The Kolyma (Russian: Колыма, IPA: [kəlɨˈma]; Yakut: Халыма, romanized: Xalıma) is a river in northeastern Siberia, whose basin covers parts of the Sakha Republic, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, and Magadan Oblast of Russia.

The Kolyma is frozen to depths of several metres for about 250 days each year, becoming free of ice only in early June, until October.

[8] In 1892–94 Baron Eduard Von Toll carried out geological surveys in the basin of the Kolyma (among other Far-eastern Siberian rivers) on behalf of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Barr, 1980).

The Kolyma is known for its Gulag labour camps and gold mining, both of which have been extensively documented since Joseph Stalin–era Soviet archives opened.

The river gives its title to a famous anthology about life in Gulag camps by Varlam Shalamov, The Kolyma Tales.

[11] Kaufman and his daughter Sylvan and CPA Letty Collins Magdanz also travelled part of the Kolyma in August 1992, the first American visitors since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Both trips were arranged by North-East Scientific and Industrial Center: Ecocenter to try out an ecotourism route which was found to be impractical.

[citation needed] In February 2012, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported that scientists had grown plants from 30,000-year-old Silene stenophylla fruit, which was stored in squirrel burrows near the banks of the Kolyma river and preserved in permafrost.

[12] Settlements at the Kolyma river include (listed downstream) Sinegorye, Debin, Ust-Srednekan, Seymchan, Zyryanka, Srednekolymsk and Chersky.