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