Altai and Beyond

In this, the final installment in Russian Life on their trans-Russian journey, Gary and Monika Wescott explore the remarkable Altai before racing across the steppe with winter fast at

their heels, in pursuit of their final goal: Hammerfest on

the northeast

Norwegian coast.

By Gary Wescott. Photos by Gary & Monika Wescott.

Following our escape from the mountains of Tuva (see June 1997, Russian Life), we were ready for some relaxed backcountry touring in “the Switzerland of Russia.” We had long been intrigued by the Altai region of Central Siberia, famous for its wild rivers and snow-capped peaks, but its immensity, bordered on the south by Mongolia, China and Kazakhstan, was intimidating. We had contacted Centour Siberia, an outdoor travel and adventure organization based in Rubtsovsk, on the western edge of the Altai, and arranged a rendezvous at their white-water base camp on the Katun river. They would have some suggestions.

Having come over snow-bound passes of nearly 9,000 feet, we made a gradual descent into a dry, almost desert-like high plain at 6,500 feet, stopping in Kosh-Agach for a few supplies and fuel. This dusty military town is described by the Lonely Planet guidebook as a place “like the end of the world.” Having just come from “the other side of nowhere,” passing through “the middle of nowhere” on the way, to us Kosh-Agach was civilization! Bread, cookies, pickles, mayonnaise, beer — Monika came out of the little store with her arms loaded.

Out of Kosh-Agach, the Chuya river grew steadily, joining the middle and the south forks with the Chaganburgazy, flowing from the Mongolian border. Snow-capped peaks on both sides of the road towered above at eleven and twelve thousand feet, adding their milky-blue glacial melt to the stream. We followed a deep canyon cut by the Chuya to a point about fifty miles below Chibit, where the Katun river rushes down from the Katunsky mountains to absorb the smaller Chuya. The ribbon of gravel and blacktop had been blasted out of sheer rock cliffs in places.  Leaving the river, we entered a valley of fertile mountain farm land. The similarity to Switzerland was striking.

It was the beginning of autumn. Larch and birch had started their golden transformation. Small villages dotted side valleys, and the harvest from the subsistence gardens was in full swing. Some enterprising babushkas had planted a little extra to sell, and we delighted in the opportunity to stock up on fresh vegetables. Apples too were in season, and wild mushrooms and berries are a Russian passion. Both were sold by the bucket along the roadside.

In the small village of Ust Sema, we crossed the Katun and doubled back upstream for forty-six miles to find the Centour camp. By early afternoon, we were floating down the Katun River, and listening to the commands of Sergei Izotov, Centour’s director, “left!! — raz, (stroke) raz, raz — forward!!! — raz, raz, raz —” as we lined up our raft for the next set of exciting rapids. We have seen many rivers in our twenty-five years of travel around the world, and we’ve rafted a few. The Katun is surely one of the most beautiful we have encountered. Its crystal-clear, turquoise-blue water begins its long journey north to the Arctic from the Gebler glacier on Mt. Belukha.

In the morning, we dug out our maps and Sergei gave us an idea of how to reach Rubtsovsk by an indirect route, via the most interesting points. Our first goal was to drive as close as possible to Mt. Belukha, which, at 14,625 feet, is the highest peak in Siberia. Reaching Ust-Kan, we reversed our direction, climbing southeast through the Terektinsky mountains.

Dropping out of the mountains, we drove down the Koksa river valley.

The road ends in the hamlet of Tyungur — or does it? The Lonely Planet guide noted there were some Turkic stone sculptures of warriors killed in battle. The sculptures apparently date back to 500 AD and stand where the Argut river flows into the Katun. We followed a four-wheel-drive trail down the canyon for a few miles, but our progress was stopped by a rotten bridge.

Opal streams from numerous glaciers poured like milk down green and golden slopes to feed the upper Katun. We spent a week exploring the area, and, thanks to a stretch of sunny days during Indian Summer — called Babye Leto, “Woman’s Summer,” in Russian —  we had a rare view of the snow-capped Belukha peak. The people here were predominately Russian immigrants, but many of the Altai natives still live in this area, herding their animals as they have for millennia. Archaeologists estimate that the Denisova Cave near Ust-Kan was inhabited from the Old Stone Age period, as early as 300,000 BC.

Following good roads and not-so-good mud tracks from village to village, we hop-scotched across the Altai, taking time to enjoy the brilliant Fall colors. We were not in a hurry, and we had plenty of opportunities to meet the people of the Altai. Most were busy in their vegetable gardens. Rural areas were poor, but no one was going hungry. The potato crop was good. Winding our way through and around the Bashchelaksky mountains, we made a side trip to the town of Kolyvan. Centour had arranged a homestay and a local guide to show us around.

Kolyvan is known for its beautiful green jasperic rock and its skilled artists. The town is the source of one of the most impressive exhibits in the Hermitage museum, a huge vase standing over eight feet tall, carved from a single block of emerald-green stone. It took two years just to extract the rock from the quarry, and twelve more years for craftsmen to shape the vase. In the winter of 1843, over a span of six months, 180 horses and uncountable prisoners were used to transport the three-piece, 42,680 pound finished work by sled across the frozen steppes and over the Ural mountains to St. Petersburg.

The nearby town of Smeinogorsk was once a rich gold and silver mining center when it was populated mostly by labor camp prisoners. It is now famous for its superb Altai vodka, the smoothness of which is attributed to a high content of silver in the water. The small museum in Smeinogorsk gives a fascinating glimpse into Russian mining history.

Hospitality in the Altai is a tradition, and in Rubtsovsk it reaches a peak. After a week, we couldn’t walk downtown without meeting people we knew. There seemed to be a party every night in our honor. We became banya experts ... We went mushroom gathering and watched as our “tourist” hosts prepared a gourmet meal over an open fire. “Tourists,” in the sense it was being used here, simply means people who love to camp and enjoy the outdoors in its many forms.

At length, we had obviously used up the last of both fall and Babye Leto. From one day to the next, winter announced its arrival with freezing temperatures and four inches of snow. We pulled out onto the treacherously icy highway and slowly slithered north, toward Novosibirsk. A week of ballets, circuses and performances by the Philharmonic Orchestra reminded us how civilized Russia can be.

Circling the little golden dome of the St. Nicholas chapel in Novosibirsk, which marks the geographical center of Russia, was a pointed reminder that we were still more than 4,000 miles from the Atlantic Coast in Norway, our final goal.

Out of the city of Novosibirsk, we drove into the flat lands called the steppe. A wet snow melted and froze again as it hit the pavement.

Like the Great Plains of North America, the Russian steppe stretches nearly flat to the horizon. Fields of wheat and grass are broken only by small clumps of trees. The typical village is predominantly of small log homes which have neither running water nor sewage facilities. The harvest was over now, and the Russian peasants of the countryside were busy hauling in their last stacks of hay.

Trees that once offered us protection were now barren, and small sideroads lay camouflaged under an early blanket of winter. Large Russian cities of Western Siberia were uniformly gray, dirty, chaotic and of little interest to us. We skirted them whenever possible. Two hundred and fifteen miles from Novosibirsk, the pavement turned to gravel and then dirt, but the cold weather had been in our favor for a change. Instead of the impassable mud we had been warned about, there were only frozen ruts to contend with. The next hundred and forty-five miles were a bone-jarring 30-mph exercise in patience.

In Kurgan, we turned northwest to follow, in reverse, the historic trail used by Siberian pioneers and later by millions of social and political prisoners, on their way to die in the gulags (forced labor camps) of the Northeast. We stopped briefly in Yekaterinburg to visit the site where Tsar Nicholas II, his wife and children were murdered in July of 1918, brutally ending the Romanov dynasty.

Leaving Yekaterinburg, we began to climb into the Ural Mountains, the boundary between Asia and Europe. One might expect something like the Sierras of California,  but no such range exists. At 900 feet, the rain turned to sleet, and at 1,020 feet, we pulled into a mixed forest of Scotch pines, birch and aspen to camp for the night. Using four-wheel drive, we backed the truck and trailer into deep snow to safely isolate ourselves from the approach of highway bandits and roving Mafia who supposedly prowl these mountains like jackals looking for easy prey. Was it all a joke? We kept the Dan Wesson and two cans of Counter Assault pepper spray at the ready.

It was -7°F in the morning. We stopped at the 1,200 foot pass for coffee and watched our last Siberian sunrise. The Urals had been no more than foothills. Dense forests rolled east toward Magadan, which, by our odometer, was 13,900 miles away on the distant Pacific Coast. We had crossed the continent of Asia the hard way.

Descending into hilly farmland now, we followed the main highway through Perm, Kazan and Nizhny Novgorod. It was seldom above freezing and the roads were a sheet of ice. Rare sections had been sanded, but it was not to be expected. Four-wheel drive helped, but the trailer had a mind of its own.

A cold-yellow sun slipped from behind gray clouds and disappeared by 5 p.m. Days were becoming noticeably shorter. The camper’s water system had been drained to prevent freezing. We filled a 6-gallon water container from street pumps or wells in villages along the way.

In Kovrov, we detoured to visit some of the towns along the famous Golden Ring Route. In Palekh, we watched the intricate process of creating an authentic lacquer box, and left with a clear understanding of why these miniature stamped and numbered masterpieces are more expensive than the fakes sold in tourist shops. In Suzdal, we marveled at the profusion of churches, chapels and monasteries.

Admittedly, the cold and gloom were getting to us, but the giant had to be slain. Moscow with its estimated 13 to 14 million residents waited. Despite its reputation for street crime, rising prices, mafia, drunks and beggars, we found it an enjoyable city to visit. At least one parking lot next to the Olympic Sports Complex offered a safe overnight harbor for campers. After two weeks, we had been neither robbed nor threatened, and we still had our windshield wipers! Bad rumors are slow to die.

As in Moscow, parking on the street in St. Petersburg during daytime and evening hours was not a problem, and the underground metros of both cities offer an efficient way to reach markets and museums. St. Petersburg must be one of Europe’s most charming metropolises and Russia’s most beautiful city. We spent a week visiting some of its most impressive attractions, including the huge Hermitage Museum, which contains thousands of masterpieces and surely the most profusely extravagant example of excessive royal self-indulgence in the world.

The drive from St. Petersburg to the Finnish border was uneventful. In Vyborg we stopped to fill our combined, 160-gallon fuel tanks ($1.00 a gallon in Russia, but soon to be $4.00 a gallon in Finland and the rest of Europe!), and spent our last rubles in the open food and craft market.

Famous as they are for needless paperwork, we expected the Russian border guards to be a problem. We had not registered our visas since leaving Kyzyl in Tuva. (You are supposed to register anywhere you stay more than three days.) We were carrying a ton of “questionable” stuff, including 300 rolls of exposed film, an illegally imported Hughes MagnaPhone satellite portable phone, six cameras, two communication radios, two GPS satellite navigation systems, U.S. Defense Agency maps covering the whole country, a video camcorder, a computer, a printer, paintings, antiques and carpets from Middle Asia, pieces of mammoth ivory from Magadan, etc., etc. Nothing really bad, but the wrong guy could cost us days and a trip back to Moscow to sort out the red tape. If you read the dark side of the fine print, almost everything except the gold in your teeth needs some kind of permit to exit Russia.

Passing two preliminary military check-points, we trepidatiously approached the Russian Customs & Immigration complex. Flash! Stamp! Stamp! (Even a smile!) ... Then a quick look in the camper and a superficial inspection of the trailer’s front compartment ... Stamp! Stamp! ... to the visa side. The young woman didn’t seem to know what our Tuvan extensions were about, but she kept a straight face and gave us a couple more thumps with her rubber stamp... Like butter off a hot knife, we slid out-a-there and across the border without so much as a look over our shoulder! A quick stop at the duty-free store and “Welcome to Finland!” — into the “Nothing to Declare” lane. We barely slowed down at the drive-through passport control booth. (Not too many California license plates in this part of the world.) Had there been a home-plate to dive across, someone with outstretched arms could have yelled “safe”!!!

The next day, over pavement as smooth as a baby’s derriere, we sped north, to the top of the world. The storm we were apparently driving into had steadily worsened by 10 p.m., when we stopped near Oulu at a 24-hour travel center. The overnight low was 13° F, turning the narrow highway into a skating rink.

Stopping briefly at the Arctic Circle, we continued in the growing darkness. Any semblance of daylight faded at 2:30 in the afternoon. The Arctic blizzard blowing off the North Sea and funneling up the Porsangen Fjord whipped 80-mph winds across the gray water and slammed into the coast. The snowfall was unbelievable, and violent gusts created total whiteouts.

At length, we reached the swinging suspension bridge over the channel separating the mainland with the island of Kvaloya. The raging storm buffeted the truck. The road was closed. We waited.

After seven hours, a small convoy began to crawl into the gale. Snow blower trucks led the way, cutting 8-foot slits through drifts which towered above our cab. Occasional whiteouts required stopping. Only our fog lights gave us a hint of where the road dropped into the sea. After two hours and nineteen miles of white-knuckle driving, we snaked into the protected bay of Hammerfest and parked a stone’s throw away from the angry Norwegian Sea. We had reached the most northern “town” in the world you can drive to.

Hammerfest marked the completion of what most people said was impossible; to drive across Russia and the whole of the Eurasian continent, from the North Pacific to the North Atlantic’s Norwegian Sea, ocean-to-ocean, without the use of trains or ships. We had crossed Siberia in the dead of winter, driving 1,500 miles on winter roads, including 600 miles up the frozen Lena River. We had lived in temperatures as low as -87° F. We had explored the backroads of Lake Baikal, Tuva and the Altai. During the entire 11-month, 16,000-mile adventure, our wheels never left the ground. To our knowledge, no one, foreign or Russian, has ever attempted this route, and, given its difficulties, it may be some time before anyone follows our tracks.