Vanavara

Vanavara is a small settlement on the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Krasnoyarsk Krai, central Siberia. In 1908 it was a trading post serving Evenki reindeer herders, and it remains the nearest permanent settlement to the site of the Tunguska event.

On the morning of 30 June 1908 an object, most likely a stony asteroid or comet fragment, exploded in the air over the taiga about 65 kilometres to the northwest, flattening some 2,000 square kilometres of forest. At Vanavara a man named S. B. Semenov later told investigators he was thrown from his porch and felt heat as if his shirt had caught fire. Windows broke in the settlement.

Testimony from Vanavara was collected years later, mainly after the scientist Leonid Kulik reached the area in 1927, using the settlement as a base. The settlement has since served as the starting point for many expeditions to the blast site.