Comment about tour Migrating birds of Volga delta

05-09-2006

author - Anna Sjöblom

On 29th April we, a group of about 40 mostly Finnish people of all ages, arrived by train in Moscow, and our guides Boris, Tonya and Vladimir met us at the railway station. After having been served one of the most extensive breakfasts we have ever experienced we went by bus to the nature reserve Galichia Gora, where we spent the evening and the next day.

Galichia Gora is located 500 km south of Moscow, and the reserve is specialized in birds and bird breeding (falcons, eagles, owls…). The place is a limestone mountain landscape surrounded by an area of only steppe, and the river Don is flowing through it. We were shown a lot of breathtaking views and beautiful birds of prey and met many nice people.

The whole next day we spent in the bus, travelling trough kilometre after kilometre of monotonous steppe. And driving through all this endless stepp really made us realize how huge Russia is. Sometimes travelling by bus can give perspectives that no other form of travelling can ever give.

Sometime aruond midnight we arrived in Kalmikia, and spent the next two days in the birdwatchers’ paradise. We made tours on the steppe nearby the big lake Manish-Gudilo, and the place was covered with pelicans and spoonbills. The birdfreaks in our group were watching birds from sunrise to sunset, and nothing else existed for them. But those of us who were normal mortals also noticed the very specific smell of absint, the remarkably hard ground etc. And then there were the cars. You can’t say that you have done anything really cool before you have been travelling in a jeep on the nonexistent roads on the Kalmikian stepp, with a Kalmikian driver who is playing his favourite music…

After two windy days with inflation on birds we continued our journey, and Elista, the capital of Kalmikia, was our next stop. There we went to two Buddhist temples (the Kalmikian people are Buddhists and coming from Tibet) and to a part of the town that is completely devoted to chess. The chesstown was founded by the president of Kalmikia, and he has also made chess a compulsory subject at school.

And then we travelled further, and late in the evening we arrived at a hunting cottage in the Astrakhan region. We were now living in the the Volga-delta, and if Manish-Gudilo was the birdwatchers’ paradise, this was their heaven. Even the normal mortals in our group got excited by the colourful hoopoes and European rollers and the big egrets and herons. Hills and fields were red of flowering poppies, the small waters were full of frogs, natrixes and turtles and the reeds were higher than houses. And a boat trip on the Caspian See, in the delta of Volga and on the river Volga was something of a climax of our stay in the Astrakhan region.

One day and two nights later we left the cottage and spent another day in the bus. We travelled 1000 km northward to the Voroneshky reserve in Voronesh. On our way we drove through Volgograd, the town that most of us know from our history books as Stalingrad, with all its magnificent monuments.

The Voroneshky reserve is specialized in beaver research and breeding, and there are about 70 beavers, both European and Canadian. Some of us were lucky to get a chance to keep a beaver baby in our arms, and all of us agreed that anything cuter and softer than those hairy little kiddies can’t exist. At the same time the birdwatchers went by car to look at some eagle nests, and I’m sure that they were as pleased with their day as the rest of us with ours.

On our way to Moscow we still went to Leo Tolstoy’s home, and then we went back home to Finland, countless experiences richer. All in all our journey was great (in every single meaning of the word ), our guides were real professionals and truly amazing people and we are all looking forward to coming back to Russia to travel to new, interesting places togheter with “our” Russians.