Chuisky Tract – Altai’s Path of Ancestors

part of Old Chuisky Tract

Every visitor to Altai Republic travels this storied road, a piece of the region’s cultural heritage. Largely a 2-lane highway, Chuisky Tract stretches 963 km (598 miles) from Novosibirsk to Russia’s border with Mongolia, snaking across Altai Krai and Altai Republic and on into Mongolia. In 2019 the Russian edition of “National Geographic Traveler” included…

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Graduate internship in snow leopard research

Enjoy this video created by The Altai Project’s 2016 intern, Audrey Jost. In it, she documents her collaboration with a local snow leopard expert and his team at Altaisky State Nature Reserve. You can read her article about her time in Altai here.

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Camera-trapping along the Argut River

Baby ibex checking out our cameratrap

Sergei Spitsyn, a long-time partner and ranger at Altaisky State Nature Reserve, just returned from an expedition along the lower and middle Argut River. With the participation of two residents from the nearby village of Inegen, he had set camera traps in likely locations to learn more about what animals still inhabit the area. The…

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Farewell, Teletskoye

The morning started off overcast, but settled on partly sunny during breakfast. Seven of us set out from Yailyu for a six-kilometer hike to the top of the nearest ridge. We were accompanied by two rangers, one armed with a rifle to protect us from bears. Yailyu villagers and zapovednik staff have a complicated relationship…

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Artybash onto Lake Teletskoye

EDITORIAL NOTE: Much has changed since this journal piece was published in 2010 – most importantly, there has been significant development on the southwestern and northeastern sides of the lake. I can hardly believe that this trip is going by so quickly! Must be all the sleep I’m getting now that the jet lag has…

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