Greatest Hits of Altai

A couple hours ago, I returned from my extended trip to Altai.  That destination afforded me the opportunity to visit my friends Matt and Jason in their base-cities, Novosibirsk and Tomsk, respectively.  Those visits will warrant their own blog entries, but first things first.  Before we left, another American lost in Russia told Matt that Altai had incredible “energy.”  We made fun of that hippie for hours, but it turned out, she was dead right.

Altai is one of the many autonomous republics that exist within Russia.  Altaians have their own distinct language and culture which is closer to Mongolian than Russian.  In fact, half the Altai mountain range is in Mongolia, and we were closer to there and China than we initially realized.  The lure of Altai for tourists is its pristine nature.  In addition to the mountains, there are beautiful lakes and huge stretches of taiga, a mixed-growth forest.  We planned our trip for this time only because it fit with our teaching and home-going schedules.  Little did we know we would arrive too late for the encephalitis-laden tick season and and too early for

 the tourist season.  So we had the whole of Lake Teletskoye to ourselves, sharing it only with the locals and non-threatening ticks.

Matt, Jason, his girlfriend Rusana and I stayed in a little cottage ca

lled Nastenka named for the owner’s daughter.  The owner, Nina,  and her husband had built a few guest cottages around their own house.  Thus we were surrounded by her prized gardens, and one morning she even put some of us to work there!  We also had use of her kitchen, banya, barbecue pit and outhouse (oh boy).  We spent a lot of time sitting in her gazebo, and she loved how Matt played the banjo.  A note about Nina--we were so lucky to have found her, quite by chance on the internet.  How she managed to get a web-listing I’ll never figure out.  Anyway, because she had no other guests at the time, Nina was more than happy to help us with everything we wanted to do.  She told us the best places to go, took us on a hike up the mountain, even introduced us to a friend of hers who sold fresh milk, sour cream and farmer’s cheese.  The coolest thing was how she walked around in awe of the natural beauty, as if she was seeing it all for the first time.  One curious thing: for some reason, she was absolutely certain we were a group of Germans.  Nothing we said could convince her otherwise.  As Jason pointed out, Nina was very perceptive of most things, like she anticipated our every need and desire, but she’ll forever remember us as that nice company of krauts.

Even cooler than Nina was her dog Misha (alternately Lisha, Pisha and Grisha) who was our self-appointed tour-guide everywhere, every day.  The first time we went for a walk, we tried like the dickens to keep Misha inside the fence, only to have him pop out in front of us a few yards away.  Everywhere we went, Misha was with us, occasionally inviting another dog to join.  He did some amazing tricks, like climbing trees, hopping fences and avoiding being kicked in the head by cows.  Weaving on and off the path, sometimes we thought we lost him, then he would pop out way ahead of us.  The most, or only, heartbreaking moment of the trip was Misha’s face when he realized he couldn’t come with us on a boat ride.  

We spent our days hiking or hanging out by the water.  One day, the rainiest, we took the aforementioned boat ride.  The boat was covered, so it wasn’t miserable, and it was amazing to see just how big Lake Teletskoye is.  I’ve heard this lake described as Baikal’s little brother.  The lake has inspired many legends, of dragons, lost gold and meteorites.  We didn’t see any of that, but it certainly was inspiring.  At night, we usually barbecued, then drank massive amounts of beer in the gazebo until passing out.  

On our last day, we were getting ready to take the first in a series of buses to get to the train station that was four hours away.  But just before boarding, we were offered a cheaper ride with a man going our way.  This type of hitchhiking is totally normal in Russia, and is often a more economical way to travel.  We took the man up on his offer, not knowing he would become one of the most memorable characters of our trip.  Alexander was so full of joy and energy, knew a few words in a bunch of languages and was eager to teach us what he knew about Altai.  On the road, Matt mentioned that we wanted to buy some famous Altai honey.  We passed a house advertising the same for sale, and noticed a little boy jumping up and down on the front porch.  Alexander uttered the endlessly quotable line: "Enough jumping!  Bring honey!"  Later, we stopped at the city Gorno-Altaisk, where Alexander showed us the main square, then brought us into the cafeteria at the central goverment building.  We still had quite a few hours til our train, so he offered to take us to see the Katoon (or, as we called it “Cartoon”) river.  We relaxed by the bank enjoying Matt’s banjo-playing and Alexander’s dancing.  We all agreed that meeting a man as nice and jolly as Alexander pretty much restored our faith in humanity.

Finally, we got to the train station.  When we boarded the train, we found our seats, as most, occupied by soldiers.  It was, literally, a Mongolian cluster-fuck.  Apparently their officer had found their wagon, without checking that the soldiers sit in their specifically assigned seats.  Luckily, since so many passengers had been displaced by the careless soldiers, we weren’t the only ones complaining.  Thanks to Jason’s Russian girlfriend, we got our seats with a minimum of hassle.  We played a few rounds of Durak, which seems to be the only card game played in Russia, before bedtime.  Jason and Rusana claim that there was a military marching band practicing at 3 a.m., but I slept like a drunk baby.

So, now I’m lying in my bed, tanned and spent.  I’ve showered done my grocery shopping and half my laundry and I’m positively exhausted.  It's weird being in Yekaterinburg where the tap water smells after being in Altai where people drink water straight from a pump in the ground.  I have a little over a week left in Russia, and while I lost some precious time in Yoburg, I couldn’t be happier I made this trip.  I recommend visiting Altai to anyone in Russia; I’ve really never seen anything like it.  And here’s the most important part: a place like this can’t possibly remain forever.  Nothing gold can stay, right?  Already, there’s talk of building casinos and turning this gorgeous nature preserve into a sort of Russian Las Vegas.  So get yourself to Altai before that happens.  And if you’re looking for a place to stay, ring up Nina.  She loves hosting friendly Germans.