EDITOR'S UPDATE

My brother just called me from the satphone. They're now officially in Siberia, currently some 70km from Novosibirsk. Nearly penniless, with only about 1000 rubles to their names, they've set up a camp in the woods somewhere, waiting for the next monthly cash infusion (courtesy of the state's educational fund) scheduled to arrive in about 10 days.
The weather has been somewhat unstable, temperatures ranging from -27 to -3 over the last days, but they seem to manage fine.

Peter had a small mishap with a bottle of lighter fluid or something and burned a hole in the tent, they'd just finished patching it up when I spoke to them. I'm sure it looks fantastic.

Funny anecdote time.

The boys had a small run-in with the law at the camp site a few days back.

The guys were drinking coffee by their campfire in the middle of nowhere when a man wearing winter camouflage approached on a snowmobile, stopped in front of them and assembled a shotgun.

Our valiant trio, thinking they were about to be chased away for trespassing, were, understandably, somewhat distraught by this. Their fears were, however, quickly put to shame when the man loaded the shotgun and then handed it over, smiling and indicating that they should try to fire it into the air. They all did. He then got a cup of coffee and revealed that he was a police officer, complete with a badge and uniform under the white camouflage outfit. A little different from the usual behavior of Radarkontroll Hellutølsen, our local flavor of law enforcement that we all know and love.

So to conclude this little update, the boys are somewhat low on cash as of just now and are camping in the siberian woods to save money. According to Erlend, the financial mismanagement that got them into this situation could be traced back to them balancing their budget upon the expectation that hordes of people would buy the 500NOK White Snow screenplay from the website, resulting in a huge influx of cash. For some inexplicable reason, this seemingly bullet-proof business model failed. Crazy times, must be the global financial crisis at work.

Regardless of all this, they seem as happy and optimistic as always. Absolutely no complaints whatsoever and a can-do attitude. In 10 days or so, when the money starts flowing again, they'll continue northeast.
No cell-phone coverage as of now, but their sat phone is operational.