Nine Secrets of the Altai Mountains
Altai Mountains has long been a place of tourist pilgrimage. Thousands of people each year tend to look at its natural splendor: Lake Teletskoye, the Katun river and serpentines of the pass Katu-Yaryk . Summer on the mountain trails in the Altai it is hard to miss, and the famous camp in the valley Aktru crowded climbers. "My Planet" will talk about the secrets of this wonderful southern Siberian region.
Who live in the Altai?
More than half the residents of Mountain Altai – Russian. At one time they founded a number of villages, forced to make room autochthonous (indigenous people. – approx. Red.), And prevail in a single city – the capital. The most extensive part of the region inhabit Altai Kazakhs and small Turkic peoples, which in Soviet times was recorded in the titular nation. Altai different way of life – depending on the aimag (region).
It is true that in the Altai polls drink greasy and salty tea?
When I lived in Moscow, I often heard the opinion: Altai drink exclusively mysterious tea, which is charged with the milk, salt and butter. Once in the Mountain Altai, I tried something similar. The taste was interesting, but oil there and did not smell, as it should be semi-finished in a cafe, batted from the bag in boiling water. And how many times I subsequently communicated with the shepherds in the mountains, they all used a tasteless drink – the same that appears if you lower the bag into the mug on the thread. And only once, in the Taiga of the Choi district, I met Shaman – so he did tea in the old man. However, at home, in a family circle, salty tea is still popular. Meanwhile, I actually believe that tea and salt, butter and milk – the best.
What and how to try in the mountain altai?
In addition to the salted tea, Altai is interesting and other delights. However, some of them are not as popular with local, as it seems from Central Russia. In Altai really eating horses. If stewed horse meat is very tasty – like veal with a touch of venison, then dried on the fan: the meat slightly greenish and taste like a dried fish. Moreover, the ecological meat of the region you are unlikely to find in stores. And for lamb, and for beef you need to go to the villagers and negotiate.
Fact: Local, experiencing disgust for the use of horses in food. After all, a horse with sad eyes is a close help assistant.
In addition, in local forests, autotourists have chances to dial a couple of bags of cedar cones.
Why in Altay do not feed the bears on the tracks?
Annually in RuNet there are videos with scenes of how people are fed from beam cars: honey, meat or cookies. Recordsmen in this nomination at the Darwin Prize – residents of the Murmansk region. Enough frames from Kamchatka and Kolyma. In Altai, no one will come to the head to cover the table for a dangerous beast. Bear is respected as a master of taiga, from which we must vigilantly protect their livestock. After all, the clubboy is able to leave the taiga in front of the chapan and pounce on a horse or drag a cow.
Often the Altaica purposefully go to the wilderness to track down and kill the bear. This is considered a deed required for a man. Also in the republic there is a poaching service when the rich is from other edges to be held on the burgors so that they felt their pride. One Russian from the Turochak district told me how he made a similar excursion and then shut up to do it again. In Beror, "Ecotourists" slowly and rightly killed all the bear family.
Sleeply Altai – Illusion
For some reason, tourists think: it is worth the Altai village and to deepen a little bit in the foothills or pass along the coast of the next river, how they will be alone. And here they are romantic gatherings by the fire. To their surprise, a local resident will almost certainly look at the light – on or without it. Chat or ask: and have not seen travelers his living creatures? After all, all the steppes, forests, brokes and gorges within a dozen and more kilometers around the villages are actively used. There graze cattle, hunt and mining a cedar bump. Understand this Citizen is sometimes difficult.
Everything is beautiful where there are no human crowds
For short-dealing romantics, an irreparable mistake in Altai – go where the advertisement calls. Times when an excursion to the north of Teletskoy Lake and walks on the Chella brought sincere equilibrium, passed. Instead there are crowds of tourists, night discos and men who do not know how to behave. High prices for services. Sad painting in summer on Karakol and Shavlin lakes – Mountain toilet paper lie almost under each cedder. Even passes lose their charm after Varvarov Graffitchikov visits.
Feng Shui must be sought different. To go through Ust-Kan to Onguda to get acquainted with the Melancholic Taiga Mongority, low ridges, such as Anuanian and Baschelak, and steppe tracts, dyed remains. Break through jazzator and admire undeservedly not too popular, but the monumental mountain node of Tabin-Bogdo-Ola. Drive on the Biysk – Turochak’s highway and see the foggy shores of transparent bii, along which there are only occasions. Look at the multicolored Karakabak lakes, where the rimpets of tourist groups do not yet. In Altai, there are enough beautiful places, not leaving commerce.
Altai people live at the expense of tourists?
Separate travelers seriously believe that local shepherds should almost give them to lamb and carry on horseback. And offended when the passage over the bridge over the mountain river built without the support of the state is charged with them. After such moments, tirades are heard that Altai lives at the expense of tourism, and the republic – the subsidiary region. And that these aborigines have encouraged, and they speak Russian well.
In fact, from the stream of excursants, Altai turns not so much. Offices agencies are located in Moscow or at best in Novosibirsk. Large hotel complexes belong to nonresident. Some money receive entrepreneurs from Gorno-Altaisk, Maima, Mergerok, Chelan and Iogach. The rest gets difficult to accompany tourists in the mountains or a small income from summer houses. Deck of Altai feed Agriculture, Taiga and Northern Watch.
Altai looks best when the weather flies
For the first time the mountain altai fascinates. Eyes from delight difficult to close, and the heart from excitement is ready jump out of the chest. You saw the world, actually not affected by urbanization, estimated the anxious rumble of stormy Katun and loved on the brilliance of the Glaciers of the North Chui and Kuraysky ridges. But a year later, it is difficult to resurrected feeling that even those who acquired cottages here. To Altai quickly get used to. The situation will save the season, when frosts begin to lie in the mountains, and in the valleys in the morning frost is formed. Hotels for some reason are empty, and the paints of Altai are changing – poplar and larch yellow, snow caps in the mountains are descending all lower, and the air is filled with new aromas. And this is autumn.
How to spend the night in the edge where there are no hotels
To be honest, I did not put a tent every night when I went to the Altai Mountains. Somewhere in the taiga, they were sitting and missed hefty bears, and the impexity of the night frightened, but I felt protected. Raised wood to the stove and smeared peanut pasta on cookies. Went down to bed and calmly fell asleep, knowing that in the morning I did not couduger condensate with a tent. My shelters were not hotels, but taiga borrow.
Far in the mountains of Altai such emails. Periodically, they are visited by the owners when they drive horses for grazing, hunt or collect kedrals. Of course, planning your campaign for them is somehow indecent. And if I had to look at the guest, leaving, you need to leave the perfect cleanliness, folding firewood and put a gift from food. Such etiquette.
Altai is lucky. He is one of the rare regions, where it is easy and fastened to get. And, without leaving far from the forms of civilization like a Chui tract, see what it is necessary: raging on the thresholds of rivers, canyons and mountains. Natural zones are collected on its territory. Each of his districts is not a copy of another. Landscapes vary from taiga to the mountain steppes, and the tundra emphasize the power of his vertices.
