Our first port of call on
re-entering Russia was to buy our compulsory third party insurance. Well the
office may not instill confidence in the insurance company but we have our
insurance. Lets hope that we don’t have to call on it
1
After leaving Mongolia we
entered the Altai region at Tashanta and followed the old Chuysky Trading Track
along a beautiful valley to Gorno-Altaysk
Some interesting side tracks
along the way included Red Gate Canyon and Lake Teletskoye
The road went up to around
2000m with peaks to 4500m for us to enjoy from our camp…..
…….and we enjoyed every bit of it
A group photo with Guy and
Cheryl and the mountain range in the background holding Siberia’s highest peak,
Mount Belukha at 4,458m
In an endeavor to take a track
into the mountains we crossed this swing bridge…. well it did say a 7t limit
and Roadee comes in at only 6.2t, sooo…..
…….slowly slowly
A nice walk up over a pass on a
track that was just too narrow for Roadee
Throughout Russia (so far) there
have been no fences, a reflection, I’m told, of land title which is still held
collectively. Mobs of cattle in varying numbers roam at will and largely
unattended. They are completely at home on or off the road and mostly not
budging for you, so much so that the locals refer to them as “freelance cops”. It’s
a subject open for discussion as to the most efficient way to manage the
grazing land during a very short summer which sees the country rich with
clovers and meadow grasses. However the majority of the year is down to -30 to-40
degrees leading to animals having to be housed
Just love those silver birches
growing naturally and in abundance
Roadee managed to get her feet
wet on more than one occasion while getting to some interesting spots
Catch-up day. Pumping water
from mountain streams and washing. The area is wet and days are cloudy so solar
power production was down. The result, on R&R days the generator often got
some work
With an abundance of good trees
it’s understandable that timber is the main building material in Siberia. Log
houses are the traditional design and while unpainted the windows display pots
of flowers with gardens filled with flowers and potatoes. This has got to be
the “potato capital of the world”
On visiting a small village we
came across a ceremony to congratulate some local boys who had graduated in
their paratrooper course. A great community spirit was evident and well!
You can’t help but look at the
Russian Orthodox churches, this one in Omsk
Two young guys going about
their business. Russia seems to be a contrast of extremes. Many small villages
have all but died with the end of the Soviet system; no meaningful employment
has seen a drift away by the young while on the other hand the oil and gas
development in Siberia in particular has seen regional centers boom. Modern
housing developments, smart city centers and huge shopping malls filled with
people that makes you imagine you were in one of the best malls in Australia
It’s mushroom season and the
pickers of these wild mushies are out on the road in force
Archairsky, a small village to
the south of Omsk was the sight of one of Russia’s infamous gulag camps. On its
closure the KGB erased all evidence of the camp and only in 2000 a monastery
was erected in its place
This cross is all there is to
mark the location of where between 100 and 200,000 political prisoners died at
this camp alone
From the end of the Altai
Region and increasing the further west we went were thousands upon thousands of
hectares of crop in loamy black steppe country
Tobolsk, founded in 1587, used
to be the capital of Siberia but lost its crown to modern day Tyumen however it
sports what’s claimed to be the areas number one sight, its kremlin and
cathedral. The city leaders have also spent more than the annual budget of
Kazakhstan endeavoring to pretty up the city and turn it into a major tourist
attraction
We haven’t seen one statue of
Stalin but have seen many of Lenin, an indication that the nation has tried in
some ways to erase that part of its history but hasn’t fully come to terms with
it
Yekaterinburg as the capital of the Urals is better known for the location where the last Tsar and his family were murdered. Boris Yeltsin as Governor of the city in the 70’s had the building bulldozed so as not to attract monarchist sympathizes. Today a monastery has been erected in its place and the Romanov family have all been made Saints
The city still retains some
magnificent buildings and the wealth of the oil and gas boom shows
No comments:
Post a Comment