This part of the web-site contains pictures from my hiking/rafting trip to Siberia in August 2001. We rafted a river called Zun-Murin. This a very remote river which runs in Southern Siberia, South to North, starting in the mountains on the border between Russia and Mongolia, ending up in another Siberian river, which eventually ends up in the Arctic Ocean.
We had a group of 15 people, all of them from Russia, except me. There were four leaders: Ilya, Sasha, Volodja, and Refat, who are all very experienced rafters. The other people were for the most part friends who knew each other before the trip: Tania and Kirill, Katya, Svetlana, Max and Anna, Misha, Alexei and Julia, Max and myself. I had met a few of them before on a previous camping trip in Siberia, so it was great to see them again. I don’t speak any Russian, but between the English that some of them speak and the efforts to translate specifically for me, I didn’t have a problem communicating.
The starting point of the rafting is so remote that it is not accessible by road. Consequently, we had motorized transportation as far as we could get it, and from there went on a four-day hike to the starting point. Of course we had to carry all supplies and equipment for that whole way. Equipment includes the rafts (disassembled!) – so for this part we hired horses to help carry the equipment.
Enjoy!