One month of traveling

The sun shines, it is 25 degrees and I sit peacefully behind a computer in the Central Library of Ulan Ude, our last Russian city. It has been such a full month, a month I could never have imagined. Some facts: we reached this place with 56 rides and 3 trains. Based on signs and drivers’ wisdom we calculated that we covered 9940 km in 21 days on the road. Our route went as following: Tallinn, Kaunas, Minsk, Cherkasy, Mehedovka, Khorol, Voronezh, Samara, Ufa, Kurgan, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Abakan, Kyzyl, Chadaan, Kyzyl, Kurgana (Petropavlovka), Khansk, Irkutsk, Ulan Ude. Tomorrow we will head towards Mongolia.

But now back to where I left you last time.

From Novosibirsk we took a 24 hour train south to Abakan, a sideway to an ethnic festival we had heard of in Kurgan. We managed to get a cheap platskart place which means a bed in a wagon with some 60 places, two nights of accommodation and a relative amount of rest and constant free access to hot water for our usual porridge, mash potato and noodles meals. In Abakan we hitch a car early in the morning, again a Camaz, which we load with building materials in a nearby little village. Our search for fresh milk is without results. After crossing the mountains we enter another world, this time next to the enormous statue marking the border with Tuva Republic we also saw some clear other signs of this new place, this new seemingly undiscovered paradise. A natural border of good weather clouds, a drastically changing landscape and the Asian stone drake statues together with the Asian faces of the forest people selling berries show off against the typical Russian Siberian views. Tired but with open eyes we reach Kyzyl late at night and stay at Valody’s place, our kind driver. The joy of the shower and the real beds is great. Next day we manage our business in Kyzyl which meant still trying to get our registration of our immigration done. A true, and continuing, hassle which was without success in Voronezh where some hotels for example simply do not take foreigners. In Kyzyl we are also unsuccessful but the ‘luck’ with our Mongolian visa compensated this. Being so close to Mongolia we were happily surprised that there was a consulate in Kyzyl, which was not the case in Novosibirsk (4th biggest city of Russia). The civil servant even managed to get it done in a couple of hours. But nothing goes just like that! He asked for our gratitude, three times, so not knowing what to do we add some money to our visa costs. He returns it. We ask Valody’s advice. “Too little” he said. When returning to the consulate to pick up the visa we decide to ask how much his gratitude costs, not knowing how to deal with corruption. His embarrassment led to us leaving without paying anything extra but unfortunately we also did not have exactly what we dreamed of. We got a 5 day transit visa and the information that even being so close to Mongolia we had to go via Ulan Ude as Tuva did not have any international border making it not possible to cross for persons from third countries. Anyway very happy having done our ‘business’, we leave from Kyzyl direction festival in the afternoon and drive through marvelous landscape. A taste of Mongolia! When dropped at a road-police post we make some fun with them. They helped us to get a ride to Chadaan, showed us hashes being the currency of Tuva and advising us to cross the border to Mongolia illegally.
The 4 day festival in Ustuu-Huree is really great. We camp along the shores of the river between nice smelling trees and friendly guarded by raptors who come very close to show their beauty. Amongst great people we enjoy the Russian and Tuvian ethnic music. The typical throat singing is truly new and amazing. The feeling of experiencing this ‘exotic’ cultures at the spot itself instead of at Sfinx or Helsinki World Village is great. We were some of the few ‘outsiders’ on this festival. Tuva really impressed us and raised our interest. Already very soon we realized we were witnessing a smooth mix and a clash of two cultures in the same time. The festival contributed to preserve and honouring the Buddhist culture of Tuva which had been repressed by the Soviets. I feel we witness an important part of a strive for independence and cultural identity. A theater play and the speeches accompanying the celebrations clearly ask for tolerance and respect. The music was truly beautiful and I liked the simplicity of the way this free festival was organized. We also witnessed a ceremony of Lama’s at a newly build Stupa, the finish of a horse race of children going 40 km without saddles and a real wrestling competition. The fact that we experienced this with local people instead of tourists made it feel very ‘real’.
After the festival the car of the disaster medicine took us back to Kyzyl, another slow Camaz brought us back close to Abakan. We were on the way to a community of one of the artists we met in Chadaan. The village Petropavlovka was truly strange. Instead of being one of those Siberian villages slowly dying this village was alive, new houses build, young people and esoteric buildings and cultural places. A sharp contrast to other villages where the attempts of the Soviets to create a cultural place is only visible in the form of ruins. That the image of young Jezus-like man had something to do with this strange atmosphere became soon clear but we were left with a feeling of not-understanding until we visited the house of some Germans. The village is the heart of the cult of Vissarion who is writing the last testament and emphasizes the power of survival of Siberians. While many people feel very attracted to this place and person, who gives speeches all over the world, we felt ill at that place. We also met there with Gert from Antwerp who lives there already for seven years. His explanation about the way of living of the village was “we try to reproduce positive energy and we try to filter negative energy”. They live as much as possible from their own gardens and focus on handicrafts. To me it felt a bit like a new version of the Truman Show. However the attention on children’s creativity and time for talking were very nice features of this village. At Gert’s place we also experienced a real Russian banya. After two days we were happy to leave and to continue our travel to the East. This sideway however had more surprises for us. We ended up on empty roads, roads without asphalt through Siberian taiga. With a record amount of cars, some time with Russian railroad workers and playing games on empty crossroads in the middle of nowhere, we reached the main road again in the evening. Russian hospitality which I haven’t mentioned enough brought us into the dacha of a very nice family where we received food, a shower and a very warm welcome. On the way to Kansk we slept in the fields were I experienced the second attack of Siberian mosquitos, luckily the many bites only were itching for a short while. Kansk is a true example of Russian roads! A young soldier decided to help us to get on the road to Irkutsk, also not knowing that the ring around Kansk leads the traffic through unpaved forests roads. Also later on we drive through sandy roads, going from one side of the road to the other. It is absurd to think that this is a highway. Concepts like km/hour or mappy.com seem useless. In the rain we reach to a small town called Nizhneudinsk with a brand new Lada, almost unrecognizable! We stay at a great special place of an artist. Carina had been there last year and also now we got the special travelers house for us. Aleksey is an extreme traveler and guide, going into taiga and rafting on the wild Russian rivers. Again maybe a place to return to! Next day we stop close to Irkutsk and get to cook for the first time on a fire. Mmmmm I enjoy that so much! A big thunderstorm in the morning gave us some extra hours of sleep, hardly needed! We become a bit tired, often leaving very early and making long days but with great feelings of satisfaction. Irkutsk gives us a break from the road where we have access to fruit and milk products and this time also a successful possibility for getting our registration done. Our visit to Tuva continues to lead us. Via a visit to a youth hostel run by a girl we met on the festival we end up at a nice apartment of a friend of hers. Laundry, a shower and a real bed give again great pleasure but it was Natasha’s care and friendly communication which made this stay very nice. With the train we reach Baikal Lake, a lake as big as Belgium. Unfortunately the grey sky covers the mountains and soon it began to rain. With only having touched the water with our feet we decide to go on with our driver to Ulan Ude. After driving through the end of the city and knocking at the door of the male Datsan (Buddhist temple) we reach the only female Datsan in Russia and are warmly welcomed there. We get another place to stay for the night! They could so easily have said no, because it is not a usual place for people to ask for accommodation. After posting this we will go and help them to make Pozi, a traditional Buryat dish.