Tales of an entomologist. About adventures and travel

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25.07.2010 23:26, Гундоров Сергей

Beautiful story-entomological - - - Igor on the phone did not mention these details.
Cottage at Igor Kryukov in a picturesque place (almost on the bank of the Volga).And the name of the nearby village is appropriate-appropriate - - - - SINENKIE.

Good... You asked for it

We arrived, therefore, in Saratov (for the second time in the summer, to see a deer beetle and catch Klimena), Igor hospitably drove us to shower and sleep (we drove all night), and by 4 o'clock we moved to his dacha. Tents, sleeping bags and other camping equipment, respectively, the entire trip turned out to be unpacked - they lived at Igor's dacha. It was hot, of course, but it was still a long way from what was happening right now...
About half past five we were already at the dacha. Accordingly, excellent local alcoholic products appeared on the table: various tinctures based on moonshine. Vodka, pepper, and cognac were waiting for their turn... During a good snack and intimate conversation, the bottles disappeared on the table with even rapidity. The moment came when it was decided to go on a night fishing trip. Getting into Igor's car, let's go. Of course, they decided that it was NOT ENOUGH (oh, this is the Russian "no matter how much vodka you take, you still have to run twice"), and on the way a short stop was made to get acquainted with the assortment in a local store. We liked the range, and several items were selected from it, which were distinguished by a delicate taste and high degree. With this reserve, we arrived at the fishing spot.
Denis, having a reduced muscle mass, drank on a par with everyone else. That's what killed him . By the second hour of fishing, he was wrapped up in a windbreaker (there were EXCEPTIONALLY many mosquitoes... under the lamp, do not lie, there was a layer of burnt mosquitoes and midges 7 centimeters thick, when we removed it - the same amount was poured in 10-15 minutes), Dan went into the darkness. After a while, I decided that the generator was starting to malfunction: the noise was too strange. But no, it was Dan who was snoring peacefully in the distance. Mosquitoes, not reaching his face, fell: intoxicated bloodsuckers tried to escape from the affected area with concentrated alcohol vapors. Denis's wife, Anna, was extremely surprised: it was the first time she had seen him so drunk . I must say that a lot of beetles flew (including racehorses), Anya selflessly collected insects, and Denis was very happy with her collections in the end: she caught something rare there.

25.07.2010 23:41, Гундоров Сергей

On Igor na Dombay(Caucasus) bull attacked on the road-highway below(wanted
to take the gas canister-according to him)-he(Igor) strayed away(left-saved).
The backpack of his expedition partner on the plane, the flight Minvody-Saratov did not reach(strange).
Igor slept in the trees-their "wolves" in the tent surrounded - - - hee hee-he will tell you.
Eyes burning out of the darkness all night long looked at them from below(the rotten ones glowed in the dark) - they sat high in a tree all night with big kitchen knives-they were saved.In their tent down under the tree, someone had been rattling their dishes all night, licking their pots.At this time, Koshan savage had a delicious dinner(and breakfast) in their tent -their supplies.Koshan ate almost everything they had in store for a week for two in just 3-4 hours.

26.07.2010 19:10, london

Today I was reading congratulations to my neighbor and sooooo good friend A. Zubov, and I saw a message from Pavel (Morozzz), who reminded me of how in poza last year I often visited one very large oak cutting. a week later, my favorite lump (camouflage) on the road was soaked with the smell of freshly cut oaks. One fine hot day, after a couple of dozen kilometers traveled, I decided to sit down for a break. I sat down on the nearest stump and lit a cigarette, so in the 10 minutes that I stayed there I caught 4 Dicerca alni zlatki on myself, it even offended me a little (they say that I'm like a log?), but after thinking and understanding what attracted them, I lost another 2 hours there, for which I hung on a branch rob was lured by 7 more of the same goldsmiths. Case without incident for me, udevitelnoe sight to watch as rob obobritaet function traps, in truth multifunctional clothing

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01.08.2010 9:46, rhopalocera.com

From fresh:

Kazakhstan, 2010, July 3-4. Ili River valley, near the bridge, near the village of Kok-Tal.

We arrived there around lunchtime, and absolutely could not expect that we would be greeted by wild heat (about the same as it was in Nizhny Novgorod about a week ago), swampy terrain (the river overflowed, and not very weak) and hordes of mosquitoes (small, but no less ferocious). Closer to 2 o'clock in the afternoon, it was absolutely impossible to be out of the shade - it was very hot. Even the mosquitoes retreated a little. It was decided to send someone to the nearest town for mosquito repellent ointment. Said and done.
Denis Potanin and his wife got into the car and went in search of a miracle drug. Their return was marked by great joy and hopes for a bright future (especially at night): KOMAREX was brought!!! People, my advice to you for the future: never buy this stuff, even if mosquitoes will pull you out of the tent, beat you on the liver and say: "Why didn't you buy komarex, you bastard?". But - in order.
Komarex, an ointment in green tubes, turned out to be made on the basis of simple vaseline. Needless to say, when the temperature in the shade was more than 40 degrees, this drug melted at a wild rate, and the mosquitoes, greedily licking their lips, just waited for it to be washed away by the profusely released sweat. Then they swooped down to where KOMAREX had been three seconds ago, and hungrily bit into the heat-stricken body.
After suffering for a while, we realized that the only escape from mosquitoes would be tents. Remember, I wrote above that the river overflowed, and there were only swamps around? So, there was no place for the tent - you could only put it on the road (in other words, on asphalt), for my tent it was a wild test (pegs in the asphalt ... hmm... they didn't want to). But the MOSQUITOES were so angry that Lech Tsylin and I still set up a tent, showing miracles of ingenuity. The first tent was put up by the prudent Denis - he put it up in general immediately after landing on the hospitable shore. Pyotr Yegorov, Dima Pozhogin and Andriukha Shaposhnikov were the last to set up the tent. So the three of them slept in it after a night's fishing.
I'll tell you about night fishing separately. It flew just fine! I haven't seen such a mass of small midges in a long time. Perhaps only on that memorable night in the Saratov region, when Denis was sleeping near the screen, and his wife was catching beetles. 2 screens were installed, hawk moth and luntochnitsa flew in the mass. One thing is a shame-small banded birds, no larger than an average pigeon, with beautiful yellow bandages on the rear wing (I have not yet determined them - butterflies dry on crucifixes) did not fly into the light. There were a lot of them in the daytime, on the trunks of trees. Large and medium-sized tapeworms (6 - 7 species counted in total) flew very well. Hawkmoth, too, but the most delicious thing that Dima Pozhogin wanted so much did not arrive (meaning turang hawkmoth). We sat until one o'clock in the morning, I collected about one and a half liters of butterflies. Now I'm seriously thinking about changing my equipment for night fishing, buying up extra scavengers (there were a lot of mics, but I only had one scavenger), boxes, etc.
Separately, I will say about swimming in Or. The water is cold, very muddy (loess), and very fast. It was necessary to literally control that the swimmers did not sail away from the shore - it could easily carry them very far, you can't joke with such water. I myself climbed into the river only 1 time, and got out almost immediately (I don't like swimming in muddy water, to be honest, where the bottom is not visible), but the guys swam 3 - 4 times. The swimmers were called "Ili hippos" for the similarity of their heads sticking out of almost mud and snorting with these beautiful mammals

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01.08.2010 10:02, rhopalocera.com

Kazakhstan, July 6-7, Trans-Ili Alatau, Bolshaya Almaatinka Gorge, at the space station. The camp was located at an altitude of 2750 m.

Let's go, as usual, for parnassus and zheltyanki. I really wanted to catch the local delphius and kokandika. Caught, but very little. But that's not the story. We set up a camp, waited out the rain, fished at night (oddly enough, at such an altitude, a ruled hawk moth flew to the light), and started fishing during the day. And then a truck with soldiers came to us. They got out on a hillock and let's discuss something. We hid the nets (a point press-press, still the border with Kyrgyzstan-here it is, next to the border regime, you never know what...) They stood exactly for about 40 minutes, when the clouds had the largest window. The soldiers left , and the sun went out. That's how they caught tianshinikusov :There were, of course, other windows, but they were small, and the butterflies didn't have time to warm up and take off before the window ended.

Well, at the end of that day, I saw GIRLS in the distance (well, I thought so...) Naturally, my feet went in that direction (and Dimka and Andriukha shouted after me: "lead them, lead them here!"). When I reached my destination, I saw a man in his fifties with long hair, and a girl who was not fresh. Both Balis are slightly drunk. Well, the hospitality did not allow me to go back immediately, and the three of us went back to our tents. Vodka... vodka... vodka again... No snacks. Madame was carried away. 4 times she lost her room keys and returned to our camp, making hints of carnal content. The men, who had not known a woman's caress for a couple of weeks, stoically endured the temptation. A Jeep appeared on the horizon... From which a man wearing a bandana came out and offered to drink Silver Goose. "What, you don't know? This is the best RUSSIAN vodka!" We were intrigued: the best Russian vodka seems to be produced by Glavspirttrest now, but we haven't even heard about the goose. A poltorashka was brought out into the light, at the bottom of which vodka was bubbling. Smashed from the throat, the man took out a cucumber from his wife's bosom, bit it, and let it go around in a circle. After the second one: "Where's the cucumber?!!" There was only his ass, which was bitten again. After that, the man jumped on the iron horse, where his wife and daughter were sitting, and went home. And you say - mountain roads, traffic police ...

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18.08.2010 7:20, Yakovlev

From this season's jokes:
1. A drunken Altay woman came up to us in Aktash and asked, pointing her finger at the guests: "Are they Japanese?
"
After that, she approaches them and offers to buy camel-hair socks in grammatically correct English.
2. We pull out the stuck Tuvan UAZ truck. He was stuck, a dog, right in the middle of the bridge over Mogen Buren destroyed by the flood-he blocked the road. About 15 drunk dudes running around waiting for help. While the car was being clung to, we climbed to them for a cable, because the guys were almost insane and after a long fraternization, pushing, kissing, somehow agreed to help us. We open the door, and there, may the moderator forgive me, well, honestly-they fuck. It can be seen that they decided to organize the village once the car was completely stuck.
3. Japanese professor Funamoto-sensei decided to help open cans. I spread out my Victorinox, I see that it takes a long time to break, and he tries to open the jar with a screwdriver. So, civilization...

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19.08.2010 12:09, Гундоров Сергей

The novel
is Without exaggeration-an artistic retelling-the style of presentation is peculiar-great-as if he himself found himself there nearby, reading about Mongolia.
Konretnaya roast this year.
Now my guest is Vladimir Sergeevich Gulyaev (Honored Artist of Russia)-together we went on expeditions to the Pamirs, Turkmenistan, Karzhantau in the nineties.We had an interesting story during our first expedition to the Pamirs in 1990.The three of us went from Saratov-me, an artist, Yurka(a year older than me at my Agricultural Institute.Pamir-the border zone for the Sary-Tash pic in Kyrgyzstan begins.We arranged business trips at the Institute and flew to Tashkent from Saratov, then Tashkent-Osh.The Osh events of 1990 caught us-there were shantsukhs shooting there.In Osh, we went to the hotel of chauffeurs-we found two zilka passing cars there-from Utrets.In the distance, you can see the snow-covered Alai ridge.The whole road-all flocks of sheep-was driven from the valley to the mountains to pastures-the beginning of July.
Someone knew then that in the border zone it is necessary to get a pass to the police department at the place of residence-a seal on a business trip certificate.
We arrived in Sary-Tash,stayed in a hotel for drivers, and hitchhiked to the Taldyk Pass every day.Hitchhiking without problems-zilki, then it was easy to catch.Polovili days 10-Parnassius simonius taldicus I then caught for the first time-described the next year.And it snowed.We were sitting in a hotel-there is nothing to do-there is no weather.We went with the artist along the highway towards the border post in the Alai Valley.The embankment of the highway there is made of a beautiful green stone-larch-they collected stones(they sent them home to Saratov by parcel-they didn't reach it).Checkpoint on the road with a barrier-the beginning of the border zone - - - went to the outpost.They greeted the sentry, who called the head of the outpost.Liteha came out, a year after school.Met-a good guy-versatile-interesting and pleasant to communicate.1990-perestroika-life was changing rapidly before his eyes-he was sitting in the backwoods-he couldn't see anything.We told him about life on the "Mainland" -he invited us to visit the outpost.In the dining room, we sat down with the border guards-we had lunch - - - not bad-cool borscht and vermicelli with natural stew, tea with condensed milk(in 1990, the border guards had a normal supply-they started to starve in 1992-to starve without exaggeration).We talked and he asked us to show all the documents(before that, only passports were shown).Travel cards with destinations in the Pamirs-Karakul, Dzhelandy,Khorog.A pass to the border zone-no seals from the police.Then I started telling him about the goals of our expedition beyond the Kyzyl-Art pass.I tell him that there is
a butterfly Parnassius simonius nigrificatus flying there-it was described by Kreutzberg from Tashkent-I need to catch it as a comparative material with P. simonius taldicus from Alai before describing a new subspecies.And I quoted the collection point from Kreutzberg's article to him,but I got it wrong-I said that the butterfly flies 5 km from the highway not to the west(as in the original description), but to the east.To the east, there is a checkpoint along the road-the border with China-that is, 5 km-this is already in China.He listened to this,returned my passports and business trip cards, and calmly said, " I forbid you to travel to the Pamirs-there is no pass.We were horrified-we need to work out our travel money-the expedition route has been drawn up in advance-what should we do?Yurka drove to a small town,halfway to Osh and back with our documents.I went to the police and the administration there-you can't-only at the place of residence they issue a pass to the border zone.What to do?We sat under the snow for 3 days in a hotel for drivers.I'm tired of it.I just said in the morning-guys, get ready,let's go.We packed our backpacks and went out on the highway-10 minutes and two zilks braked.We loaded up-backpacks on fuel trucks were placed on top of tank cars.Let's go-it's snowing-checkpoint-there are two boys of 18 years old-documents are checked-documents are checked-go-passed the Alai Valley-to the Kyzyl-Artyom pass-snowstorm in July.The checkpoint is at the top-the border guards, stiffened with fingers crooked from the cold, looked at the documents-go.Further beyond the village of Karakul checkpoint-there was no snowstorm - the border guards looked at our documents and go.We got to Murghab,where we stopped at a hotel for drivers-we hitched rides every day to Checekty-this is July 12-14-it was still too early to catch fish there.P. machaon,Baltia shawii.Parnassius simo and P. staudingeri kiritchenkoi have not yet flown.
Let's go to Jhelands.There were 10 days of catching -- delight-a lot of butterflies(but P. charltonius vaprosus did not fly-(caught 2 only)he flies there on odd years.
Let's go further-checkpoint kilometers for 30 nedorezhaya Khorog.A booth, a phone, a loose business demob and a young border guard.We were traveling on two passing zilkas.Weather kaif-teplo-altitude 2500 total.The demob approached with a loose gait-asked for documents-showed- - - - we look, his eyes widen and he runs to the booth on the phone to call.Rang the bell-came back to us-got out of the car with my things-we obeyed.After about 40 minutes, a lieutenant colonel from Khorog arrived and marveled at us for a long time.We just threw up our hands in our own defense-an expedition to get butterflies, they say.The lieutenant colonel loaded us into a car and drove us to the city of Khorog to the border guard unit.At first, they just wanted to shoot us (a joke) - 800 km along the border zone without passes.But then we decided to make a request to Saratov first for our souls.They received an answer from Saratov-yes, they say-there are such people-on a business trip.The border guards took pity-they didn't shoot them.A colonel in Khorog called the police and sent us there to put seals on business trips,while telling us to buy a chocolate bar for the Tajik passport officer.They put seals on us and we relaxed in the botanical garden at Lind's(described 80 species of dragonflies).Then I took a helicopter ride to Lake Sarezskoe for Parnassius autocrator(I saw 3-5 copies a day,but I couldn't catch any).The artist went to the Koitezek pass--Colias marcopolo caught.

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21.08.2010 13:39, Yakovlev

Another long-standing sketch
Alpyzbay
Bulugun Valley opened after a thirteen-hour drive, Misha covered botany, entomology and the Altai mountain country with obscenities. The snow-covered Mongolian Altai did not want to let us pass, caught us in traps of interwoven roads, set traps for us of endless passes, took us to the pont by the monotony of landscapes and lack of landmarks. The road, suspended in snow milk, telegraph poles, bumped as if in the air, a blizzard of an April day. An old Mongolian woman, laughing, waved us in the direction with a dry, tanned hand. The three passes shown on the map actually turned out to be thirty, the altitude is over two and a half thousand, and it's too cold to spend the night. The average speed is 15 kilometers per hour. That day was especially long, and after falling fifteen hundred meters, we put up our tents in a blizzard and fell asleep.
An unforgettable trip in 2002, it was somewhat risky, the places are unfamiliar, too early, too windy and cold. While still at home, discussing our plans, we intended to cross the chain of the Mongolian Altai and find ourselves on the southern side of it, to find ourselves in the warm, watermelon-hemp Dzungaria. Not only Alexander Ivanovich was very worried about us, but also our colleague and friend from Mongolia, Dr. Becket. He tapped the car, gave final instructions to Misha, and instructed her to ask Aratov if she had any doubts on the way. When the course of the young fighter was completed, Becket put a trump card in our weakening hands, after which our trip promised to be a win-win. That trump card was a letter to a distant relative of Beket-a resident of distant Bulugun-Alpyzbay. In addition to greetings, the letter asked Alpyzbay to help us on the spot, solve all our problems, and even accompany us on a trip to the Dzungarian Gobi. No doubt it was a lordly gift. The letter, kept close to his heart in the pocket of our commander Seryoga's sweatshirt, warmed not only him, but us as well.
And now Bulugun opened up before us. A wide river valley, a mass of riverbeds and huge areas of salt marshes and swamps, in the middle of this green oasis is a large, dirty, scattered village. The center of life is a market square, thousands of small shops selling twenty items at once – one T-shirt, one bottle of beer, one latch, a canvas bag; a hundred dirty eateries, never-washed plates, drips of fat from mutton bushes. Next to the hospital, nurses are squatting by the ditch, washing bandages, taking care of antiseptic. Nearby is the Hunsnij Zach meat market, where you can sell lamb and goat meat for 85 cents a kilo. Around the corner is a meeting point, where an elderly telephone operator shouts into the phone:
- Barnul, Barnul-Bulgun, Bulgun…
And there was a dark, big-eyed girl, snuggled up to her father, watching the strangers. When we once again found ourselves at the bazaar, a crowd of boys followed us, dubious-looking individuals crammed into the car, flashing their knowledge of Russian and asking Mishka:
"Geologist?" Urus is good, khalkha is good, friendship... Misha? Good! I am Myagmandorj.
But the first acquaintance with Bulugun was frightening, where to go, how, in the ditches there are streams of water. We were greatly amused by camels eating green leaves from poplars. And Dima, as always, sparkled with logic:
- Mongolia violates the law of the food pyramid, you have no plants, no consults of the 1st, 2nd order, only large fat herds of cattle, eagles and so on.
Our first and only task was to find Alpyzbay. We searched for it in a simple and rather nervous way, driving up to people from different social strata and asking – where, they say, is Alpyzbay???
On the ninetieth attempt, an old Kazakh got into our car, wearing a ragged warm robe, huge kirzachs and a skullcap. He kept brushing away the beads of sweat that stood out on his black forehead with his palm and pointing in the direction. The UAZ raced among the parking lots, among the frightened horses, among the natives relieving themselves. Then the Kazakh jumped out of the salon, gave us a happy smile, and pointing to a remote adobe hut, exclaimed:
- Alpyzbay!
Then he started walking back.
We turned sharply and flew up to the fazenda of our future guide and companion. Sergey Vladimirovich, taking me for support, cheerfully stomped to the porch. The letter was brought out into the light of God, and shone with the rays of hope.
Smirnov knocked timidly on the door. Silence. Sergey took half a tone higher. Gradually we came to a thunderous thumping of heavy fists on the flimsy door, which was locked from the inside. Fifteen minutes of effort rewarded us with a faint rustle coming from the hut. Our companions regarded our efforts with increasing curiosity. The rustling grew louder, there were uneven footsteps, the rustle of a key in the lock, and Alpyzbai came out into the air, squinting and puffing. He was a huge man, his eyes expressionless, his wandering gaze unable to connect with his brain. To prevent something irreparable, we decided to seize the initiative and strike first.
- Alpyzbay?
"Alpyzbai," the creature admitted reluctantly.
"Letter-Bayan-Ulgiy-Beket," Seryoga said without burdening the phrase with participles and complex constructions, handing the fellow a folded sheet.
"Ah," Alpyzbai said, and reluctantly took the paper.
Tucking it into the smell of his dressing gown, he went back into the mud hut and began to lock the door. Long communication with Sminov, taught us to understand each other without words, we started banging on the door, trying to pull back, who did not want to participate in the negotiations Alpyzbay. Laughter echoed in the background.
Alpyzbai, like a reluctant musk ox, was unwillingly dragged out, and Smirnov extracted the letter from the depths of Alpyzbayev's robe, carefully unfolded it, smoothed it out, and again handed it to the addressee, pointedly pointing to the text with his finger.
In silence, the nomad took the sheet, and read hard for a long time, his lips moved, the cortex of the brain refused to understand... On the fifteenth attempt, having finished reading the letter, Alpyzbai nodded, doubled over, went home and closed himself so as not to go out again, perhaps never.
To the laughter of our companions, we climbed into the car and in a minute were rushing towards Dzungaria.

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23.08.2010 20:10, Yakovlev

Sketch of my close friend Sergey Dyachenko about the same Mongolia.

Outer Mongolia: An Inside Look

The study of the nature of the western part of Mongolia was the goal of several of our (complex botanical and zoological) expeditions. I took part in three of them, spending a total of seventy days in this interesting country. Despite the initial impression of its lack of comfort, backwardness, despite the bad roads, unpleasant climate and other tourist disadvantages, if possible, I will definitely go there again.

Outer Mongolia has been the object of close attention of Russian science for one and a half hundred years. Nevertheless, as the results of our work have shown, research conducted on its territory reveals a lot of new, very interesting facts. For example, new plant species and dozens of insect species are being discovered.

Outer Mongolia is a modern state of the Mongols, the Mongolian People's Republic. Inner Mongolia is located on the territory of China, and there are more Mongols here, by the way, than in the MNR. In Nikita Mikhalkov's film " Urga. Territory of love " events take place in these parts.

The flow of unforgettable impressions about Mongolia begins immediately after crossing the Tashanta - Tsagaanur border crossing. The landscape is clearly changing (which is to blame for the overgrazing of livestock), the paved road becomes one of the memories of the motherland.

Sections of the paved road will still be on our way (at the entrance to Khovd and Bulgan), but they will make up perhaps a hundredth of the entire route, about two and a half thousand kilometers. With the average speed of our movement of 30 versts per hour, it is easy to guess that a lot of time was spent on the way. Local residents are not confused by the state of the roads. Never having overtaken anyone, we constantly just watched as another UAZ truck, packed with passengers to the limit (more precisely, over the limit), passed ahead of us in clouds of dust, bouncing on bumps. Passengers, contrary to the idea of the external impenetrability of Asians, each time they saw us, they showed delight and surprise at such a meeting with all the possibilities of their facial expressions. Even the drivers, forgetting about the road, followed us for a long time with their astonished gaze. Uaz trucks, almost all new - their life is short here-are the main mode of transport in the vast expanses of Western Mongolia. The second most popular is" zil", all other brands make up a few percent of the ones we met.

They speak two languages in Western Mongolia, the second of which is Kazakh. Kazakhs inhabit the western, Chinese-bordered outskirts of Mongolia, creating in some places even a numerical advantage here. The same way of life as the Mongols, but other traditions and religion determine the originality of their local life. Many of them believed in Nazarbayev's promises 12 years ago and rushed to Kazakhstan, to their own people. Kamaz caravans then stretched across the Altai plateau Ukok to the Kazakh border. A few years later, the same caravans pulled back. They didn't take root. The lands of the Kazakhs, once divided between Russia, China and Mongolia, remain the site of their traditional nomadic cattle breeding.

There are a lot of cattle grazing in Mongolia. Too much. You can see sheep, goats, cows, herds of horses grazing everywhere , and sarlyks (domesticated yaks) in the highlands. We also met small camel caravans on the way. Cloven-hoofed lawn mowers-sheep and goats-cut the grass to the base of the shoots, creating typical landscapes that resemble dense gray-green carpets covering hills and valleys. These are typical landscapes of the Mongolian Altai, treeless, waterless over long distances. The rivers are small, and we easily waded through the largest of the ones that got in our way - the Bulgans-at the place marked on the map.

South of the Bulgan Valley, you enter the desert Dzungarian Gobi. Despite the fact that this is a desert, the vegetation here often looks richer than in the dry bleached steppes of the Mongolian Altai, because shrubs reign here-saksaul, juzgun, chingil and others. But large areas occupied by stony-clay deserts, with stones blackened as a result of the so-called "desert tanning", are indeed practically devoid of vegetation. It is precisely such areas that are called "Gobi", which has now acquired a wide geographical meaning.

In the Dzungarian Gobi, as soon as we managed to penetrate its expanses, we were caught by a severe thunderstorm, with hail and heavy rain. Ten minutes later, the entire desert around us was cut up by muddy streams of water. In general, when traveling through the Gobi, water reserves clearly define the boundaries of freedom of movement. The further you go , the more risky you become. How happy we were once when we dug up raw sand at the foot of a scorched granite mountain and provided ourselves with clean, cold water for two days-until it ran out! After all, all we had left with us was water drawn from a small stream, warm and yellowish, which was lost in the sand nearby.

We also remember that streamlet for another, quite understandable reason. Near it were two yurts, guarded by a huge shaggy dog that seemed capable of swallowing anyone who approached. And we needed to get some information about the route to Ushig from the inhabitants of the yurts. They turned out to be a middle-aged woman and a young girl who came out to meet us and drove the dog away at the same time. The woman had a typical Mongol appearance, which does not please us with its attractiveness. But the girl... In all our trips to Mongolia, we have never seen anything like this. And suddenly here, in the middle of the Gobi-tall, perfectly built, just a beauty! We have never seen Miss Universe with our own eyes, but unlike everyone else, we have seen Miss Dzungaria! We still regret that we didn't take a photo with her as a souvenir. And we never got to Ushig...

We observed a blooming desert. It is really beautiful when in May, different types of plants, hurrying, while there is enough moisture in the soil, go through their short development cycle, bloom at once. On the way, we had a chance to see all sorts of pictures from the life of nature. For example, how beauty cranes dance (remember the screen saver for "In the world of Animals"? - exactly so). How a very rare black stork wanders through shallow waters, catching prey. Like a flock of black vultures flocking to one place. As the golden eagle rises into the air, capable, it seems, of covering an area the size of a billiard table with its wings. As, having noticed the "UAZ", elegant dzerens jump up, as if on springs. How the roundhead lizards, whose presence is only detected by the passing of a shadow, scurry out from under our feet like miniature racing cars.

I was most impressed by the following. One of our people brought a desert mantis in a box and placed it on the table in the car's interior. The one with brown scales, a long neck, and horns on his head is sitting quietly in a box. We look at him, and he looks at us. He stares at me, his crazy little eyes darting from one to the other. He's studying us, too.

On the last trip, we were surprised by another fact, already from the life of the local population. Near the town of Hovd, we saw residents of the city swimming in the river and sunbathing on the shore. In the previous expedition, we only met people performing water procedures once. They saw them from a distance, drove closer to the river, it turned out-our truckers. Mongols are also indifferent to fishing. "Why torment yourself," explained one of our acquaintances from Bayan-Ulgiya, " because there is a ram."

Mutton, we were informed, has recently risen significantly in price. A kilo of meat now costs exactly the same amount on the market as a jar of Korean beer - about 25 rubles in our opinion. There is also Mongolian beer on sale, but we preferred Chinese, bottled in tall, 620-milliliter bottles. But to buy it, say, in the border (with China) Bulgane, which we repeatedly visited for shopping, is not so easy. Sometimes it was necessary to run around a dozen shops to buy a dozen bottles, which was not always possible.

Bulgan shops are not happy with the richness of the assortment. There are maybe thirty items in the store on average. Almost everything is Chinese (unlike in the north, where there are a lot of Russian goods): clothing, shoes, food (nothing perishable), dishes, simple household appliances. Almost complete absence of fruits, medicines, you will not find any books or newspapers. However, two years ago, almost every shop in the window - sets of billiard balls. Mongols were then caught up in the Chinese fashion for billiards, and everywhere in the markets, squares, near yurts in parking lots, we saw numerous tables with pockets and players and fans crowding around them.

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23.08.2010 20:11, Yakovlev

And continue

Yurts are often equipped with solar panels and satellite dishes. (Chinese, Russian, Kazakh and own programs are broadcast on television.) Although many Mongols have large livestock holdings, they are certainly not poor. However, the way of life is usually very simple; for our man who lives in a red brick mansion, it will seem even shabby. But you can't move a mansion from one campsite to another. And a yurt is a yurt.

I remember this episode. We drive up to Bayan-Ulgiy, we are overtaken by a truck, the body of which with the top is stuffed with dung (only this type of fuel is available there). Several people were sitting on top of the dung, despite the cold, rain, and wind. We went for fuel, because it is necessary to warm the house and cook mutton on something. Imagine yourself doing something like this.

I have often thought in Mongolia that a trip to this country can serve as a good way for some people to get rid of whining and complaining about our troubles.

We were always pleased to hear from ordinary people who came to visit us words of gratitude to the Russian people and even to us personally, words expressing a friendly attitude towards Russia. During these trips, we did not have any conflicts with the local population, we did not notice the slightest rudeness of the hosts towards uninvited guests. There were, however, moments of benevolent, but excessive attention to us. Our very presence, no matter what we did, turned into a kind of reality show for the pastoralists, who only watched their flocks from day to day and were experiencing a shortage of new experiences. They were willing to sit modestly in our camp for several hours as whole families, just to see everything that was happening in it. On occasion, when they realized that they might be useful to us in some way , they enthusiastically rushed to help. It happened that some people would sit and watch, and others would come to replace them-as if for a new session. Of course, you can get used to everything, but we always looked for places more deserted for parking, tried to hide from this attention. However, in Mongolia, with all its sparsely populated population, it can be very difficult to get into a camp without being noticed by the people. For the same reason, many of our camp sites were located far from rivers and lakes, despite the obvious discomfort of such a choice of location.

We really liked the Mongolian kumiss. Some of us once suffered from local homemade kefir (but no one goes to that steppe without medicine). I also had to agree to persistent treats with Kurt-dried, sometimes to the consistency of ebony, cheese. The mutton purchased at the Bulgan market was used for excellent shashlik and shurpa. I also had a chance to have lunch in local eateries - "guanzah", which usually offers "buzy" (manti - of course, made from lamb) and tea with milk and salt.

In Tsagaanur, next to the customs and border checkpoint, there are several "hotels", or rather it would be more accurate to say - taverns. Since the border crossing is open only during business hours, and if there is a big local holiday, then you can stay for a few days longer, then it is very convenient to stay in them. Cash costs will be minimal. And although these hotels are not famous for their comfort, but when, despite the middle of July, it snows and the wind blows, you will be happy with any free place and simple hot food. In the highlands, the weather in summer brings surprises. On one of our trips, due to the lack of available hotel rooms, we used the help of our colleague from Khovd to stay in the house of his Mongolian friend. "A minus-seven-star hotel," our expedition leader, who was the least likely to put up tents on the icy ground, happily defined the quality of the apartments.

The Tsagaanur Customs office now offers customs declarations in two languages-English and Mongolian. The column "gender" attracts attention, but not in the English, well-known version of "sex", but in the local one. In such a serious document, our famous three-letter unprintable word is printed in Cyrillic, black and white. Thank you to the Mongol-Tatar IG for enriching the Russian language!

By the way, Genghis Khan is still more revered in Mongolia today than Lenin was thirty years ago. Everywhere you meet images of his kind face. If you want, you can taste vodka named after him or smoke cigarettes that are also named after him.

Traveling through Western Mongolia is still a surprise for beginners: even with detailed maps for the route, you often have no idea which road to continue on. Road signs are very rare, and they are found at forks near large localities. And in the wide, flat valleys, you find many directions-both parallel, intersecting, and diverging. The map, of course, does not display all this. Sometimes it is very difficult to find the right path and if you want to go in the right direction from the village, because in it the roads are devoid of any geometric interpretation.

In some rare places along the roads there are "installed" road signs made with paint on stone. Another attraction is gas stations in remote villages, where the filling of gasoline is made due to the physical efforts of the tanker, who vigorously rotates the wheel with the handle. Once, after stopping at the local gas station in Bulgan for about twenty minutes, we watched several people fill up the Zil in turn, including the driver, passengers, and, it seems, even random passers-by. But one thing pleases you on Mongolian roads: no matter how you drive, the traffic police will not stop you. We didn't see any traffic wardens.

But the police in Mongolia are remarkable. First of all, it is very elegant and stylish. Black uniform, silver epaulettes, black caps with a high crown and a silver-plated cockade, which are sometimes replaced by famously turned-up berets. The equipment also includes black leather jackets.

There are also special features in the performance of the border service. Border guards here receive a bonus for each captured violator of the restricted area, which is issued within a few days after the delivery of the captured one. Therefore, violators are treated here as an object of fishing. Border guard officers are generally officially allowed to engage in entrepreneurship.

In general, the appearance of the localities through which we passed does not leave the impression that private entrepreneurship is somehow gaining momentum here. Everything, as before, is based on cattle breeding and uncomplicated trade. The bank, for example, was very surprised when we came to exchange rubles for tugriks, and offered to go to the bazaar. However, in a neighboring bank, an exchange was still carried out, during which several people gathered around one calculator.

Khovd is the largest city in western Mongolia. It even has its own university, which, by the way, cooperates with scientific centers in Novosibirsk, Tomsk and Barnaul. Khovd pleases the eye with its neatness, green spaces and clear signs of the achievements of civilization. There is a large market here, where goods are simply plentiful compared to Bulgan. However, having set out to buy something here as a souvenir, we were disappointed and eventually brought home Mongolian souvenirs made in China. But another time we were lucky: in Bayan-Ulgieh, in the "art shop" that opened at the local museum, the money was spent for its intended purpose-on souvenirs made by local (Kazakh) craftsmen.

In conclusion, I would like to wish good luck to my friends and colleagues, those with whom we have covered tens of thousands of kilometers in Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Altai as part of our small expedition team - Roman Yakovlev, Pyotr Kosachev, Sergey Smirnov, Dmitry German and Mikhail Sidorov. I also send greetings to all our friends in Mongolia, hoping to see you again.

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28.08.2010 8:38, Yakovlev

Another old sketch already

The Krestovina
Expedition of 2003 was in full swing. The Gobi mountains were passed, as well as the long passes of Altai. Every corner gave us new finds, a lot of new puzzles, stingy, but unexpected colors. The car was slowly dying, or rather it was a corpse even before the trip, and now, like a zombie, like an aggressive somnambulist, it was shaking out our soul, greedily swallowing our blood along with fuel, crawling like a blue bronze horse across the endless steppe. Sanya still hadn't mentioned our names by the twenty-fifth day. Regularly I was Dima, Seryozha, Slava. Admirable was his orientation on the terrain, Sanya could after long conversations how and where to go to choose a direction 90 degrees different from the desired one. The memory worked for a maximum of five seconds, and then failed. Sasha was gorgeous in his family underpants in the middle of a hot, crowded Hovd. His attitude to traffic rules and law enforcement was surprising in terms of defiance.
Somewhere on the eastern tip of the Dzungarian Gobi, a crosspiece broke down in the desert not far from the road. God knows what it is, but it was obvious from Sasha's feelings that it was important. Taking Peter as a traveling companion, Sanya sped off on the screeching transport. About four hours later, they returned with a crosspiece and a remarkable set of observations on the life of the Mongols. Petya jumped out of the booth and began to talk.
On the way to Bulgan, the road was being repaired, poor Chinese workers were laying asphalt, a lot of graders and ice rinks were ironing the desert, which knew nothing heavier than UAZ. Because of the repairs, the road was blocked, and it was necessary to pass through a lot of ditches along some dubious back streets. A day ago, we very much got into the impassable quagmire of the ditch, the van was sitting on both bridges. Waist - deep in liquid black soil, we pushed the damned equipment, Sanya jumped in his family underpants, gave stupid consultations. Watching our orgy, the Mongols began to pull up to the car. They sat around and watched the bizarre performance. Phlegmatically, unhurriedly, they walked around the car from all sides and, without paying attention to the Russians cursing at each other, soberly assessed the situation. The little man gave some sort of command to the Mongols and the children surrounding him, and they slowly trudged back to their shack. Apparently bored.
A couple of minutes later, we saw Mongolian women - exhausted, exhausted, dragging some stones, some poles. We rushed to their aid. They were laughing, carrying heavy things that left splinters in their roughened hands. Twelve-year-old girls carried stones weighing fifteen kilograms each. Together, we began to put rocks under the wheels, driving them into the liquid, smelly mud. After an hour and a half, we hoisted the UAZ on a fragile support made of stones and logs, after which the Sleigh started the equipment and emerged from a huge puddle.
The memory of these misadventures did not give our reckless driver rest, and this time, ignoring the weak prohibitions of Mongolian and Chinese road builders, he rushed straight down the road. The poor Mongols were running, waving twigs with red triangles of cloth on them, shouting something, waving their arms, even running after the car for a while. Sledge raced no matter what, giving them a murderous look and famously winked at Petya-they say, like we did them…
They drove around the village for a long time, asking the locals about the crosspiece, and after about fifteen minutes, people who knew something about the crosspiece were crammed into the car, and the blue van spun from hut to hut, from yurt to yurt, until finally, in the next garage, they exclaimed joyfully:
- There is a crosspiece.
Sanek, led by a motley group of locals, set to work on repairs, and Petya was told to keep an eye out – so that, they say, the same one, did not stop anything. Petya sat down and watched. Sanek and a gang of Mongolian mechanics got under the UAZ and spoke the driver's language that everyone understood. The case was disputed.
At that time, while the men were doing business, the UAZ was surrounded by a crowd of idlers. Boys, kids, and women surrounded the car, arguing loudly and making noise. One of them, a boy of about fifteen, climbed up on the bumper and, finding a small, uncurtained hole in the window, began to look inside. Everyone was asking him about what he had seen, and the boy was laughing loudly, telling others something. Petya was intrigued by what was so funny in the car, how can boxes of groceries and rolled-up blankets cause such an expression. However, the boy was an experienced storyteller, and soon his buxom, big mother, puffing, climbed on the bumper and also, laughing loudly, began to look at our stingy equipment. The jacked van creaked, threatening to collapse and crush the maintenance crew below. The bumper stiffened under the weight of the curious. Surprisingly, there was no catastrophe.
Finally, the broken crosspiece was removed, and a new one was solemnly placed in its place, fresh as a clean, smooth valve is sewn into a sick, leaky heart. Our van jolted, feeling young for a moment.
Meanwhile, while UAZ dealt with their own feelings, happy drivers crawled out from under the car, began to thank each other for their help, for an unexpected entertainment that dispelled the ordinary steppe boredom of a hot July day.
The hands of the repairmen were thickly covered with fuel oil, Sanek began to stack the tools, and his Mongolian assistants began to clean themselves up. One of them, especially distinguished and, accordingly, the most polluted, took a hose, stuffed it into the gas tank and sucked a liter and a half of gasoline into his mouth, put the hose down and began to pour gasoline out of his mouth in thin streams on his hands. Petya looked amazed at this picture. The procedure was repeated 3 times. Four and a half liters, " said Peter, shocked. The Mongol looked at his hands and, satisfied with the result, spat and lit a cigarette.
Petya wiped his sweaty forehead with his sleeve.
As they rolled back, dodging angry road workers, Petya told Sana how to clean off the fuel oil and was curious:
"I guess that's what drivers do for everyone."
- Come on, don't think about it, it's poison, after all, - Sanek suddenly showed concern about such a concept as health.
Two hours later, we were together, me and the new krestovina, sitting around making shish kebab, and Sanya was still shaking his head, thinking:
"Petrukha lied again… Mouth full of gasoline, then lit a cigarette... I would have thought of something smarter...

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