkovo, a residential municipal district situated in the North-Eastern Administrative Okrug of Moscow. The area lies along the Yauza River, a tributary of the Moskva River that connects into the wider inland waterways of western Russia, eventually leading toward the Volga River basin.
Route from northern Moscow
Thailand is a Southeast Asian nation renowned for its tropical beach resorts, situated thousands of miles away from Moscow across vast continental territory and open seas. Reaching the country from landlocked city drainage channels requires navigating through complex river basins, international borders, and maritime waters.
The Russian report compared the scale of the ambitious attempt to the endurance record of British adventurer Karl Bushby. Bushby became the first person to complete an unbroken round-the-world journey entirely on foot, walking a total distance of 50,000 kilometres around the globe.
The British walker required 28 years to complete that continuous global trek. Bushby, a former British paratrooper, began his Goliath Expedition in 1998, walking northward from the southern tip of Chile through South America, Central America, North America, and across the frozen Bering Strait into Siberia without relying on motorised transport.
Funding for two-year journey
The voyage from Medvedkovo to Thailand is expected to take the Russian traveller two years to complete, according to the report. Kirill plans to cover his ongoing living costs and travel expenses along the way with donations sent by his subscribers on social media networks.
