The Altai expedition

Close before the border shut, a car driven by Kazakh Medikhat arrived, bringing two other hopeless tourists from the UK - Ben and Kate. After elaborate discussion whether to take an expensive taxi together just to cross the border (and then try to fight their way to some local Mongolian village in order to find some local bus to continue the journey), the Czars decided to turn around and return to Kosh-Agach, the largest village in the area. Having come back, they gathered resources to make their own pancakes, went to local kafe for a beer with the locals and the UK couple and then spent a night in an excellent garden cabin in Medikhat's garden.

Rather typical view around Kosh-Agach

Sunny walk around Kosh-Agach

The Czars in the middle of the village

First day in Kosh-Agach (Sunday, Sep 13) was a planning day. The Czars slept-in to regain lost energy and then discussed the future possibilities resulting from unsuccessful border crossing. It turned out that any transportation options (jeeps, lorries etc.) to a village Dzhazatr (near Mt. Belukha, the highest mountain of the region and within the interesting area close to Chinese, Kazakh and Mongolian border) have already left, so the afternoon was spent climbing nearby hills in the middle of the amazing sun-dried steppe.

Herdsman and his sheeps

Beginning of the steppe

Having spent one more pleasant night in the garden booth, the Czars woke up early in the morning in order to catch the first taxi to Dzhazatr. As normal, the promise of Anatoly, one of the drivers, to "leave in 20 minutes" resulted into almost 2.5 hours of waiting, while Anatoly gathered literally anything that needed to be or could be transported and sold in Dzhazatr. On the way came another surprise, since Dzhazatr is located "near the border" and thus requires a special entry permit. One of the bandits guarding the road has been uncompromising and ordered the Czars to return. Luckily enough, the Czars did not have to walk back on their own (as they were the only ones who did not have the permit, so the whole car could have easily continued), but were taken back to Kosh-Agach by Anatoly, where the bureaucratic bullying continued. Local officers, having once again no clue what should be actually done and contradicting each other with regards to other pieces of papers with stamps to be acquired, disgusted the Czar delegation, which decided to set off to the mountains, where low level of similar administrative stupidity was expected.

Czar Madonovich taking in the heat of the situation

Having used the friendly help of local retired physics teacher Sergei, they arrived to a tiny village Maly Yaloman, where they planned on spending next 3 days camping and hiking. First two days went great, weather worked out rather well and nights have not been too cold (plus the Czars made fire every evening). Last day (Wednesday, Sep 16) one of the (unfortunately quite many) drunks in the village decided to steal one of the royal tents located across the river and drag it to its burrow. Furtunately, he has been disclosed by the sober village minority, which told the Czars where to look for the tent and enabled them to recover it. However, having found a hanged dog behind their tents in the afternoon and thus being unsure about how the last night would look like, the delegation rather decided to hold guards during the whole night.

Deserted huts in the mountains

The nature of Altai

The Altai cow. Boooh.

Packing up the tents in the morning

On the following morning of Thursday, Sep 17, the Czars stopped a van going by (after the "certain daily bus" to Barnaul that turned into "certain three times a week only bus"), got dropped off in Gorno Altaisk and caught a bus to Barnaul that luckily went literally 10 minutes after their arrival. Having found a nice accommodation in Barnaul, having had a normal dinner after couple of days and the third shower of the trip, they went to bed. The next morning they caught a bus to Novosibirsk, to continue the last part of their adventures - around lake Baikal.

Long live the Czars! :)

Czar Madonovich in an imperial combat vehicle

Subjugation of Mongolia: DENIED!

Although the Czars have fought the bandits of the Kingdom of Bureaucracy bravely and even achieved several victories, their final battle did not finish as expected.

Czars Bonegovich, Madonovich and Fredovich were mostly afraid of obstructions resulting from visa issues, given that especially Fredovich's documents have been a complete mess, enabling the border bandits to easily refuse the royal delegation the right to leave the kingdom of Rossiya (and thus to enter Mongolia).

However and once again, it proved right that even the border bandits (and any other servants of the kingdom) seem to have no freaking clue about how a correct set of documents (passport, migration card, visa, registration, invitation/tourist voucher) should look like.

As described in the previous post, the border crossing did not crash on incorrect documentation, but simply on ridiculous transportation system at the border and lack of time to be further invested into the border tragicomedy.

As a result, the Czars decided to fully explore the beauties of the amazing republic Altai and return to Mongolia as a part of some other journey, when time will enable them to experience the country to the fullest.

Long live the Czars! :)

Czars waiting at the the Russian-Mongolian border in Tashanta

On a winding road to Mongolia

On September 9, with one day delay according to the royal plan, the Czars arrived to the picturesque Altai Republic, the last Russian colony before Mongolia. The spies advised them to register at the Russian office in Gorno Altaisk, however the local officer refused their request and told them to keep telling everyone that they just arrived. The unbreakable bureaucratic circle had begun here which was yet to be discovered later on.

As they still had a few days buffer, they decided to relax for two days in Chemal, small but friendly village in the forests along Katun river that burst with middle-age atmosphere. After refreshing banya and with overfilled royal bellies, the Czars set foot again on the one and only street of Gorno Altaisk as there was surprisingly no bus from Chemal to anywhere else than back.

The Chemal "beach"

Lake near local monastery

Chilling after busy day and hot banya

After a short sleep in a dusty warehouse arranged by its watchman Rashid, the Czars set off towards Mongolia with the morning light.

Fairy-tale countryside of Altai

Amazing Altai village covered in the fall melancholy

Royal walk into the hills

Through spectacular mountains, fairy-tale river sides and small wooden villages, they were finally transported by Ildar and his magical vehicle by Friday evening to Tashanta, the last settlement at the borders. However, the gates to Mongolia were already closed for the day. With 60 inhabitants, 50 dogs, one tiny shop and freezing wind from the mountains, there was no other option than to ask for a bed in a shack of one of the peasants.

Shack where the Czars slept

The Czars had spent comfortably warm night and then in the morning (Saturday, Sep 12) they approached the heavily guarded entrance to a promised land of Mongolia. To their surprise, pear-looking soldier denied their access explaining that a walk-through by foot is prohibited. Only those on a vehicle are allowed in. The road closes every Sunday which meant they needed to pass till the dusk otherwise the Mongolian adventure would blur into hasty race among planned checkpoints.

The atmosphere of the village of Tashanta

So the Czars started to ask passing cars for a helping hand. Some of them had own difficulties to get through, some asked too much in return and the others were simply full. As there was still the whole day ahead they just kept trying and played soccer with local kids in the meantime. However there were less and less cars coming ...

After a soccer match (kids beated the Czars and won a juice)

Seeing the poor results, czar Fredovich used his charisma and royal treasure to persuade a jeep driver to squeeze 8 people into the car. The first tollgate was overcome. The Czars were in the no men's land between the borders. Unfortunately, the second security check discovered discrepancies between number of seats and persons, especially czar Madonovich did not looked like a luggage although he tried with all his actor skills.

Trying to add 3 more people and 3 big bags into an already full jeep

Game restarted. Still half a day ahead.

Nevertheless, the frequency of incoming vehicles decreased from very few cars per hour to almost no cars per hour. Even such circumstances could not bring down spirit of the Czars. They were waiting patiently with eyes hypnotizing horizon hoping to see a smoke from a rescue car ...

Long live the Czars! :)

Trans-Siberian railway adventures

Similarly as there are no earnings without work, there is no reaching the countryside without passing through the cities. And in such cases, even the Czars are not having an exception: they passed 4 cities in 5 days on their way from Moscow to the magnificent Altai republic.

Czars Fredovich and Bonegovich in the train.

The daily routine got soon into steady pattern - hopping off the train in the morning, setting the day objectives during the breakfast briefing in a local buffet, slowly completing all particular tasks (commonly including photo documentation of the key locations, spotting the Lenin square (present literally everywhere), ice-cream tasting), and boarding the Trans-Siberian carriage again in the evening.

Ekaterinburg (Sunday, Sep 6th)
After 27 hours in the train from Moscow, the Czars finally got off in Ekaterinburg at 5 a.m. Strolling across the super-wide streets with no traffic, resting on super-large (Lenin) squares with no pedestrians, and trying out local metro by random stops in the suburbs of Russian 4th biggest city, the Czars pleasantly spent the whole morning. In the afternoon they were picked up by their colleague Kristina (arranged in advance by their Russian ally Vitalik) who facilitated an excursion to nearby Ganina Yama - a pit in the mine 15 km far from Ekaterinburg where the dead bodies of Romanov Czar family were found. It was an emotional and touching afternoon for all the Czars and their souls.

The memorial of the Russian Czar family.

Comrade Lenin - seeing everything.

Omsk (Monday, Sep 7th)
It was raining - for the first time on the entire trip. And the Czars benefited from the misty atmosphere that covered the whole city. At first it seemed they all accidentally travelled back in time by 50 years, then the Czars started enjoying the old-school design of everything around. The evening stop in Rostik's-KFC and thrilling blockbuster in local cinema at 2 a.m. was a nice close off before boarding the train again.

The Omsk townhall.
The Omsk market.

Novosibirsk (Tuesday, Sep 8th)
While Ekaterinburg and Omsk definitely managed to conserve their specific atmosphere, Novosibirsk turned out to be fairly ordinary city - not bad, not astonishing, not old, not flashy. Nevertheless, the Czars had good time, as always: trespassing the docks while following the river Ob, having a traditional Russian lunch in a traditional construction site trailer, or messing up with smoky clown would surely be the highlights.

Russian speciality: "grichka s kotletoi" (Russian "rice" with ground meat).

Cheese!:) ...the Czars at the bank of river Ob.
Mafia disneyland in the background.

Biysk (Wednesday, Sep 9th)
Reaching Biysk on Wednesday morning meant the Czars had to leave the train for some time, as they finally arrived to the Altai republic and were eager to head to unknown Russian-Mongolian-Chinese-Kazakh borderlands. With the guidance of one of the local girls, Katya, who they met on the train, they briefly discovered the small but charming town and set off deeper into Altai. Let's wish them good luck!

Church in Biysk.

Czar Madonovich in the bus, heading to Altai.

Long live the Czars! :)

Conquest of Saint Petersburg

As czar Fredovich still needed few days to finish negotiations with Russian bourgeoisie, czar Martin Madonovich and Hudyslav Bonegovich set off to Petersburg to conquer former headquarters of their imperial predecessors.

They entered the city discreetly by train covered in the darkness just before the first soft rays of dawn illuminated wide streets of Petersburg.

Allied undercover agent in the local bar provided the czars a secret code to the door of camouflaged hide-out from where the short expeditions were starting in the following two days.

The czars mapped the underground passages so they could travel between distant points of the city without a necessity to expose themselves to the watchful eyes of local militia.

They also successfully penetrated into famous Hermitage and evaluated its astonishing art collections.

After such an attention-demanding mission the czars have moved to relaxing gardens of Peterhof where they spent a sunny afternoon.

Of course they couldn't leave the city without counting the military forces of Petersburg, especially examining the Aurora ship and its big guns.

More adventures are on the way ...

Long live the Czars! :)

Royal warm-up in Moscow

The main part of the Czars Reunion is going to take place on the unpredictable Transsiberian Railway - therefore the Czars needed decent preparation before setting off... they spent almost 5 days in Moscow and did a 2-day trip to Saint Petersburg.

The first two days, Saturday and Sunday, were spent by all three Czars and Sasha together - they were exploring the Red Square in the main city center, enjoying traditional Czar Russian architecture and having fun in clubs, sauna etc.

Monday was more like a working day - czar Fredovich went to earn some last roubles, and czars Bonegovich and Madonovich needed to take care of many administration tasks. Especially the so-called tourist registration was a tough part, but they all managed (with essential assistance of Sasha), despite spending the whole day dealing with the business. More details coming later on. Hopefully.

Two days spent in St. Petersburg was a deserved holiday for czars Madonovich and Bonegovich. At the same time it was their first chance to prove their Russian communication skills, as they were travelling on their own. There is going to be a special report describing this expedition.

Thursday and Friday of the last week were dedicated to the second round of Moscow sightseeing - this time focused more on the ordinary-Moscow-life experience, in order to adopt more features of native Russian behavior that could be benefitial on the approaching trip.

Last but not least, some pictures are to be found below...

Long live the Czars! :)

The Czars and Sasha in the Moscow city center

Saint Basil's Cathedral on the Red Square

Sightseeing continues...

Good habits never die - the Czars posing

The Czar's suite is located in the left wing of the residence (on the right), two floors below the blue neon rooftop ring. It is only 12-minute walk far from the Kremlin (just across the river, in the left dark part of the picture).

Second round of Moscow sigtseeing: outside the center

Moscow metro, the world's second biggest metro system.
It is well known for majestic design of its stations.

Czars reunited!

The Czars eventually got reunited!! :)
On Saturday August 29th, 2009 Zdenik Fredovich, Martin Madonovich and Hudyslav Bonegovich all met in healthy mood in front of the Beloruskaya (Белорусская) metro station in Moscow.

Michal and Martin were particularly surprised by the specifics of Cyrillic alphabet (yet unfamiliar & soon to be mastered), as well as by the high ratio of non-English speakers in their transitional homeland. Despite these damnable facts, they managed to reach the Moscow city center without cash, and on their own. They were thankful to Zdenik Fredovich and Sasha Tyavovna (Саша Тявовна) who took care of the navigation and secured the generous welcome packages.

In front of the Cathedral of Saint Basil the Blessed, Moscow, Russia.

...it really happened!

The last time the Czars were enjoying themselves together was in Stockholm, Sweden at the end of March 2009.
Long 6 months ago!

The Czars: Expecting unexpectable.
Long live the Czars! :)