It connects Magadan with the town of Nizhny Bestyakh, located on the eastern bank of the Lena River, opposite of Yakutsk.

The Kolyma Highway has been colloquially called the Road of Bones (Russian: Дорога Костей Doróga Kostéy).

[5][need quotation to verify] Records indicate 10,251 people died in the Kolyma region prison system in 1938[6] from various official causes, mainly disease.

The CIA's initial 1950's estimate of 3 million victims is stated to be flawed in Martin Bollinger's book on Kolyma prison labor.

[11] In 2020, a teenage motorist froze to death by following Google Maps directions to use the shorter but abandoned section of the road via Tomtor, on which his car broke down, and his surviving travel mate lost most of his limbs due to frostbite.