Burkhaia

Burkhaia lies in the Indigirka country of Sakha, between the Yana and Kolyma river systems. The Indigirka rises in the Khalkan Range and follows a strikingly varied northern course: it traverses the Yana-Oymyakon Highlands, cuts through the Chersky ranges, widens in the Momo-Selennyakh Depression and enters the Aby Lowland. In the lowland it may broaden to five hundred metres, then continues between the Polousny and Ulakhan-Chistay ranges toward the Yana-Indigirka Lowland.

The last hundred kilometres divide into several channels, forming a large delta before the waters reach the East Siberian Sea. The river freezes in October and remains ice-bound until May or June. The basin was drawn into Russian routes through several seventeenth-century journeys. Elisei Buza established an overland route to the river system between 1636 and 1642.

Poznik Ivanov moved from the lower Lena, crossed the Verkhoyansk Range to the upper Yana, then crossed the Chersky Range to the Indigirka. Early colonisation made Zashiversk an outpost, while the abandoned settlements Podshiversk and Uyandinskoye Zimovye mark other stopping places in the basin.