Altay road trip, day one

Last year I suggested to my friends to have one week trip to Mount Altay. To be honest, I can’t believe we have organised everything and we have this small road trip now. Surprisingly, my friends have approved one week vacation, they have bought everything we need and, what is more important, have organised and prepared a car for a long off-road trip. All I had to do was to fly back to Siberia by that time and tick off all other appointments. I’ll try to keep writing our travel notes on everyday basis. However, I’m not sure if I can publish them everyday, since the internet and GSM network are not available everywhere in the mountains. One thing I’m a 100% sure – this time it’s gonna be a completely different trip.


We left Prokopyevsk, a small town I was born, on Monday at 12PM and have been driving to Biysk through the Kuzedeevo road. We saw very beutiful places, however I didn’t manage to get pictures of these due to lack of time. Next time, on the way back to home. May be. Just imagine sunny and warm July weather, classical hilly landscapes of southern part of Kemerovo regeon, covered by birch and aspen forests and infinite Altay farmlands with growing buckweat and rapeseed. We arrived to Mayma at 7PM. I was truly amazed to see how it was transformed. First of all, roads were improved and widened, at some places they even added passing lanes. Second, a lot of accomodations were built. As you may guess, we didn’t stop at popular tourist places. Our main goal for today was to drive as longer as we could, to be closer to wild Altay, real mountains and hence, to have more time for visiting places in our bucket list. We had a dinner at Irbis cafe. Lamian, chorba, pilaf, manti – there are so many delicios meals we are going to try during vacation! This is Altay, babe!

We were stopped by police patrol nearby Ogunday township. They checked our documents, asked if we had any weapons, and also asked whether we had been in Altay before and wished a safe drive to all of us. I have to note, now you can see commercial properties and tourist camps have been built further on Chuyskiy tract.

We were driving through Seminsky pass and Chike Taman pass late in the evening so again, I haven’t made any pictures. By the time we stopped overnight at Bely Boom, we had driven 650 kilometers. Before that, we tried to get accomodation in a few places but it was fully occupied. As result, we stayed in a house with two Queen bedrooms with a total cost 500 rubles per person. Stay tuned – it is going to be very exciting soon!

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Ivan Grigoryev's Blog
Living in New Zealand. Blogging about the country, beautiful places, everyday life.
Do a skydive - halfway completed; get 1400 - still working on; reach 300kph - completed by 96.6%