Offroad: Altai - Khakassia Track - Tuva
15.10.2014
It was mid-October 2014 and the first snow had fallen on the famous Tuva Track mountain road from Kosh-Agach in the Altai Mountains to Ak-Dovurak in the Republic of Tuva. Instead we opted to take the Khakassia Track 500km further north, but on lower grounds, an extension of the Togulskiy Trakt, from Biysk to Askiz (driving time 12 hours), which has so far not been covered with fotos on the internet.
Caution: Khakassia Track is less scenic than Tuva Track !
(If you have slightly more time, take a route variation from Gorno-Altaysk via Toruchak and Tashtagol to Novokuznetsk)
This was our route:
(between Mezhdurechensk and Askiz route is not shown correctly; track is further south, but can't be missed)
We rented a Landruiser from www.camp-altai.ru:
start from Novosibirsk Tolmachevo airport
initially a 1.000km drive south ...
through Altai Republic
down to the Mongolian border at Kosh-Agach,
then back up to Biysk, turning right into the Togulskiy Trakt (all asphalt)
towards Novokuznetsk (formerly Stalinsk, the center of the Kuzbass - compare with Donbass)
and Mezhdurechensk (a skiing and hiking resort town)
then crossing the Tom river at Chulzhan (?) - 10km after Mezhdurechensk - on a pontoon bridge
to meet an unmanned post
(where in theory police ask for a permission paper / propusk, as the track leads through an open-air prison)
car owner Sergey (with GPS and Russian maps on PC) and buddy Harald (with Iridium satellite phone)
initial track quality is not too bad
it started to snow in the higher grounds
at an uncharted village (Artom?)
we asked for directions
then the track became worse
with just one oncoming vehicle (but never saw any prisoners)
and then even worse with deep mud
so we had to decide
to drive in the river bed (lots of water holes and water crossings anyway!)
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then after 6 hours of hard track conditions the first signs of Khakassia
and the unasphalted but newly carved main road appeared again (just before Balik-Su)
so we reached the highway A-161 near Askiz late at night (Harald as fit as always)
and slept shortly in a run-down hotel in Abaza.
Leaving before sunrise we hit the 2.206m high Sayansk Pass to Tuva Republic at 8 a.m. where it was still pitch black, even in the snow
then we continued through the Sayan mountains into the beautiful Tuva high steppe
toward the lonely asbestos-infested Ak-Dovurak
before taking the beautiful onward road
towards Chadan, where current Russian defense minister Sergey Shoygu was born
(Tuvan men are famously aggressive fighters, when not drunk, or especially then)
Red October
in the Tuvan capital Kyzyl (much better than expected with big funding from Moscow)
with its proud culture museum (Khoomei throat singing, Shamanism, Yellow Cap Buddhism)
and the Center of Asia monument
with playing kids
then along the Yenisei River further north
missing out on the famous Scythian burial grounds near Turan,
passing the southern part of Krasnoyarsk Krai,
until our final destination Abakan and its decent hotel by the same name
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Recommended reading:
"Tuva or Bust! Richard Feynman's last journey" by Ralph Leighton
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Posted by LuxuryRogue 05:37 Archived in Russia
