Siberia

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In the heart of Siberia, on the Jennisej River, we travelled on the Anton Tschechov ship from Krasnoyarsk to Ust Port and ended our impressive river trip in Dudinka.

From Krasnojarsk to Dudinka

12. Day	Flight from Moscow to Krasnoyarsk At the airport we were met by our new tour guides. We met our Luda (Ludmilla). After checking into our cabin on the Anton Tschechov ship, we set off on a city tour of Krasnoyarsk. Am Abend verzichteten wir auf die Folkloredarbietung und eilten ins Bett, um den versäumten Schlaf der letzten Nacht nachzuholen.
13. Day	Trip to Lake Baikal In a one-hour flight Krasnoyarsk Airlines brought us safely to Irkutsk. By bus we went to Lake Baikal. Its gigantic size can only be imagined on a boat trip.
14. Day	Back in Krasnoyarsk, it was time to cast off in the morning. We headed downstream to the north. The first stop in the evening was Taskino, a landing site in the countryside.
15. Day	All day long we enjoyed the calming river ride, we passed the Kazachinski rapids.
16. Day	We reached Jenniseisk and visited the town. This is the last town that still looks halfway western. Churches are being renovated and many other things are being spruced up.
17. Day	In the morning we reached Worogowo, an old Cossack settlement. The people are very simple and friendly. There are many old wooden houses. We visited a shop that reminded me of country stays in my earliest childhood. There was an ABACUS calculator there. In the afternoon we anchored at Komsa, were transferred ashore by dinghy and hiked in the Siberian forest . A hunter with a rifle went in front as an escort. We did not see the bear.
18. Day	We came to Turuchansk, a place of exile of the Russian Tsars and Soviets. We visited the Sverdlov House. Jakob Swerdlov was exiled here by the Tsars. He met there with Stalin, who was also exiled, and later became a co-founder of the Soviet Republic.
19. Day	Pestschaniy Island. Again we were brought ashore by dinghy and hiked in the taiga. There is already permafrost here and the small trees (mainly crooked birches) no longer grow very tall.
20. Day	The Jennisej is already hugely wide. You can no longer see the other bank. No wonder, at its widest point it is 50km wide! We reached Ust Port, the northernmost point of our journey. Unfortunately, the weather was quite stormy and the waves high. The river already behaves like a sea here. As we could not reach the shore with the dinghies, we turned around and went to Dudinka.
21. Day	Dudinka, an ugly, artificial industrial town in the middle of the tundra. After a visit to the museum, we flew in a Russian helicopter over the impressive landscape of the tundra with its many lakes to the nomads. This was followed by what was probably the most impressive experience of the whole trip, meeting the nomadic people of the Nenets and their herd of reindeer. Back on the ship, the folklore group CHEIRO performed Siberian dances in the evening.
22. Day	Early in the morning we took the bus to Norilsk airport. From there we flew to Moscow. As we were not going home until the evening with Swissair, we used the time to visit Moscow again in the bright sunshine. We saw the TV tower in its last hours. It burned down shortly afterwards.