Choreme, Khan and Araka, in a Tuvinian Yurt

A. A. Ikonnikov-Galitsky

Starting from Aktash, the site where the frontier post was situated, we did not see any Caucasian faces; even Mongoloid ones became rare. Having passed the district center of Kosh-Agach and turning eastward from the route of Chuiskii Trakt, we found ourselves in savage solitudes. Having climbed a 3 thousand meter high pass by bizarre paths, we entered Tuva from the direction of Altai. We passed through the inaccessible, grand, and deserted Mongun-Taiga; then, across the valley of the Kargy River, we descended towards the Mongolian border. Another ascent, another pass (There had been so many on our way! And how many were ahead!). A dark gloomy canyon, on the bottom of which a tiny streamlet was babbling. Having absorbed some streams on its way, the rivulet gradually turned into the Barlyk River. Its waters, rushing over multicolored stones among the mountains of Tsagan-Shibetu, flow into Hemchik, then into the mighty Yenisei, pass through the gorges of Bolshoi Sayan and, falling from a 200 meter high dam of Sayan-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station, will flow towards Krasnoyarsk, then Dudinka, and on to the Arctic Ocean. Yesterday, we spent the night in the cold and damp canyon of Barlyk, where the sun rises two hours later than above the plain, and disappears behind the mountain two hours earlier. Our tents, pinned to the rocky ground, became covered with hoarfrost all over by the morning.

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