There may be 9 million bicycles, but most are electric

Pick of the day: Hutong Public restroom, Beijing (Just north of the Forbidden City)

Beijing is littered with public toilets. They are everywhere, free and generally clean. They often appear to show names and photos of the cleaning staff, maybe in a name and shame way. They often have great little signage; one suggested I step a little closer to the urinal to aid my aim. This one was located in the Hutong (network of alleys) near to where we were staying. There seemed to be people using it from local houses so I can only assume the public restrooms may often be the only restroom…

Style: Squat party

Atmosphere: Communist

Extras: Presumably installed for the more adventurous Chinese is a lovely little western sit.

29/03/13 to 05/04/13 – Beijing

“Welcome back to civilisation”, that was the response of our hostel owner in Beijing when we mentioned we had come over from Mongolia. It wouldn’t take long for the reality of that statement to hit us.

To us this only read "goodbye boiled mutton"

The train ride from Ulaanbaatar was fantastic. We had booked 1^st class due to the thought we might need a reward after 3^rd classing through Russia/it was only £20 more than 2^nd class/I had an ulterior motive. 1^st class is definitely the way to go, with two sharing a cabin which in 2^nd class would house 4, a carriage attendant who doesn’t show openly that she hates you being there and a shared loo with the next cabin.

Living the highlife and the first privacy in about 3 weeks!

As we rolled through the Mongolian steppe I finally decided to grow a pair and ask Vi to marry me. Somewhat to my surprise she hadn’t seemed to have seen this coming and after a little moment she said yes. Which was a bit of a relief after a massive outlay on a ring (see photo).

Its an austerity fashion trend

With all the excitement we decided to head to the dining car for a celebration drink where we managed to rustle up enough remaining Tugrug to buy a can of coke each (don’t expect much from this tight fisted wedding).

Beijing was a slap in the face as we walked out of the main railway station, with more people milling about out front than we had come across during the rest of the Trans-mongolian. Taking a taxi alone gave us a preview of the chronic overcrowding in much of china. The queue like much of the queues we have so far experienced seemed down to supply not meeting demand, or in another way, the infrastructure unable to support the population.

Having arrived late afternoon the only thing we had in mind was a slap up Peking duck meal. Crispy duck the chinese way is soooo different to what we recognise at home. Whilst at home it is all about the breast meat, here it’s the crispy fat that makes it. It was a whole new taste sensation and one we repeated again before leaving Beijing.

Our first full day was spent in a fruitless expedition to the Public Security Bureau (PSB) in an attempt to extend our Chinese visas. While entering the building was quite intimidating, as the PSB is sort of like the KGB, the whole thing proved pointless when they stated we had to pay them $3000 each to prove we could afford to stay. We don’t have that much money so no extension. We spent the rest of the day exploring the Lama temple and some Hutongs (alleyways). That night we met up with a fellow trans-mongolian survivor, Paul (www.paulsadventure.com) and headed into Dongcheng night market. This is basically a massive open air food market that sells all the usuals of noodles and dumplings as well as some interesting variants. Notable among them were bats on sticks, centipede kebabs, and barbequed snake/tarantula/cockroach. We only really had the balls to go for mystery meat on sticks and something  that may or may not have been crayfish.

Mystery meat kebabs

These weren't too bad if it hadn't been for the horrid paste they'd added

Day 2: Next up was the Temple of Heaven and market. Beijing has enough sights for a couple of weeks so we thought we would get in the main ones. Initially we’d planned on 5 days in the capital but due to the train being fully booked that was extended to 7days. The Temple of Heaven is actually more of a public gardens with some impressive Buddhist temples and structures about. As with much of what we were to see the scale of buildings and landscaping were impressive. Before heading back to the hostel we had a look in the Pearl Market. This is like a huge department store where each floor has its specialty, with traders having small sections on each floor. This, however, just means that as you walk around a floor you get offered the same tat hundreds of times. We did find, however that the prices are ridiculously inflated. We got offered a kimono for 1000 Yuan (around £100) which we didn’t want and the price as we walked away went down and down until as a joke we offered 60 Yuan (£6) and they accepted. Annoyingly this means we now have a kimono to carry around.

Team shot in the temple of heaven

Signs, endless comedy in china

Day 3: The sun was shining today and for the first time in what has felt like months (including time in the UK) we (well Ben) were able to walk around in just a shirt. Our mission for the day was to tour the Summer Palace, which is a huge complex of gardens, palaces and temple buildings based around a lake. Being such a big site it is at the end of the North West bound metro line. The complex is stunning and varied with a small mock town around a canal, and a cherry blossom lined walkway by the lake. The area makes you feel as if you are in any major western city gardens such as Central park in New York or Sydney as the gardens are fringed by a high rise city skyline. 

The view from the hill in the Summer Palace across the lake to Beijing

Cherry blossom walkway

At least its not a wet hillock

That evening we splashed out on a Sichuan restaurant which did a set menu. God knows what we ate, but bloody hell it was good and bloody hell it was hot (both going in and going out…). The place was called ‘Source’ in Dongcheng, seek it out if you’re ever in the city.

Hot and spicy on the way in and out

Day 4: So this was the big day. THE sight to see in Beijing (within the city at least) is the Forbidden City/Tiannamen Square link up. The forbidden city is essentially a giant walled palace where the Emperor and his government were based. Now open to the world this is the busiest tourist spot in perhaps the whole of China. China has a massive tourist industry with thousands of domestic tourists shipped around the country on organised coach tours. As a foreign tourist this means you share the spot with thousands of usually rural or middle class Chinese from the provinces who have never seen a westerner before. Cue photo time. Whether just a snap from a distance or posing with the mother in law this gets old VERY quickly and though it isn’t meant in a rude way it is a bit grating when you realise its only because you are a bit of a freak. The Forbidden City itself however, was hugely impressive with so much to see you could easily spend a whole day just wandering around marvelling at it all. Tiannamen square was a let down. No men with their shopping facing off with tanks anywhere.

The Forbidden city on a week day and thankfully relatively quiet.

Day 5: Ok so the real big sight is the great wall and it did NOT disappoint. We hit up the Jinshanling section rather than the Chinese coach tour haunt of Badoling in order to get a less crowded and less hawker fuelled trip. The Wall is amazing, though not visible from space, tracing its outline along knife back ridges in either distance is a sight to behold. Go see it, I won’t do it justice.

Steep steps some people felt the need to go hands knees up and down. Ridiculous.

Day 6: As Beijing could be called little china we pencilled in a couple of days to get our bartering on and get some souvenirs here on the cheap. Along with a return to the Pearl market (not for Pearls) we visited the Silk market (not for silk). That evening was duck take 2 with a Finnish couple we met at the wall and some Chinese Acrobatics. As expected that was as impressive as china has proved so far and the Chinese/American audience combo proved more excitable than a 3 year old on an (old) blue Smartie binge. Brilliant.

Duck and Beer. Not mutton.

Day 7: More shopping and an epic pizza with enough leftovers for our overnight train to Pingyao. Incidentally, cruel though it may be, since we have had to get used to eating everything with chopsticks very quickly it was extremely entertaining watching Chinese people try to eat pizza with a knife and fork.  They didn’t seem to get the point of the spiky bit at the end of the fork and mostly tried to use a sideways fork/hand combo to scoop pizza into their mouths. Chinese train classes are structured a little different to Russian. In order of classiness with the best first is Soft Sleeper, Hard Sleeper, Soft Seat, Hard seat. Soft seat is rare and on this and all but one journey we went hard sleeper (more on that next time…). It is basically Russian 3^rd class, open booths but with a 3 bed bunk instead of 2. Darker, generally quieter and with a duvet it’s much better than Russian 3^rd class.

As a result we arrived in Pingyao refreshed and ready for the next section of our journey.

Meaty mongolian madness

Pick of the day: Mongolia – Anywhere

Ok, so all seems to have escalated rather rapidly on the toilet front. Two posts ago it was the best smelling loo ever, last was a long drop and now…. Well its anywhere, provided you aren’t near a stream. As it is still -10oC, running water isn’t a problem though.

Style: Rural

Atmosphere: Agoraphobic

Extras: Curious livestock, frost nipped bum hole.

11/03/13 to 28/03/13 – Mongolia; Ulaanbaatar, Kharkhorin, Khustain Mountain National Park and Khogno Khan Uul

Well we have been in Mongolia for roughly 2.5 weeks and it has been a fantastic experience. We have shelled out a little more than we would have liked in order to get out of Ulaanbaatar (UB) and into the countryside, but then it has most definitely been worth it and who knows if we will be here again anytime soon.

Our stay here entailed 3 days in UB, followed by a 3 day trip to Kharkhorin and Khustain Mountain National Park, then a day in UB, followed by 6 days with nomadic families around the mountain/steppe of Khogno Khan Uul, and a final 4 days in UB.

Ulaanbaatar or “UB” to those with the lingo, is an odd city. Dominated by soviet era apartment blocks and half-finished skyscrapers, it has a little of that Shangri-La type atmosphere that you get in cities like Kathmandu. There is an overwhelming expat community here, from western to chinese and Korean, with most restaurants and cafes names and menus in English. We have had some good food here from a very cheap vegetarian café to American and Italian. Mongolian food is… challenging, but more on that later.

During our first UB stay we saw a few of the sights with an English couple, Mark and Ruth, who are doing a similar trip but with the end point of working in New Zealand. Sights are rather thin on the ground in the concrete sprawl of UB, with much of the city’s main attractions off the main drag of Peace Avenue which runs east-west passing the main square, Sükhbaatar square. This has a number of Genghis (Chingghis here)Khan statues and the Imperial styled parliament building  but notable would be our morning visit to the Gandantegchinlen monastery, where we got involved with some Buddhist worship. We hadn’t a clue what was going on, but somehow ended up in some sort of procession.  

The Beatles monument. Not sure why they have it. The Mongolians aren't too sure either.

Why would you enter?!

Big feet. Important to Buddhism. Perhaps.

It looks warm and dusty, but its just dry and bloody cold.

Our first trip into the countryside was organised by our hostel and we had a driver and a guide all to ourselves. First of all we drove a few hours out of the city to visit the Khustain Mountain National Park where we got to have a close up view of the herd of wild (also known as Przewalski’s horses) which was pretty cool. They had died out in the wild in the 1960’s but had been re-introduced to Mongolia from zoo stock and now number around 350 animals.

A Przewalski horse, about to poo. Kinda jealous now.

We then carried on driving down some pretty horrendous roads (occasionally bypassing the road entirely and just driving cross country) with a lunch time pit stop of boiled mutton, potatoes and kimchee to make it to Kharkhorin in the evening which is the ancient Mongolian capital from Chinggis Khan’s time. There we stayed in a guest ger in a tourist ger camp which meant that we only had to share with our guide rather than an entire nomadic family. Dinner was fried mutton dumplings which were pretty good but we should have realised then just how much mutton was going to feature in our diets. That evening we were treated to a mini-concert by a local musician who played the traditional Mongolian musical instruments of the horse hair fiddle and some sort of harp as well as doing Mongolian ‘throat singing’ (pretty damn weird). All in all pretty exciting!

Skulls. More common than you think on the steppe

Soaking up the warmth

The next day we visited the still functioning monastery in the town which had been all but razed to the ground by the soviets when they came through but a few temples still remain. We also got to see ‘turtle rock’ which is a massive rock carved into the shape of a turtle dating from Chinggis Khan’s time. Both were pretty interesting, particularly the temples as they were beautifully carved and we got to learn quite a lot about Buddhism.  We also visited the fertility rock which is carved in the shape of a massive penis which apparently women who wish to get pregnant have to sit astride to pray. Ben and I stayed well clear.

Shrine to the willy god

We then carried on to a family ger camp which was in a lovely warm spot near some rocks. It was the family’s spring camp and they were quite a well off family with 2 gers, a big herd of sheep and goats and a few horses and camels.  That afternoon we went for a camel ride which turned out to be pretty eventful. Ben and I had a Bactrian (2 humped) camel each which are actually super comfy, like giant teddy bears. We were led by one of the sons of the family on a bull camel. Not far from the ger camp the bull camel suddenly lost the plot, tried to bite ben, successfully bit my camel on the neck, my camel screamed and tried to run away and we all had to go back to camp. We went back out on our trek with the lead man on a horse this time. Sadly it really wasn’t my camel’s day and although we made it out for the full trip this time the horse also took a dislike to my camel and bit its face. We spent the rest of the day playing with the kid goats and lambs which were kept in a pen as it was too cold for them to go out with their mums. We also learnt to play a game involving sheep’s ankle bones which is a little hard to get the hang of but fun when you know how.

That evening was pretty surreal as after dinner the family sat watching TV (powered by solar panels) in one corner of the ger while two calves were tethered to the other side and a few kid goats wandered around to keep warm against the -15 chill outside.

Good to have a little scramble

Prayer flags adorn the more accessible trees

We had one day of rest and recuperation in UB before heading out on our second trip to the countryside, this time a 6 day expedition organised by a company called ger to ger.

We had to get the bus for 3 hours out to the countryside before being picked up and taken to the first family. The bus was a bit of an experience as it had I giant TV at the front playing videos of monglian pop ballads at full volume. Almost every one featured horses. Horses running, dancing, being ridden etc etc. I like horses, but not that much. Ben likened it to the Americans using rock music to break Islamic extremists.

Family one. The little boy was a terror.

The first family we stayed with for two days were a young family (our sort of age) with two kids aged 5 and 3. It soon became apparent that our jobs were basically to keep the children entertained and out of trouble and help with the livestock. The sheep and goats were out on the hill all day long but with the temperatures outside any kids or lambs wouldn’t last more than a couple of hours outside so we checked the flock regularly and brought any new ones back to be warmed up inside the family ger and then put in their own little ger to protect them from the elements. The flock were brought back a couple of times a day so the kids and lambs could get fed and we had to match up baby with mum which mostly involved making it cry and seeing which sheep/goat came running. Lastly the flock were all penned up last thing at night so that the dogs could keep an eye on them and fight off the wolves. Any little ones who had the misfortune of being born in the middle of the night generally froze to death.

Getting our farm hands on

We were pretty convinced that we were gonna get ill early on as we watched the mum of the family put dried turds on the stove (only source of fuel on the step), handle baby goats covered in placenta, wipe her kids runny bums and then make dinner, all without washing her hands once. By some miracle, we didn’t. The family managed to get through less water in a day than we use just flushing the toilet out of necessity as all the water they use has to either be collected from a well miles away or made from melting snow. We stayed in one single bed together and the full family of 4 shared the other single bed in the ger, the kids (goats) and lambs got the floor.

Vi loves goats. Its a bit weird truth be told.

We went for a little ride out on horse and camel back the next day to a viewing point and checking on the herd where we both experienced the joy of Mongolian wooden saddles which I’m sure are actually a form of torture.

The following day we rode our horses and camel (switching places as the bruises from the wooden saddle became too much to handle) to the next family we stayed with. This family thankfully had invested in western style saddles (although Ben’s still had a massive metal ring on the back which caused a fair bit of discomfort) and the two of us and the head of the family rode out to visit some local sand dunes and ‘swan lake’. The main man at first didn’t trust ben and I to handle our own horses and had us both on lead rope beside his horse. Unfortunately the Mongolian way of riding is to whip the horse more than using your heels and since the man was not terribly accurate with his whip I think I got hit as much as the horse did. Thankfully I managed to get control of my own horse pretty early on. Mongolians also prefer to ride at a speed which I would describe as a very fast trot. Fast enough in fact that since I was on a slightly smaller horse I comfortably cantered along behind. Ben, however, had to go from having ridden a horse about twice in his life to having to handle the most uncomfortable horse riding speed I can possibly think of in no time at all. He managed impressively well, never falling off or complaining. His bum got the raw end of the deal. The swan lake and sand dunes were beautiful- a little oasis in the middle of the steppe.

The dunes (Erg) and Swan lake beyond

The geographical centre of mongolia and two punters on horse back

A monastery which had been destroyed in the 17th century. 

We spent the next couple of days either helping out with the livestock or riding around on our horses visiting local sites such as the local monastery up in the hills which was pretty cool. By this point we had realised that the Mongolian diet comprises of 3 dishes: boiled mutton and rice, boiled mutton and noodles, mutton steamed dumplings. They occasionally have a weird mixture of rice and goat curds and drink a hell of a lot of salty goats milk tea. They never, ever eat any form of fruit or vegetable. The result was that Ben and I didn’t go to the toilet for a very long time and neither of us wants to see boiled mutton again for as long as we live.

Ger building

Silver birch gets everywhere. Deforestation is a serious problem in Mongolia leading it some intense desertification

No light pollution out this way

By day 6 and staying with the third family we smelt pretty bad, having not washed since we left UB. We were also not feeling terribly healthy from the diet and from the lack of sleep as neither of us got used to sharing a tiny bed and sharing a bedroom with a whole family and several livestock.  All in all although we had an amazing time sharing the lives of nomadic herders for a week and learning how to manhandle sheep, goats, cows and horses (calves that won’t move and have to be carried are heavy little f**kers) as well as invent many a game to entertain small children with no toys, we were glad to head back to civilisation.

(Note- Mongolian children are little monsters- they generally never get told no and we actually saw a 5 year old girl slap her grandfather hard across the face for changing the TV channel).

Hatchbacks, for the modern nomad. Can't fit a Ger in though.

On our return to UB we gorged on crisps, beer and pasta and were promptly very ill for several days. Added on to the mutton induced constipation, we are currently wolfing down dried fruit and coffee in an effort to get things moving.

On our final UB stint we ticked off the infamous ‘Black’ market and the natural history museum. The former isn’t quite the AK-47/tank selling place you would expect, but instead a huge sprawling open and closed market where you can buy everything from a wooden saddle and ger to fake north face and apple branded boots (wtf?). The Natural history museum contained the standard assortment of stuffed animals and due to the Gobi deserts rich dinosaur fossil beds, a rather impressive and geekily exciting fossil collection.

We still aren’t feeling tip top after our mutton enforced binge and subsequent bout of vomiting/constipation. Dried fruit is the order of the day and hopefully china will bring fresh bowel movements along with the anticipated new landscapes/cultures!

Bye bye mongolia!

Sunset in Russia

Pick of the day: Taltsy Museum of Wooden Architecture, Nr Irkutsk

Back to nature in the Irkutsk region. This long drop featured a creaky wooden base which gave the impression it could give way at any moment, sending you plummeting into the clearly visible mound waiting underneath.

Style: Long drop

Atmosphere: Wooden

Extras: Only a minor divide and no doors means easy chats with your neighbour. Forced inventiveness required for wiping.

03/03/13 to 11/03/13: Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk and the train to Mongolia

We are currently in Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia) which is proving the perfect place for a little R&R following Russia.

Krasnoyarsk marked the start of arriving in towns in the dark of morning, and following a little jiggery pokery with our hostel sending us to another (nicer) hostel we were set up ready to go by 10am. The town’s main draw for us was the Stolby nature reserve just south of the centre and famous for granite ‘Stolby’s’ which are in similar to Torrs at home, though a subtly different lithology. Backing onto this reserve was a ski resort we were itching to see if we could have a bash at.

The view out across the Stolby nature reserve

Once settled in we hopped on the local bus to the ski resort to take advantage of the chair lift to allow us access to the nearest stolby. Public transport in Russia is actually pretty good and relatively dirt cheap. For a flat rate 12Rubles (20pence) we got a half hour ride to the reserve. Despite being told it was “too dangerous” to access the stobly we thought we would go up anyway for a look. Other than having to walk down the ski slope for a short distance braving the variable ability of Russian skiers the route to the stolby was fine with a little scrambling. It was fantastic to be out of the city and look out across the forested hills of the Stolby nature reserve and we both felt almost reenergised. Too much soviet architecture can get you down it seems.

Talmack Stolby, psyched to be out of the cities!

That evening we dined at a restaurant full of the contradictions you see across Russia. It was American diner in style but with a Former Soviet Union theme, with dishes from Afghanistan to Siberia. Thank god for the picture menu though!

The next morning had us back to the ski hill and hiring kit. Unfortunately for some reason (being a Monday perhaps) only one of the lifts was open giving us a wide but quick blast back down. Still it was great to get a little skiing in this year, especially as it was in Siberia!

Playing with a GoPro during some Siberian skiing

Chilling with the local statue. Russians LOVE statues

Our hostel amazingly did a voucher for a free dinner for our stay which we put to good use and then scoped out a bakery type place we had seen called ‘Cinnabon’. This turned out to be an American chain that was krispy kreme in style but did warm cinnamon buns. Ben had some sort of spiritual/religious experience. He described the bun as ‘life changing’.

Vi unaware of the spiritual experience about to commence

Oven warm. Mouth watering all over again

The following day had us train bound from midday until Irkutsk the following morning.

Chilling in 2nd class, top tip... in winter you can often get these to yourselves at half the price of 1st class

We arrived in the early morning, hopped on the tram and found the hostel relatively easily for once and got a bit of a nap in our dorm before heading out for an explore. Our hostel actually had British and German people staying there who were the first non-Russian people we had spoken to since Moscow. Sounds terrible but it was such a relief to be able to have a normal chat and not have to worry about offending someone by saying what we thought of Russia (ie. Your country is bloody weird).

We spent our first day in Irkusk generally having a wander and getting our bearings, checking out the local market (puppies and kittens for sale alongside socks and sunflower seeds) and going to a museum which was set inside the old house of a member of the Decemberists uprising. This involved Russian army officers leading around 3000 soldiers in revolt against Tsar Nicholas I’s assumption of the throne after his brother stepped down. The uprising was crushed and the leaders sent to exile and labour in Siberia where a fair few of their wives followed and made new lives for themselves in towns such as Irkutsk. The museum was pretty interesting in that it showed us what life was like in Siberia at the time for those who did and did not have money (this particular family lived in a rather plush Siberian mansion!).

Irkutsk lies about 75km north of Lake Baikal, the world deepest lake, and our target. Fortunately our hostel also had a branch at the lake side town of Listvyanka so the following day we hopped on a bus down there for 2 nights before our train from Irkutsk to Mongolia. Once again it was great to get out to a more rural version of Russia. Our hostel was billed as an Eco-hostel, think solar power, and solar showers, it comprised a complex of three great little wood cabins in the woods behind the town.

The Bailker Eco-hostel. Home for 2 nights, much relaxing.

We had a great couple of days down by the lake which is fully frozen leading the locals to drive all over it, often drunk it seems. The lake fills a 25 million year old rift system (land masses splitting apart)and so drops to 1000m within 100m of the shoreline. When you walk across the ice you get a distinct sense of vertigo as you look down into the lakes depths below.

On our first day we went dog sledding, expecting huskies and being sat in a sledge for 10km. Being Russia, our expectations were wrong, and the dogs seemed to be a random assortment of breeds who all seemed to clamour for the honour of pulling us round. It also turned out we would be driving our own sleds. Fortunately for us the dogs knew where they were going and we just had to steer the sled leaning left and right as we bounced along between the trees. It was great fun although surprisingly tiring (also, watching a dog try to simultaneously poo and run is massively entertaining).

Impossible to film and dog sled at the same time!

The following day we hired a couple of mountain bikes with studded tyres and made for the lake. It seemed relatively straight forward in principal and although the studs gave grip on the ice most of the time, when they slipped you were buggered as you instinctively put your foot down only to have it fly from under you on the icy surface. 

Vi, barely able to stand. Pushing off was hilarious

Frozen lake Baikal

After cycling down the lake for some time the weather closed in and we both started to get seriously cold and made a return to the market for a bowl of plov. This is a fried rice, carrot and beef dish which was just was the doctor ordered when our faces were so cold we couldn’t chew properly. The market proved a good place for a spot of souvenir shopping, with coming away with some sort of shamanic idol which in retrospect may actually be a fertility idol and a local delicacy of a smoked fish called Omul.

Omul. So smokey, great with beer

We returned to Irkutsk via the Taltsy museum of wooden architecture the next morning. This open air museum has collected various examples of wooden buildings from those produced by aboriginal Siberian peoples through to 19^th century farmsteads, including a Cossack fort. It is impressive to see the complexity and beauty which can be achieved with only timber as your raw material.

Wooden lace. Siberian classic

The fort. Seems a little prone to fire arrows

We spent a good few hours getting our lives in order at the Irkutsk hostel before heading for our 10pm train to Ulaanbaatar.

Our train only seemed to have a single carriage, the view at the Russian border town 

The following day was spent mostly at border controls, 8 hours in total, with us leaving Russia 5 hours prior to our visa expiring. Unfortunately the long wait at the border had allowed us to discover the penalty of 2 years prison time for overstaying the visa! As we chugged through no-man’s land the Mongolian steppe opened up and we spotted herdsmen on horseback and Gers for the first time. Up to this point we have travelled over 10,500km from home, not including side trips, and it certainly feels a long way from home, and already a stark contrast to the birch forest dominated landscape of Siberia.

The sunsets poetically on the Russian stage of the adventure