The route looping round to Abakan from Tuva via Askiz is scenically varied, often beautiful and mesmerisingly vast in scale, though the Chinggis Khaan stone near Ak-Dovurak is the only real ‘sight’. Independent travellers should be aware of Western Tuva’s fearsome reputation for wild lawlessness and unprovoked knife attacks. Even other Tuvans are nervous about travelling without a truly local companion. Sayan Ring tours come this way.
The 3100km-long Baikal-Amur Mainline (Baikalo-Amurskaya Magistral, BAM) is an astonishing victory of belief over adversity. This ‘other’ trans-Siberian line runs from Tayshet (417km east of Krasnoyarsk) around the top of Lake Baikal to Sovetskaya Gavan on the Pacific coast. Begun in the 1930s to access the timber and minerals of the Lena Basin, work stopped during WWII. Indeed the tracks were stripped altogether and reused to lay a relief line to the besieged city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd). Work effectively started all over again in 1974 when the existing Trans-Siberian Railway was felt to be vulnerable to attack by potentially hostile China. Much of the route was cut through virgin taiga and pesky mountain ranges. To encourage patriotic volunteer labourers the BAM was labelled ‘Hero Project of the Century’. Even so, building on permafrost pushed the cost of the project to US$25 billion, some 50 times more than the original Trans-Siberian Railway.
The valley meets the Katun River at Ust-Koksa, which has the delightful wooden Pokrovskoe Church (ul Nagornaya 31). Across the Katun River, around 10km beyond Multa, there’s a maral deer farm with a small summer turbaza en route to the beautiful Multinsky Lakes. These offer yet more great hikes if you can find a guide. In the 1930s the many old believers of the Koksa and Uymon Valleys offered fierce armed resistance to collectivisation, leading to the almost total destruction of their villages by the peeved Soviet state. Nonetheless, Verkhny Uymon village has an Old Bel- ievers’ Museum (Muzey Staroobryadchestva) as well as a small Nikolai Rerikh House Museum.
First built in 1910, the Usinsky Trakt is the main road between Minusinsk and Kyzyl in Tuva. It skirts the modest, historical township of Yermakovskoe and passes the little fruit-growing villages of Grigorevka and Chyornaya Recha before climbing into pretty birch-wood foothills. After a tea stop in Tanzybey(km560) the route climbs more steeply. A truly magnificent view of the crazy, rough-cut Ergaki Mountains knocks you breathless just before km598. Powerful views continue to km601 and resume between km609 and km612. A roadside cross (km603-4) marks the spot where hero-of-Chechnya and former Krasnoyarsk govern- or Alexander Lebed died in 2002 when his helicopter snagged the power lines. Walk 1.5km up the steep track towards the radar station above for fabulous views from the ridge.
The appealing capital of Buryatiya, ‘UU’ is 456km east of Irkutsk by rail and makes a sensible staging post for visiting Mongolia or eastern Lake Baikal. Founded as Verkhneudinsk in 1775, the city prospered as a major stop on the tea-caravan route from China via Troitskosavsk (now Kyakh- ta). Ulan means ‘Red’ in Buryat, yet Ulan-Ude is pleasantly green, cradled attractively in rolling hills. Despite the inevitable concrete suburban sprawl, it remains one of the most likable cities in eastern Siberia.
The highlight of these regions is the historic and delightfully ramshackle old town of Tobolsk, but en route you could happily spend a day strolling and dining in the vibrant cities of Tyumen or Omsk.
Founded in 1586, Tyumen was the first Russian fort in Siberia. These days the city exudes a sense of growing prosperity as the booming capital of a vast, oil-rich oblast (region) stretching all the way to the Arctic Circle. The city has a businesslike drive and youthful bustle, best experienced by strolling through City Park on summer weekend evenings amid the musical fountains. Pleasant and liveable, Tyumen has tree-lined streets and a fair few older buildings amid all the new construction, but if you have limited time you’d be better off seeing Tobolsk instead.
Independent before WWII, fascinating Tuva (???? in Tuvan) is culturally similar to neighbouring Mongolia but has an international cult following all of its own. Philatelists remember Tannu Tuva’s curiously shaped 1930s postage stamps. World-music aficionados are mesmerised by self-harmonising Tuvan throat-singers. And millions of armchair travellers read Ralph Leighton’s Tuva or Bust!, a nontravel book telling how irrepressible Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman failed to reach Soviet-era Kyzyl despite years of trying. Now that visitors are finally allowed in, Leighton’s Friends of Tuva (www.fotuva.org) organisation keeps up the inspirational work with an unsurpassed collection of Tuvan resources on its website. With forests, mountains, lakes and vast undulating waves of beautiful, barely populated steppe, Tuva’s a place you’ll long remember.
When the clouds clear, sawtooth Sayan peaks rise spectacularly above the cute Buddhist villages of the wide, rural Tunka Valley, which starts about 30km west of Kultuk and continues all the way to the Mongolian border near Mondy. Smoke rising gently from cottage chimneys adds to the wisps of romantic morning mist. Beyond justifiably popular Arshan, there’s minimal tourist infrastructure and the grandly panoramic mountains are generally set too far back for easy access. Nonetheless, hiking maps are sold in Irkutsk and Tunkinskiye Goltsy (tunki.baikal.ru, in Russian) has great photos and useful mountaineer’s schematics.
Tiny Tyungur village sits in an appealing valley. Although lacking viewpoints itself, it’s the normal staging point for treks towards Mt Belukha (4506m), Siberia’s highest peak. Surrounding valleys and lakes are among Russia’s most spectacular but access requires strenuous guided hiking.