THE GREAT SEVEN and THE MOUNTAIN FIVE - these two nominations of Rosokhotrybolovsoyuz were the most prestigious hunting awards when The Cryztal Cup of the CMH haven’t established and today, their importance has not decreased at all. I haven't the Siberian Ibex in my collection - one of the fifth animals needed to qualify for the "Mountain Five". That’s the reason why I was going to Gorny Altai - to hunt there. I'd been there many times but as a tourist and didn’t have the opportunity to hunt.
Probably I chose the wrong time - the end of September beginning of October but two of our leading hunting companies didn't suggest me any interesting variants. All the Stalker Group company offers were with the night in the fly camp. I was afraid that night in such camp at the beginning of October would be fraught with unpredictable consequences. I shouldn't forget about my asthma that surprised me at the most inopportune moment, that's why I refused without any doubts. "ProfiHunt" also withdrew from the game after several negotiations. As a result, I had to contact my friends and find out through them how to implement my plans on my own. It is clear that in such cases there is more risk and it is better to assemble a team of several hunters. This was done successfully on the one hand – I found three people, who turned out, had dreamed of such a trip all their lives but on the other hand - two of them refused in a month and the last one was doubting all the time and decided to go on dreaming only in the last moment. I flied alone. I’m sure that people say that should have alerted me! Apparently, I am not one of them – I was not alerted…
I was also not alarmed by the fact that when approaching Gorno-Altaysk, when I was about to take a relaxed breath and imagined how I would soon get off the plane, how I would be met, how we would get into the car and rush towards adventures, suddenly the chief pilot of the plane made an announcement in the sense that we would have to wait for landing. He told the stunned passengers the following: due to the unpreparedness of the landing strip, the plane will land in... Novosibirsk. It happened that a three-month norm of precipitation of snow fell in Gorno-Altaysk. I do not undertake to convey the feelings of other passengers but I had an unpleasant feeling in the pit of my stomach. The fact was that I proceeded from the calculation of 5 + 2 when purchased tickets. I was going to hunt 5 days plus 2 days for the road. But fate has already decided otherwise in Moscow – the schedule in Gorno-Altaysk has changed, because of the low workload, since October 1, planes began to fly not daily, but three times a week. I had to make a sacrifice, and instead of seven days for everything, it turned out to be six. Now I had to adjust this logistics in the direction of reducing the number of days allotted for hunting (although at that time I did not know how much I would have to adjust).
We spent six hours in Novosibirsk waiting when they’d clean the runway in Gorno-Altaysk and then flew. Instead of 5 am, we were on the place only by noon and almost immediately went to Kosh-Agach. We had to drive about 450 km by the famous Chuysky tract. The road of federal significance was paved and very good quality. It took us 9 hours to drive because of ice, endless treacherous turns, to collide head-on with an oncoming car on which it was not difficult.
Kosh-Agach and beyond.
The village of Kosh-Agach is located in a unique place - in the intermountain basin, thanks to which it is tightly closed from the influences of the Atlantic by the main watershed of the Altai Mountains. This fact is the main reason for the very harsh, sharply continental climate here. Just imagine: the absolute maximum temperature recorded by the weather station was +38 °C, and the absolute minimum was -62 °C. That is, the difference between the maximum and minimum temperatures is 100 degrees! Even in summer, there is a constant possibility of night frosts. saw flat-roofed houses for the first time in my life in Kosh-Agach. There is practically no rain or snow here, and therefore there is no need in roofs with slopes. The number of sunny days in a year exceeds 300! In my opinion, there is simply no other such place in Russia. It’s clear why the largest solar power plants in Russia and the only power plant in the Altai Republic was built there two years ago. Its capacity is 10 MW.
Kosh-Agach is a small town or a large village (about 8000 inhabitants), but it is interesting because all the "threads" of the Silk Road are intertwined in it. The Mongolian border is in 65 kilometers from Kosh-Agach, near China, Kazakhstan. Here the Central Asian Babylon was formed, in which, in addition to the Altaians, many Kazakhs, Chinese, Russians, and Mongols live. You feel it when get to the local market. All kinds of ceramics, products made of yak wool, camels are sold here…
The next day we went to the village of Belyashi (in any case, this name is used in official documents and the pass is also called. Belesh is translated from Altai as "a small saddle in the mountains"). The locals call the village in their own way – Jazator. Apparently, by the name of the right tributary of the Argut.
The village is located in the valley of this Jazator, surrounded by the spurs of the Yuzhno-Chuysky ridge. To the south of the village, behind the mountain ranges, there is the Ukok plateau, famous in terms of archaeological finds. From Kosh-Agach to Belyashi is only 140 km, which took us... 7 hours! We overcame three passes, but they were not the main obstacle. The road there was of local importance, and the precipices along its edges would have impressed the most indifferent person. Belyashi, as it turned out, was not the end point of the path. There were still about 40 kilometers to the hunting place. By that time, I had figured out the situation and did not deceive myself with such an insignificant figure – 40 kilometers. As the well-known song says, the premonitions did not deceive him. Those 40 km took us 6 hours! Ascents, passes, turns on serpentines – I have already managed to get used to all this. The new thing was the permanent fear for life. I'm sitting at my desk and don’t believe that it's happened with me. There is a sheer cliff on the left, on the right there is a bottomless abyss, and the width of the road just corresponds to the width of the car. The sensations there were much more lively. From time to time, a question arose in my head that took my breath away: AND IF THE ONCOMING TRAFFIC, WHAT THEN?
In two days, we crossed Chyisky steppe along which, as in Mongolia, you can go without any road, if it were not for the snow with enviable constancy. No less desperate snow and cold waited for us in the mountains. And suddenly some magic happened – the car drove into the Argut Valley, where the golden autumn was still raging with contrasting colors! The word "Altai "from the Mongolian language is translated as "gold-bearing". We were immediately surrounded by a fabulous beauty – a blue, clear sky, larch trees in fluffy gold needles, liquid crystal of rivers running over stones... I can hardly convey the feeling of quiet delight in words!
The camp seemed quite acceptable to me – a yurt, a table, bunks and a stove in it. What else do you need for a couple of days of camping life (and we still had three more days to hunt and a day to return)? We arrived, settled down and brought water. We discussed how to hunt when having dinner.
The problem was that a huntsman was supposed to wait for us in Belyashy. He had to scout out where we can find ibexes there, and thus save us time. If it was so, three days was enough. But he wasn't there. He got the vacation and went for another hunting with other hunters. So, we needed to waste time looking for the animals. But this is not all the misfortunes. There should have been horses near the yurt. They are there almost all year round on free grazing, they are not tied to a peg but at that time they also got the vacation as the huntsman. But only the one horse left. I have repeatedly read that some small, hardy horses are used in the Altai Mountains and in general in the Asian part of Russia. The one I saw (and then all the others) was quite an ordinary, tall horse. But, as life had shown, it was quite capable of moving on steep mountains. I must admit that the local horses made a very favorable impression on me.
At dinner, we decided to do it this way: I would ride a horse, and they would walk. We should climb the mountains and try to look for the ibex. Let's hope for the luck!
After a while, one of our team members found some strange horses and offered to use them, which was gladly accepted by the whole company. I could only shrug my shoulders – maybe that's the way it was here?
By the way about horses. I knew one thing in that trip. the horse inflates the stomach when you tighten the girth, so that the girth does not press so much later. The experienced Altaians wait for some time, and then tighten the girth again. There were many unexpected discoveries that can be useful in a camping life.
The Time Machine.
By this time, I got used to what was happening around me, and even tried to warn one negative moment. We were not going to hunt for a bear or a tiger, but on a herbivorous, safe animal for humans, but all four guys from our team took carbines. I asked if they were going to hunt with me? And heard that it was possible. It meant that all their knowledge about trophy hunting were like in the Soviet Union when the client meant nothing and they all have the same right for a shot. This is quite understandable – they live here in the same way as in the first half of the last century. The light in the village is given for three hours in the evenings – a generator running on imported diesel fuel is turned on. A mobile store comes to them according to the schedule, that brings bread, flour, salt, matches, sugar. The extraction of wild meat is in the order of things for them and every Altai citizen goes outside the village with a carbine. I means that animals there are afraid of people - what we soon managed to make sure of-all ibexes (regardless of gender and age), as soon as they saw a person, disappeared from view at the speed of the wind. There is a nature reserve in the area that is protected, while the rest of the territory is available for year-round hunting. By default, the law of nepotism applies, no one fines anyone and does not catch poaching. I could hardly call the poaching by this word because for them it is a way of survival in local, very harsh conditions.
For dinner they cooked the boiled sheep stomach with its fat. Then it was intertwined with pigtails and fried. Very high-calorie food. In Siberia, I remember, the colostrum of a calved cow cooked and ate with spoons. The mammary glands of all mammals secrete a secret that is rich of fat and vitamins before and immediately after childbirth. And here colostrum is dried, and this product feeds a traveling Altaian all day. Another interesting meal – one of the guides ate crushed roasted barley. These technologies of food preparation have been passed down here from generation to generation for centuries. All these products are energy-intensive, easy to store and just light. If you add green tea, which the Altaians drink, it becomes clear why they do not really need bread, butter and other pemmicans, without which the polar explorers of the past did not think of their great trips to the Arctic.
It will have sense to say about the endurance of the Altaians, which, if I understand correctly, shortens their life. There were two people with us who stayed the night in the snow, under a cedar tree. One is forty-eight, the other is under thirty. They had not tents, stoves, nothing. They just made a felt mat, make a fire and lied down on the cat in sleeping bags. When the ambient temperature was -12 degrees. Such an extreme for them is the norm, but as a result, the life expectancy of the Altaians is small.
The hunt has began!
The next day came, and the typical mountain hunting began. We crossed the river and climbed the mountains. It happened to be the steep mountain, the slope covered by rocks was dangerous for ascending. I decided to trust my horse. It knew better than me about the local "mountaineering", and imagined how best to get to the top. I hope it was so. The main thing was not to look down.
The higher we climbed, the more terrible it looked, the slope seemed to be turned out into the depth of the gorge. The probability of falling into the abyss grew exponentially with each step. My patience was enough to reach an altitude of 3000 meters. There I got off the horse and categorically stated that I could not move in such way longer.
– I can't move like this anymore. The stones were already rolling down the slope from under the horse's feet! Let's finish the climb and return.
We went down by foot. It’s a rule no matter what height you climb on a horse, you need to go down on foot. The steepness of the slope was such that I wanted to sit on the my ass and roll down, as if on an "ice slide".
In the afternoon, the hunt was almost ended with success, if not for… We did not climb too high, we passed over one ridge – there are no ibexes, through the second – no, the third – no. It's not a secret that the Altaians themselves do not fully know who they are by faith – pagans or Buddhists. At each pass there is a pyramid made of stones or a tree on which they impose ribbons. They offer a symbolic sacrifice to the spirit of the area in the form of a stone, a cigarette, a coin, a bottle stopper, a box of matches or a used plastic lighter. The spirits are fond of alcohol, and almost every obo Altaians perform an alcoholic ritual: they spray the space around with vodka. Without fanaticism. The obo cult was connected with shamanism, it was frankly pagan, and during the spread of Buddhism, the lamas initially destroyed obo, but over the time they realized that it was much more reasonable to include them in the Buddhist rite. It is believed that the obo is responsible for the weather, crops, people's health, their well-being and makes the decision to let or not let a person on the mountain. So the Altaians probably decided that the obo did not let me (or did it not let them in?) to the mountain.
After having overcome the next ridge, the men sat down to smoke not far from the next obo, and at that moment the ibexes came out of the forest, actually resting against us. They immediately broke back. I wasn't ready and didn't have time to shoot. The first hunting day ended with such an unfortunate failure!
At the camp, I began to chop wood, the guys unsaddled the horses and went about some of their own business. It wasn't dark yet when UAZ drove to our camp. One of the guys who arrived and looked the most representative came to me.
- Why did you take other people's horses?!
That was just not enough for the full the picture! I immediately sent him to our chief because believed that it would be easier for them to deal with each other. They talked about 15 minutes. There are no swear words in the Altai language, and they express all their emotional statements in Russian "French". Despite the abundance of such words in the negotiations, their "shooting" stage ended in peace, and the "I apologize" stage followed We celebrated the piece till 1 am, the high contracting parties came to the understanding that the conflict was settled. And only after it we all went to sleep - the new hunting day came!
The end of the hunting!
On the second day, we went to another place and one of the horses followed us. By that time, our hunters had found their horses, but they did not manage to catch all of them – only four, and the fifth, who decided not to part with the company, continued the "holiday of disobedience". We hiked a lot and at last detected the group of ibexes but they were young about 5-6 years old. The free horse also saw them. Probably it wanted to attract our attention and whinnied hysterically, and the ibexes instantly disappeared from sight.
That was the end of the hunt. We should drive back to Gorno-Altaysk. The back road, as you can guess, had not become easier. Once, when the car began to crawl into the abyss, I cursed everything and managed to formulate a rhetorical question: Why would I, an adult man, risk my life for my money?! On the one hand – a rock, on the other-an abyss. The road was so narrow that the car scraped against the rock. It would be impossible to get out of it if the engine suddenly failed – on the one hand, the door would not open – it was pressed by a rock, and on the other, the door opened already over the abyss.
It became clear to me what both Artem Veselov from ProfiHunt and Yura Morozov from Stalker meant when said: "Be careful out there!” I thought it was about relationships with people, but it turned out that it was about caution of a completely different kind...
After that trip, I saw with completely different eyes the monument to Kolka Snegirev, the hero of the legendary song "There is a road along the Chui highway". This is a song of the thirties, when the Chuysky Tract was mastered by the machines of the Soviet Republic. The song became a very favorite among people, and its motive sounds in the film Vasily Shukshin"There is such a guy". They say that the prototype of the hero, Nikolai Kovalev, happily lived to old age, but many people were sure that Kolka Snegirev crashed. As the song says, his car AMO overtook the "Ford" of his beloved girl and flew off the Chui highway. The first monument to Kolka Snegirev was built by Nikolai Kovalev himself in the late 70s of the last century. At the 744 kilometer of the Chui Highway, a steering wheel and welded parts of the car were installed on a pile of stones. The first words of the song were written in paint on a large stone. In our time, a new monument was installed in place of the steering wheel and the welded parts from the car – the AMO aspiring up the pedestal (which Kolka "loved like a sister") and followed by the "Willis" ("Ford", apparently, was not found, but the "Willis" looks good). The courageous drivers of the Chui Highway, who overcame the passes and worked in the Altai Mountains, developed the national economy here, are worthy of a monument.
And yet…
What I want to say, summing up. The Caucasus is difficult for hunting, but the Altai is simply terrible! Mountains in the KCR are steep but there are trails that we have walked confidently, everything has been well organized, the risk has calculated and understandable. Nothing has been calculated here! Altai is fascinating, and the desire to visit it again has not only not disappeared, but has grown stronger.
I called this trip "reconnaissance battle". I will prepare for the next one with more understanding what I can wait there, and how long has to be and no matter how my body resists it, I will need to spend the night in a tent on the top. There is no other way to get an ibex there. I want to go early in the second half of September, to get to the rut season of the maral as well. And not to get to such a weather cataclysm, which I faced this time.
There is another interesting thing– I'm talking about a photo trophy promoted by the KGO. There is the Altai argali -that is in a red-book species of rare species, which in our country can be "extracted" only in the form of a photo trophy. want to try to do it – I just caught fire with such an idea! The guys from the protection service of the reserve promised to give me the horns of argali eaten by wolves, about which a special act has been drawn up. I saw them and held them in my hands. These horns weigh 25 kilograms! They will occupy a worthy place in the exhibition of trophies and taxidermic compositions, located in the main house of my hunting farm "Elms". Children from local Ryazan schools who come to on excursions will be able to see something that not every mountain hunter will be able to do.
In any case, I will try not to make all the described mistakes anymore. If I don't get a deer or a ibex next year, I won't despair. It’ll be enough to me to plunge into this impossible beauty – the golden autumn Altai!
