Blogs from Siberia, Russia, Europe - page 3

Die Karawane zieht wieder weiter. Heute haben wir eine etwas längere Strecke, nämlich bis nach Krasnojarsk (UNKL) zu überwinden. Wir rechnen mit etwa 3:15 Flugzeit (ohne Wind kalkuiert). Allerdings wird es starken Wind aus Norden geben, weshalb wir deutlich länger brauchen werden. Heute gehen wir mal rauf auf Flugfläche F270, um noch spritsparender unterwegs zu sein. Wir brauchen später für die über 1.000 Nm von Irkutsk (UIII) nach Yakutsk (UEEE) unbedingt eine echte "long range cruise" Einstellung der beiden Turbinen. Jetzt ist eine gute Gelegenheit zum Ausprobieren. Mitten auf der Strecke bekommen wir ein "Attitude Failure"-Alarm: Es gibt kein "Heading" (Richtungsinformation) mehr und der Autopilot stellt seinen Dienst ein. Jetzt kommt etwas Hektik auf, denn es muss spontan "per Hand" weitergeflogen werden. Das ist in der dünnen Luft übrigens gar nicht so einfach. Der ganze Spuk ... read more

Our first taste of early winter on the south shore of Baikal was a real awakening. Following days of rain at lake level the mountains were covered in snow just above us. We think of ourselves as rather cold-hardy people and we have saddled up for some pretty bad weather over the years, but we still felt a sense of urgency to get rolling and not stop. Back in Chita, when we bought our return tickets to the States, we chose Krasnoyarsk as our departure city thinking that we would take a leisurely pace in the fall and make a few stops. We also knew from experience that the highway to and through Novosibirsk would be very busy, making Krasnoyarsk a fitting place to stop. But the winter in the Baikal region started to press ... read more

We arrived in Ulan Ude at 9-30am We were taken straight to a local hotel and allowed an hour there to have a shower and be ready for the day. Then it was off on a city tour. Ulan Ude is the capital of the Buryat Republic of Russia. It is one of three mainly Buddhist Republics and was originally settled by nomadic Mongols. So this has an Asian flavour but overdressed with Russian influence. This was clearly seen in our first stop at the city square. This square is dominated by a huge head of Lenin, the largest in the world. Surrounding the square are various public buildings, all built in the soviet style. It is a large space and quite attractive. We walked from there to another smaller plaza which had a dancing fountain ... read more

We left Irkutsk at 10-30 on a lovely sunny day. We drove into the countryside, heading for the largest fresh water lake in the world. Lake Baikal contains 20%of the world's fresh water and I was very excited to be able to see it. We reached the shore in about 45 minutes and stopped to take a group photo overlooking the water. Our first main stop was at the liminolgical museum, one which concentrates on the lake and its history and ecology. It was very crowded, with tour groups, not only from our train, but from China as well. LArisa took us through the different stages in the formation of the lake and then the ecology, explaining why the water is so so pure and the different organisms essential in its ecology. As we went through ... read more

k and Krasnoyarsk We spent the day on the train, travelling between Ekaterinburg and Novosibirsk. We stopped for about half an hour at Omsk and were able to walk along the platform and stretch our legs. We had lunch on the train. Fletcher continued to work on his computer while I read and chatted to Elizabeth whose cabin is next to ours. At 4pm we went down to the restaurant car and Olga gave us a lesson in the Russian Language. Having been here three times before I can decipher most of the Cyrillic but some letters still give me problems. So this was fun, looking at the alphabet which has 32 letters and learning simple phrases such as “See you tomorrow”, “Where do you live?” and the numbers from 1-20. We had to write our ... read more