Central Asia and Kazakhstan

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02.08.2013 19:14, rhopalocera.com

I've been waiting for you. Oh, how I waited! And on Dunkeldyk, and on Mynhadjir, and on Pshart . But alas, I didn't meet any of our people. I received all the information via Abwehr channels in Murghab ( who was there, who passed by, etc.).
I didn't even try to sort out the grill for you in Mynhadjir, I thought it would be useful.
Of course, you didn't catch Anyuta, because there was an extra-small flight from July 12 to July 15. Then no new instances are added. It's as dull as a tank. I was last there on July 22. In vain. But I caught five of them. I also caught "kirich", and even saw "jacques" for the first time in the dry mountains .

my cell phone was on all the time...

anyuta doesn't care. New charlton is coming, from a totally unexpected place

20.08.2013 0:20, Romyald

The Gorge of the Black Satyr.
I went to the Pamirs twice via Dushanbe, and now it's time to try and go to Tajikistan via Osh. In my opinion, no one has ever described this path before, and I will take the liberty of doing so so that the next generation of naturalists will have less problems on the road.
There are a lot of positive aspects of this route, such as the cheapness of an air flight to Osh ( no more than 8000r. in one direction), the distance from Osh to the village of Murghab ( just over 400 km.), respectively, and the minimum travel time ( no more than 8 hours, taking into account the passage of two border control zones), and the cost of driving directions from g . Osh to the village of Murghab ( no more than 150 somani = $ 31).US$). But there are also disadvantages – the way back is through one "garbage" post on the lake. Karakul and actually one border control post in Kyzyl-Art. Why I pay your attention to the return journey, because only on the way back will your luggage be 99% searched. This means that insects may also be found. After that, in the best case, you will be taken a bribe (from $ 100 to $ 300, depending on how you reacted to the value of the contents of the seized containers), and in the worst case, they will call an organization called "Nature Protection" of the Republic of Tajikistan ( in reality, the same corrupt structure as "musarka").. To circumvent all these tedious structures, a preliminary agreement with the driver who will take you from the village of Murghab to Osh will help. You just need to ask the driver (after showing the contents of the containers) to hide the containers inside the car. You can even thank him with a cash prize from 50 to 100 soms. Depending on the value of the catch. It is better to deal with a Kyrgyz driver, because in the eastern Pamirs they have a numerical majority, and the sl.know each other well. In addition, it seemed to me that they are the most honest and frank in the universal sense.
Tajik security forces, more than ordinary working people, like to "smear" Russian tourists by remembering all their sins; from the deportation of their relatives and friends of Tajik brothers to banal insults against Russia for not taking some trinket back to their homeland. Therefore, you should always be on the lookout and not give these elements a reason to catch on to any violation on your part. Otherwise, the Pamir people are very hospitable, always welcome, feed and put to bed. Snitching is extremely rare.
I will briefly return to the beginning of my trip from Osh to the village of Murghab, then continue my report. There are two ways to get from Osh to Murghab village: by personal vehicle or by public transport. The only difference is in price and comfort. To get there by public transport, you need to ask a taxi driver at the airport. Osh will take you to the Alai terminal. Be vigilant, the Kyrgyz can take you to any other place in order to get more money. The cost of travel from the airport to t.Alai does not exceed $ 10. Travel time is not more than 30 minutes. The terminal is located on the path of the Osh-pos highway.Sary-Tash.
I managed to arrange individual transportation from Osh to Murghab village for $ 270. I deliberately decided to pay too much money to stop along the way and even collect insects. The most interesting place on the route was the buffer zone between the border post Bordoba and Kizil Art Pass. There I came across two types of Parnassus, one type of colias, satyrs. It would be great to explore this area in more detail, but the time spent in the buffer zone is limited, and the only alibi for those who stayed late can only be feeling unwell due to the height difference (Bordoba-Kizil Art Pass is about 4200m. above sea level). Be careful, the buffer zone is often patrolled by border guards and you will not be able to go far into the mountains. Big problems can arise, especially if the patrol is carried out by Tajiks. Kyrgyz border guards are kinder, more polite and courteous, probably due to the more loyal attitude of the states (Russians and Kyrgyz can stay at each other's houses for up to 90 days, which cannot be said about Tajik opportunities. Russians can stay in the republic for no more than 3 days without registration, and Tajiks can stay in Russia for no more than 15 days. Strange, why is it not equivalent?).
Visit the part of the Pamirs that is located north of Lake Baikal. I wanted Sarez for a long time, but there was always not enough time. This time everything turned out well, and the road to Tadjik National Park opened for me, I could only hope for good weather.
Bakhtiar's UAZ truck, whose driver I found in Murghab, broke through to the Ak-Baital pass with frequent stops. The weather once again brought unpleasant surprises. The mood was at zero, but there was still hope for it to improve, because the pass to the National Center.Park was discharged for three whole days.
Immediately after the Ak-Baital pass, one of the dirt roads leads travelers to the left. This is a bypass road around the lake.Sarez, on it through the village. Ghudara you can get to Bartang, and from there on the highway leading to Khorog ( or Dushanbe, who needs to go where). The sparsely populated, broken and sometimes dangerous road provides the naturalist with all the fullness of a wandering life. Perhaps the whole life will not be enough to get around all the canyons and gorges that flash before your eyes, to climb the mountains to the snow. Where is the best place to stop? On my map, there are many options for entering the mountains, but we are primarily interested in those that go as far as possible into the depths of the mountain ranges, because there really no one can disturb us. After two hours of wandering, we find a suitable exit from the road, the old track from the Uaz can not hide the traces of previous visitors (we do not know who was there – or entomologists, or poachers, or shepherds). We make our way through the rocks into the gorge. The road is rocky and often lost to view. Finally, the car can't go any further, it's a dead end. Just what you need. We're setting up camp.
This time I was really lucky with my fellow guides. They don't cry like some drivers from Murghab, they don't ask for extra surcharges for a bad road, and most importantly, they are passionate about my idiotic idea – to find a rare, perhaps unknown butterfly.
How I love Uaz and drivers who are not afraid of anything! After all, with such a driver, a trip, even if really dangerous, turns into a pleasant and memorable journey. And if the driver is also a hunter, then sleeping in the bosom of nature is generally a gift of fate for him (even more so for me).
While I set up the tent, Bakhtiyar (that's the name of the driver of the UAZ) and his partner transform the car into a Kashara (I mean "mobile home"). The floor of such a house is lined with carpet and mattresses similar to those that create comfort in the yurts of shepherds.
The weather is still cloudy and windy, and we pass the time over a cup of tea and discuss who will go where tomorrow. I managed to construct several nets for catching insects, since there were spare nets. And now I am sure that collecting insects in three hands will be more prolific.
The night in such places is really amazing, especially when the sky is starry and the moon in all its glory lights up the mountain slopes. Nearby, a mountain river is still rustling, creating a full-fledged three-dimensional picture of what is happening, and no matter how much all this pleasure costs, it is real and close, it leaves in every cell of the body a persistent feeling of contact with the wild nature far from cities.
It is very cold here at night, and in the morning the temperature drops below zero. However, almost everywhere in the Pamirs there is a similar temperature trend, if the mountain range located nearby contains impressive snow reserves.
As soon as the sunbeam touches the opposite rocks, I start making breakfast. My Murghab friends are still asleep, but the army climb has already been rehearsed and I can only enjoy the pre-dawn silence. This time I significantly reduced the soldier's ration, which was punished. I didn't get enough of the carbohydrate component in our diet. It looks like he was hoping for a chance. In those days, I would have lost a virtual duel with any Charltonius at the end of the expedition. After twenty days of daily climbing, my feet were shaking in the mountains, and I had to sit down on rocks and massage my calves. This procedure was only enough for fifteen or twenty quick steps to the trophy .And that's it! Then you had to start all over again. The weight loss was also significant ( about 4 kg.), and although it provided an advantage when climbing, in the strong wind, my weak body swayed in time with the grass.
I had heard a lot about this huge Black satire from our colleagues in Voronezh. The fact that it is found in the mountain ranges between the lake.Sarez and Oz. A scribble that he was almost larger than the Avtokrator in wingspan, that he was rare and elusive, etc., etc. Before meeting him there were only a few moments left, and we went in search of him. Two icy morning rivers had to be crossed on our way, the first waking up the sleepy body, the second finally waking up from sleep. After such a climb, the mountains also seemed real, and every step towards them was welcome.
These places were really fabulous. In the foothills of the mountains, jackies fluttered in abundance, red as sun-fried egg yolks, on the swampy lowlands, small checkers and boloria. For a moment I forgot who I was, where I was, what time it was. Butterflies were everywhere, flying out from under my feet, flying into the net themselves and circling, circling, circling. I had almost forgotten about the Black Satyr, forgotten about the legendary Marco Polo, when suddenly, like a bird of prey, something dark and large swept through the smoothly circling ranks of Parnassus. At that moment, I perked up, and my hunting instinct kicked in. The butterfly was not as large as the Murghabians described it. It was comparable in size to the average Jacques, except that its color was noticeably different from the white background of other butterflies (although on the other hand, they say that white makes you fatter, and black makes you slimmer). In fact, the gliding black butterfly, among the white Parnassus trees, looked like a whole bird. Fear must have big eyes. I almost never dreamed of catching up with it, but the butterfly landed a few dozen meters up the slope, leaning slightly out of the wind, as all mountain satyrs do. All that remained was to gather the last of his strength and send it to his feet for the final throw.
That day, only I managed to catch a few individuals of this mysterious butterfly. My partners did their best, but no one caught the Black Satyr. Still, it's nice that you helped me and became interested in your own unique nature surrounded by a mighty mountain system under the short name - The Pamirs.
The system of mountains and gorges that is located in the area of the Tajik National Park is truly unique, where you can meet very unusual butterflies like the one I told you about, and you can meet quite ordinary ones. You can walk through the canyons for weeks and not find anything, or you can suddenly go out into a clearing and catch, for example, a Viscoti that is not at all peculiar to this place (the range of this butterfly passes, obviously, somewhat to the west. Personally, I did not meet her east of the Bartansky Gorge). In short, there is plenty of work for an entomologist in these places, and a month's vacation will fly by like one big, full-time working day, with the feeling that the first hour is already so far away, while the last one is already hidden behind the dust of the Uaz car taking home. And only a couple of containers with collected insects will remind you at home of those happy moments spent one on one with a fleeting moment.
This concludes my report on my trip to the Republic of Tajikistan, and I would like to thank all my companions and assistants, as well as the hospitable people of the Pamirs, for their warmth and respect for the wandering tourists.
The Pamirs/July/2013y. Chief of Staff of the Entomological Special Forces.

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21.08.2013 19:46, Svyatoslav Knyazev

We went for a ride with our colleague Sergey in East Kazakhstan! The goal is to catch various scoops at night, etc. The weather was very lucky - not a single rainy night, although thunderclouds were constantly moving around.

Route: Start from Omsk to Pavlodar, from there to Bayanaul National Park (Pavlodar region), Chaldai relict ribbon pine forest on the bank of the Irtysh River (Pavlodar region), Bukhtarma (East Kazakhstan region, hereinafter abbreviated as East Kazakhstan region), Katon-Karagai (Kazakh Altai, East Kazakhstan region), Serebryansk district in the northern on the coast of Bukhtarma (East Kazakhstan region), then again Pavlodar and Omsk. The total mileage is 3,500 km.

We collected a lot of interesting things. Bayanaul surprised with the greatest variety of species. There was also a lot to see in Altai, but it's already a bit chilly at night, especially considering the current cold season. They didn't even bother to go to Alpika because of heavy rainstorms and winds, they were caught in the forest belt.

The place is very picturesque. I upload a photo (most of the pictures were taken on the go directly from the car).

Bayanaul

Chaldai

Bukhtarma

by ferry across the Bukhtarma reservoir

Views from the eastern wild coast of Bukhtarma

Altai (Tarbagatai and Sarym-Sakty ranges)

Bad weather caught on the way to Zyryanovsk

The trip turned out to be interesting, informative and full of impressions!

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19.10.2013 18:15, Nikolai Rubin

The season is over, and spring isn't coming soon. People, can we not remember the summer to maintain a good mood?

This year in Belarus turned out to be somewhat wrong. Huge snowdrifts that lay until the end of April melted in three days and, it seems, the meltwater drowned all the nascent arthropod animals. Even ordinary whiteflies and raspberries were found in isolated instances.
May passed in search of new places and not without success. Another quiet forest river. The place is very promising – water meadows alternate with dry glades in the pine forest. In the absence of butterflies, we admired the swans.

And now, sitting on the balcony and admiring the evening fog over the forest, we imagined ourselves already in the mountains of the Kyrgyz Western Tien Shan. It may not be the most interesting place in Central Asia, but we didn't go west of Lake Sary-Chelek before, and the Chatkala Valley was very attractive.

Этап первый - Гродно - Москва - Бишкек - Кара-Балта - Кекемерен - Суусамыр - Токтогул - Таш-Кумыр - Кербен - Падыша-Ата - Сумсар - Кёк-Ала-Сай - Кассан-Сай.

At the Bishkek airport, the first thing that caught my eye was the Hercules of an American military base. Our fellow travelers Tolya and Zhenya Filippov and our guide Arseny, who arrived an hour earlier, were already waiting for us. The organizers of the trip took care of everything necessary in advance and, although the sun was already setting, we moved towards the mountains. The point of the first overnight stay was chosen in advance and in a couple of hours we were already standing in front of the closed gate of the territory of a small quarry, where crushed stone was mined back in Soviet times. It may not be the best place to camp, but the name of the gorge Kara-Balta (black axe) speaks for itself. The ridge seems to be cut across by a narrow gap, at the bottom of which only the river and the road can hardly fit. Well, we're going to arrange for them to let us in – private property, after all. Last year, the negotiations were successful, maybe even now it will work. Having infiltrated the territory and fighting off the dog, trying to grab the heel, we approach the trailer. The old caretaker has surprisingly bright blue eyes, and sly ...
" Oh, was that you who caught butterflies here last year?
Hell, I'd noticed. We went over the hill then and only caught it for a couple of hours.
"And you won't be naughty?"
Just like Ilf and Petrov – " won't you dance naked in the moonlight?" In general, everything was resolved to mutual satisfaction – the gates are open and we put up tents in the same place. In the morning we decided to go fishing for a couple of hours, since we were already found out. Basically, the standard set of mid-June diurnal butterflies for this ridge and altitude (1800-1900 m). But I was very pleased with several specimens of Melitaea fergana paradoxa and Paralasa kuznezovi, as well as the local E. ausonia transiensis.

In the future, I will refrain, if possible, from listing the butterflies found at specific points. If anyone is interested, you can view the list of caught items linked to localities in the app (XLS file).

Once again, the road wound and swapped places with the river, then crept up to the pass.

The tunnel under the Teo-Ashuu pass and the Suusamyr Valley in front of us.
- Do people want local goodies?
The people wanted and went to taste koumiss and kurt. I wonder what Mr. Onishchenko would say if he saw the local roadside trade. Well, the bag with Kurt is torn, nothing, now we'll collect it from the road, blow it lightly from the dust, and put it in a new bag. Delov that…

And, although according to the general plan of the expedition we had to go to the west, we still turned to the east. After all, the Kekemeren Valley is only 50 kilometers away and it's just a sin not to stop by. The place is gorgeous both in beauty and in the species diversity of insects. Having been there five years ago, something was not reported. However, it was not possible this time (two weeks earlier), the butterflies are still the same, but smaller. But the unreal beauty of this place was worth the lost day.

This is Western Karakol. After a couple of kilometers, it will meet Suusamyr and give rise to the Kekemeren River.

Kekemeren. The local name for this place is beach. So what if it's vertical.

And here again is the road along the Suusamyr Valley. Road of life Bishkek-Osh. And life on it really boils. It is probably the most populous place in Kyrgyzstan after the surrounding area of Song-Kel. Populated by cattle. The entire valley is covered with herds, yurts and makeshift retail outlets along the route stand in neat rows. There are even two-story yurts. Especially exotic are the owner's gelentwagens and land cruisers against the background of the dung pyramids.

"Would you like to try Sary-mai?" asks Senya, tempting us. What's this?" It turned out to be ghee, but how intriguing it sounded.

We skip the Alabel Pass (height 3150 m, overboard +8) and down the Chichkan (someone had a wild imagination to call the river a mouse). Here is the Naryn River, a bright blue ribbon curling on the left. Tash-Kumyr - we turn from the highway to the west, the road is worse, but quite tolerable. It's time to find a place to sleep. There are small hills around, dry steppe with rare groves of pistachios. We turn off the road and stand in a small valley. In the setting sun, eremuruses glow like molten gold.

The sun has set, and at dusk Zhenya and I sort out what we caught during the day. Beetles keep flying past. It's already dark enough, and the sound is kind of thin, probably some crunchers flew, like a rhizotrogus. Business as usual, too lazy to get up. Tolik keeps wandering around with a net. In Central Asia, for the first time, terzamonov chases across the steppe without getting enough fish.
- Tolya, listen, catch this beetle, see what kind of animal it is. I'm tired of buzzing in my ear.
Two minutes later, a wild cry comes out of the twilight – " it's a prion." In the net, a small red-haired miracle importantly moves its feathery antennae. We grab our nets and take up strategic squatting positions. So at least something else can be seen against the sky. I can imagine how comical it looked from the outside. Five motionless figures crouched in the grass. Every now and then one of them breaks off and, swinging a net, jumps rushes across the steppe, thinning the eremuruses. It's completely dark, we try to catch by ear (eh, the ears are too small), but the desired sound is heard less and less often. That's all, the flight stopped (we flew for no more than an hour). The result is two prions and a lot of unpaired ones.

We are driving along the border with Uzbekistan. Knowing the "warm" border relations between the two peoples, we carefully follow the signs. After all, the border is not demarcated, sometimes it passes through some ditch right in the middle of the village (in some places it was mined in the 90s), so you can accidentally turn to the Uzbeks. But my fears are futile. Where there was something to share (gardens, pastures for cattle), the road that was laid during the Soviet Union, regardless of the borders of the Union Republics, now has detours. In 2000, it was just back roads, now everything is paved. But far from the villages in the bare steppe, enthusiasm and, perhaps, money were enough only for huge billboards with terrible inscriptions "ATTENTION, STATE BORDER IN 500 M", "ATTENTION, STATE BORDER IN 100 M". We drove 200 m – are we in Uzbekistan now? After a few kilometers, the signs were repeated, only in reverse order. So we dived a couple of times to the Uzbeks.

A closer acquaintance directly with the Western Tien Shan began with the valley of the Padysha-Ata River. The whole valley is located in a national park, they charge money for admission (I think $ 2 from the nose and five from the car), but you can only get to the mausoleum of the medieval preacher of Islam, after whom the river is named. By the way, it is quite a visited place, cars and buses with pilgrims are constantly approaching. And, although the excellent trail goes further into the mountains, there are no hunters to walk. After all, no one knows that after walking 800 meters along the narrow gap that the river cut through the mountain slope, a person gets to paradise.

Paradise was a dirty trick. To begin with, we suggest solving a problem. Go left along the Padysha Ata or right along its tributary. Both look equally tempting. Having caught mnemosyne for fun in the vast meadow near the confluence, they split up and began to search more specifically. And then it turned out that you can only swing a net on small lawns along the river. And there wasn't much to catch. Let's just say-a huge number of local subspecies of rather banal butterflies. Only Erebia meta gertha pleased (for her, in principle, here and wrapped). But it is almost impossible to get to the more xerophytic rocky surrounding slopes and check the scree-the slopes are very steep and so densely overgrown with all sorts of thorns that, having made your way up 20 meters, you simply run out of strength and look more like not to come up from there. But still, a few fresh paralazs that fell from the sky on the trail, and M. kotshubeji kugarti were our reward.

The next day was spent deep-frying in the desert on the northern edge of the Ferghana Valley below the village of Shekaftar in search of Hyponephele korshunovi. They only lasted until lunch. Still, the shadow of a tamarisk is very ephemeral at temperatures over 40. Whenever possible, they hid with the Satyrids in caves dug by the spring flood. An interesting biotopic association of different Hyponephele species-dysdora, interposita, and korshunovi-adheres to steep clay cliffs with stone outcrops. More gentle slopes are occupied exclusively by lupinus. Only lupinuses and the ubiquitous enervata fed on the flowers, too. From pigeons only Phoenicurusia margelanica, Psedothecla acaudata and local icarus, where without them. Melitaea sibina aulicana was quite plentiful in the valleys where the remains of green grass were still preserved.

No one paid much attention to the rather suspicious white color of the water – well, the river is eroding white clay somewhere. Chilik, when entering the plain, is also like this. Well, my dear decided to wet her shirt in it. After drying, the shirt somehow spread out. The people suddenly got nervous scabies. It turned out that everyone drank a little bit of this river, they didn't drink anything, but they were all honored to wash their faces or dip their caps. The cause of this anomaly was seen when returning to the road upstream. There was some kind of machine on the bank. It was hard to tell what was being produced there from the pile of rusty iron and gnarled planks, but it was draining some white stuff into the river properly. Kyrgyz greetings to the Uzbeks (10 km downstream).

After searching the southern macro slope of the Chatkal range and its nearest spur, Kek-Ala, we realized that we were a little late. The fauna in the middle mountains has already turned out to be somewhat flown. And very poor. The necessary "delicious" species (Hyponephele murzini, Farsia sieversi amatrix, Farsia antonina, Athamanthia infera) were caught, but in very small numbers. And we realized that it was time to climb the alpika.

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19.10.2013 18:42, Nikolai Rubin

Stage two-Chapchyma-Kanysh-Kiya-Chokurchak.

Chapchyma. Pass through the Chatkal ridge. A proud plaster eagle and a concrete shield with a clumsy inscription 2841 m. It's a strange thing – every second passing car stops, and people go to take pictures. And not against the backdrop of the surrounding majestic ridges, but next to this concrete ugliness. Conquerors of nature, damn it. Everyone watch how high I've climbed. Well, yes, it will look like an ant against the background of mountains.

But there is nowhere to become. After climbing the pass, the road immediately dives down like a serpentine. We are trying to get into a side hole made by a bulldozer. With effort, we crawl up, gain another hundred meters and rest against the station. TV, mobile phone and relay in one package.

The owners come out somewhat surprised and, without much discussion, point out a good flat area 50 meters from the station. When asked who and from where, we answer that they are travelers. Why reveal your cards ahead of time, tomorrow everyone will see. In response, we are told how last year the French (or Germans) stood at this place and CAUGHT BUTTERFLIES. And they will present us with two liters of koumiss. In the evening, a return visit with Nemirov's bubble follows. We part as best friends. The place for the camp is fantastic – we meditate near the tent, watching the sun set behind a series of ridges. And if you turn your head to the east, you can admire the moon.

The morning is more prosaic. All around is eaten by cattle. Hope only for the very crests of the ridge, where there is almost no grass, only rocks. Rams still avoid such places. So it is – on the very foreheads a carpet of Melitaea lunulata. And the breeze is not weak. Butterflies almost do not fly, but rather crawl on rare flowers. There are also Melitaea minerva tersa, Agriades pheretiades lara, fresh Lasiommata menava. But there are few Parnassians, both Maximinus and Tienshanicus. Catch a dozen Colias wiskotti draconis. Trigonella (forage draconis) is quite small. We walked and wandered, almost accidentally went to the Uzbeks with Zhenya, but we caught ourselves in time by checking the GPS. Tomorrow we'll go to the other side, where the hills are steeper and the sheep don't seem to be visible.

Well, let's go. But there's no way to climb straight up from the pass. So on the way down 200 meters (it's a shame, the same height will have to be gained again later), and then on the couloir up. And here is the right place – on the ridge in the juniper elk on the south side, small clearings of about 30x30 meters were formed and trigonella is full. True, the slope is under 40 degrees, and at the bottom it generally breaks off almost vertically. So, if you run down and don't stop in time, you can also tweet from the cliff. The tactic is simple – choose a clearing, sit on a rock and wait. Suddenly, a fiery red rocket materializes out of thin air and, more slowly, begins to check the trigonella bushes. Well, there's already someone more agile, you or the butterfly. If you didn't catch it the first time, you can sit quietly on the nearest rock and wait for the next one. Butterflies appear at intervals of about 10 minutes. Statistics – in the net is one of three. Periodically, you change your location, moving to the opposite slope and driving tianshanikusov to warm up. But if you push yourself and climb even higher by 400 meters, you will find yourself in the kingdom of Delphi. Among others, we catch a dozen and a half specimens of a rare aberration with four blue spots on the hind wings. Come across even with five. I've never seen one like it. The final chord was the capture of several Acerbia churkini, which greatly pleased Tolya, who just collects bears.
The evening is filled with enthusiastic stories - who saw what, how and where they flew, and where we will go tomorrow.

A few days on Chapchyma flew by unnoticed and it was time to move to the Chatkala Valley. The plan is to climb to the Chanach pass and visit several points on the opposite Chandalash ridge. After descending from the pass, we moved up the valley. First, we decided to visit the foothills of Chandalash (heights of approximately 2000-2200 m) in the area of a small cluster of small lakes along the valley of the Chokurchak River. As it turned out, the place is very beautiful and popular with the local people.

But it seems that we have reached our limit of good weather on this trip. And the GREAT SITTING began with a longing look at the sky and the opposite Chatkal ridge, where the rocks in the area of the Chanach pass took on an absolutely fantastic view in the evening, resembling the castle of Sauron. We'll get there in a couple of days.

The weather never improved. The lakes were remembered mainly for the fact that my wife performed a feat out of boredom. That is, I dared to collect beetles. I started with the barbel. There were quite a lot of stenokorusov (S. tataricus and S. univittatus) and agapantia A. soror. Most of all, she was amused by the way they hid from her behind the trunk of the ferula (except that their sawyers were treacherously sticking out). She ended up using tweezers from her own makeup bag and a cup of water to follow the cows and extract copra and chironitis from their burrows.
"Look, it's so exciting, isn't it?

Technique of sending SMS in Ulan-Ude

We were already running out of time, and it was time to move to the northern slope of the Chatkal range. On the way, we tried to replenish our food supplies - we ran out of bread, onions and garlic. But I only managed to buy onions. The valley is almost cut off from the world. You can get to it only through Chapchyma and the Kara-Buura pass, which is open only in July and August. The people have long been living on subsistence farming, only some manufactured goods and alcohol are imported. Rare villages with small shops do not shine with a variety of goods, everyone bakes bread themselves. Imported food is very rare, and it is too expensive for locals (a flatbread costs 40 soms, almost a pupaar). Well, nothing, we stocked up on breadcrumbs, drove on.