Our border crossing from Kazakhstan to Russia at the small town called Mikhailovka went very well. We had to unpack a lot of boxes and stuff from Rosinante, but the border officers let us do it together and so it was an easy thing to do. And the officers really checked the stuff we unpacked and it didn’t feel like a useless action like it had before on other borders.

The officers were a pretty young team of women and men and even though they couldn’t speak English or German the communication went very well with Google Translate. We had a short and friendly interrogation and had to fill out a form with information about our family and stay in Russia, and our phones got briefly checked and our IMEIs were saved.

After about three hours we were in Russia and happy about the nice crossing.

On the Russian side, we went to the first climbing spot at the east shore of the lake Kolyvanskoye Ozero. You can see details in the allclimb mobile apps.

When we arrived at the location, we were first a bit disappointed because the whole area was fenced and the main gate closed. But while searching for a camp spot in front of the gated area, we met a very friendly Russian couple who opened the gate for us, called the owner of the area (which was a children’s camp), and got us permission to stay for a couple of days.

Our camp spot was beautiful and just next to the climbing routes.

The routes were all in very good condition and on limestone crags which were spread over the area. It looked very nice.

We got quickly into climbing on these crags even though the Russian difficulty ratings were, as always, very optimistic, and in the shade the rock was sometimes too cold to touch for a longer climb.

During our stay, we met a climber couple from Russia who drove about four hours from their home town to stay for a couple of days in that climbing area to camp.

There were very interesting routes. Some felt a bit like tufa climbing in Thailand and Malaysia. On two routes I was suffering a lot. Especially one pushed me past my mental limit. I couldn’t say why exactly, but at one moment in the route, I just got very stressed and angry. But I survived, and Racki and I did very good climbing.

We continued our transit through Russia and went in the direction of a town called Belokuricha. In the town, we went for groceries which was interesting: they had all the western brands in the supermarkets. A lot of special stuff. We thought that it wouldn’t be like that. Paying was only possible in Rubles, which we had organized in Kazakhstan. The locals we met were very friendly and some were interested in what we were about to do in Russia.

In the town, we met again with Merel and Leon, our climbing friends from the Netherlands.

The climbing crags were located in a very beautiful and dense forest. It was a very nice and natural place.

The patterns on the rocks were amazing!

And we all had a good time climbing, with some frustrations and panic attacks and lots of joy.

The mosquitoes were crazy and the only things protecting us were mosquito repellent from Thailand and smoke.

Merel and Leon left after one day and Racki and I continued climbing for some more days. This route was my favorite one. I was not so used to climbing slabs, especially not slabs of this level, but I managed to do this route without a break even though it was very hard and I had to make use of the smallest steps or “enough-things” as we call them, that I had ever used. “Enough-things” is a combination of “nothing” and “enough” and should be part of the official climber’s dictionary.

And we celebrated our BenDy (BENni + cinDY) anniversary with drinks and a nice view.

We met a cute little friend in the woods and off we went in the direction of the border to Mongolia.

On the way to the border, we did only one more proper stop at a sightseeing spot called Mars.

The weather was changing a lot and the rocks looked interesting.

Everything was prepared in the style of old spaceships and planet Mars expeditions.

We took my little astronaut friend Astrid with us for some photos.

She’s a climber as well.

And likes to chill.

At this Mars place, we met Tanja and Marcel for the first time in real life after Racki had already been messaging with them for weeks about traveling and our China trip, of which we would do the entry border crossing together as an agency-guided group. They were nice and we already shared some nice stories about life and traveling.

One of my favorite photos from Kazakhstan. But before:

From Georgia, we entered Russia with our transit visa we got in Armenia. The crossing went well, but very bureaucratic: the language barrier made the process of filling the customs papers for our car more difficult and so we needed three trials until everything was fine. Some travelers got pretty crazy in this process. After the border we went to a rock climbing area right next to the main road. The approach to the climbing routes was crazy steep and the routes themselves were super difficult. I was not very happy in that area because I did not feel very good about being in Russia.

We took the direct route to Kazakhstan and visited some Buddhist temples. But all of them were closed.

The military checkpoints in Russia were very friendly and we made a lot of jokes about mainly football and German beer. Only one Russian soldier was grumpy but not more than the ordinary Georgian 😁 But still I did not feel so good about being in Russia because of the relationship between the German  and Russian government and the war in Ukraine. In the end it was like so often: regardless of the governments, the people are super friendly and helpful. But I still thought that I would not like to meet a Russian soldier who’s friend or family member got killed in Ukraine and now had to deal with us,  German tourists.

This was a  floating bridge which was constantly pushed to the side by the river. On one end of it they installed a couple of outboard motors to keep it in place.

We crossed the border to Kazakhstan and entered the steppe!

The temperature rose to more than 40 degrees Celsius and sometimes we liked to continue driving just to have the comfort of Rosinante’s air conditioning.

Driving through the steppe was a crazy experience. Sometimes there was no turn, bend or corner for hundreds of kilometers. Driving became pretty boring because the distances were huge. My favorite thing to watch were the camels.

One day we witnessed the funeral of my grandfather who had died in Germany when we were still in Armenia. Although participating online was better than not participating at all, it was weird.

After so much heat in the steppe we wanted to have a swim and went to Aktau, a coastal coty at the Caspian Sea. There we went to an old amusement park and took a ride in a carousel. These carousels and attractions! I guess some would use them as a test of courage.

After having dinner we met a group of Kazakh celebrating a birthday and had a great time with them dancing to all kinds of music.

The stone formations in the Ustyurt National Preserve area were amazing!

They look like the back of Godzilla sleeping in the steppe.

There were some plants. But only very little ones.

And these rabbits.

Normally we do a lot of hiking, climbing and physical activities but in the heat of the steppe there was not much to do. So we decided to just take a walk around and run back.

While running, we scared a little gerbil-like animal which immediately run to a hole in the ground to take cover. Unfortunately his ass was a bit to big and he got stuck in the hole 🥳 He tried hard to push himself in but did not succeed. He tried to go reverse but had no chance. So we helped him a bit and gave him a push.

The vastness of our first offroad track in the steppe.

Sometimes it was like a video game in which you have to pick the best track.

A lot, lot, lot of dust! I loved it and it always reminds me on Mad Max.

Bit the dust could get pretty nasty on and inside of Rosinante.

The first version of our automatic washing machine.