What a wonderful world
Shortly
before our summer holiday in 2005,
while looking at the web site of our favourite equipment suppliers – in
the
Internet, I found the advertisement for the competition ‘Make your
dream come
true. Where is your dream destination for a holiday, and what would you
do
there?’
That evening, we sat down together, and we each
made a list of our favourite places. After a long discussion, we
finally
decided the No. 1 – the Russian peninsula of Kamchatka, in the Far
East. Our
aim was to go up the longest river in the peninsula in a collapsible
canoe. We
didn’t know much about the river, nor about the Kamchatka peninsula –
except
that there are a lot of volcanos there – but we would be able to get
hold of
the necessary information. We completed the application forms and, the
next
morning – our last work day before the holiday, I posted them.
On our return from
Vancouver and Vancouver
Island, I again looked at the forum on the web site of the
above-mentioned outfitters. Voting was taking place on
those
suggestions for ‘Make your dream come true’ which had been selected in
the
preliminary round. There were different categories – with three
suggestions in
each category. I couldn’t believe my eyes – with our suggestion, we
were one of
the three selected in the category ‘group travel’. When voting ended, we had
1000€ in our travel kitty, and the ‘obligation’ to now really make our
dream
come true.
Preparations were rather
difficult. The number
of travel guides with real information on Kamchatka is limited – there
is one
(1) reasonable travel
guide. On the one hand, that was good but, on the other
hand, we would have liked to have written
just this travel guide, after our trip. Internet links, plus the
concrete
reports and experiences of individual travellers were a great help.
The first e-mails
quickly revealed a basic
problem. The people who we approached could simply not imagine
individual
travel in Kamchatka. Here are some typical extracts from these e-mails.
As we
don’t want to make anyone feel a fool, we will not mention any names.
However,
the e-mails show the basic problem with individual travel in Kamchatka,
and we
feel that this also applies throughout Russia.
20.02.2006
(…) We provide all variety of transportation services within Kamchatka
(all-terrain 4WD and 6WD passenger trucks, buses, cars, boats,
helicopters), accommodation at hotels and lodges, camping equipment
(if needed), and full board during the course of the trip. We also
offer the services of guides, interpreters, cooks and porters (if
needed), all necessary permits, visa support etc.
(…)
Please mind that an individual trip will cost much more than a joining
to a group. We work with small groups (6-12 people, mostly foreigners
from Europe), so I think you'll enjoy with your Kamchatka travelling a
lot.
Especially our wish to go along
the Kamchatka
River in our folding kayaks did not
make it any easier. We wanted to go along the Kamchatka from Milkovo to
Ust-Kamchatsk, where it flows into the Pacific. We had no information
on
stretches of white-water, rapids,
etc.
22.02.2006
(...)I’m sure there are exact maps of the
river, but I have never seen one. You might be luckier here than over there –
ask at various places where they sell maps.I happen to have a Soviet travel
guide for Kamchatka in front of me. In it, there are descriptions of several
trips along rivers, but there isn’t one for
the Kamchatka River.Visas: To obtain a visa, you need an invitation. My colleague in (…)
would not be prepared to get them for you, because of what you plan to do. In
recent years, a number of people have been killed – and the tourist office is
blamed for this. They are not prepared to take this risk.For this reason,
I can’t help you with your idea of ‘only visas – we
will do the rest ourselves’. If you want to book the whole arrangement, I can only say that it will
be impossibly expensive. I may be able to get in touch with a one-man travel
agency, which might possibly arrange such tours – but I only know him from
hearsay.Transport can be found everywhere.
The simplest – and by far the cheapest – way is to take a bus from 10 km in the capital.(...)
(...)
As you can see, this information is
very discouraging, but it is honest.
Of course, a way can always be found
– but that sometimes takes longer than your actual holiday. I can tell you
anything else. Somehow, not only has the number of bears on Kamchatka remained
high until now – this also applies to certain forms of Soviet bureaucracy.
Permits must be taken seriously.
Ust-Kamchatka is part of the restricted area, i.e. a normal visa doesn’t cover
it.
You definitely need an invitation,
in which ALL of the places which you intend to visit are listed. This must then
be copied absolutely accurately in the application. The police there sometimes
suffer from boredom. The regulations have also been tightened again – and that
can have unpleasant results.
This e-mail made me think. One
person could not imagine independent travel. The other uses
bureaucratic and
other regulations as an argument, and worried about being held
responsible. But
we expressly wanted to be responsible for any risks that we ran.
This time, we did not want to
book our flights
via Internet – we looked for a travel agency which specialized in
Russia. As we
wanted to take our kayaks with us, the question of excess baggage and
what this
would cost was an important point in our calculations. We had often
noticed a
travel agency with Cyrillic lettering on the outskirts of Bad Canstatt.
When
booking the flights there, we were told that the dates were impossible.
When
asked if all flights on these days were fully booked, we were told that
a
tourist visa was valid for only 30 days, and our travel dates exceeded
this
period. When we asked about a business visa, valid for three months, we
were
told that this was impossible.
We decided to book the flights
first and then
get the visas ourselves.
11.03.2006
I think, that it would be better for you to buy Russian Visa by Internet, in
such a case you don't need to take our guide, but we woun't be responsible
for you. Please, give us the scales (proportions) of your luggage, boats,
and I'll find the transport to Dolinovka and from Ust-Kamchatsk. We can
offer you jeep Toyota - 4 Runner or Mitshubisi - Delica.
Trekking to the Kronotsky National Park will take you 6-8 days one way. I
recommend you to change this part of your tour.
We now had three parallel
components: obtaining our business visas, organizing our
kayak trip on the Kamchatka River,
and an individual tour in the Valley of the Geysers.
The question of visas was solved
quickly and
expertly with the help of mein-visum.de. By the end of
April, we had our passes
back – complete with visa. At least, we now no longer relied on some kind of an invitation,
which
no-one wanted to give us – either because they would then be
responsible, or
for some other reason.
It was a stroke of luck when I
found the report
by a group of anglers. Not because we wanted to go fishing, but because
of an
address in the article.
In addition to lists of the
kinds of salmon,
when they spawn, and the equipment for fly-fishing, we found the
following
passage:
For help in obtaining visas,
licences and transport, we can thoroughly recommend the firm
Explore
Kamchatka. The very
pleasant manager
Mrs. Martha Madsen,
also offers tours for groups
Our first e-mail contact with
Mrs. Madsen
raised our hopes that we might still be able to carry out our plans.
10.03.2006
Thank
you for your inquiry. I would be happy to help you with your documents
and any
other needed logistical questions. Besides an invitation and voucher
for
getting a visa, you need 2 special permits for entering Ust-Kamchatsk -
one
from Border Guards and one from FSB (police) as this is a special zone
near the
military areas. My partner company Diligans Kamchatka can do the
documents for
you. I will double check on the cost but I think its about $50 US per
person. I
need to check but you may be required to have a Russian guide with you
in those
areas. There is a new Kamchatka Kayakers' club that might be able to
supply a
Russian escort.
Also we have
a bed and breakfast at our home and if you need a place to stay in town
when
you come through, we can help you. The cost is $35 per person.
Unfortunately
we have learned that the Kronotsky Preserve no longer will allow any
backpacking. However I enclose information on a trip to the Preserve
for bear
viewing.
That
didn’t sound too
bad. But: ‘a Russian escort’ – why do we need that? In the time that
followed,
this question proved not easy to solve. Based on our feelings and what
we had
done before, we wanted to be alone.
We wanted to
determine when we would start off in the morning, when we would take a
break,
when we would set up our tent in the evening and bring the day to an
end.
However, in the meantime, we had
also had
e-mails saying that it was not possible to go on the river at all
without a
Russian guide.
With heavy hearts, we had to
accept the necessity of a guide in the
military
restricted area between Kljutshi and
Ust-Kamchatsk. Martha’s partner agency Diligans procured the police
(FSB)
permit for the restricted area. We had to admit that we did not want to
become
closely acquainted with Russian prisons – especially as our knowledge
of
Russian was limited to an evening course.
We arranged with Slawa, the president of
the Kamchatka Kayak Club, that he would accompany us on the stretch
between
Kozyrevsk and Ust-Kamchatsk. We wanted to do the stretch from Milkovo
to
Kozyrevsk alone. Here, Martha proved to be an indispensable helper and
an
understanding organizer, who was able to meet our wishes – at least
partly.
At the beginning of July, after
we had finally
got our tickets for the flights, our visas, and the GPS coordinates for
the
meeting place with Slava, we could tackle our plans for the Kronotsky
National
Park and the Valley of the Geysers. We knew we needed an inspector to
accompany
us if we wanted to hike in the park without a group. We also knew that
we would
have to pay 2400 Rouble a day for the inspector. However, we wanted to
fly to
the park with a group, wander individually for several days, and then
fly out
again with another group, in order to keep the cost of the helicopter
down to
an amount that we could afford. The price we were offered was almost
3000 US$
(per person). This was far too much for our budget. So we agreed to
delay
making the final decision, as to what we wanted to do after our kayak
tour,
until we were on the spot. This had the advantage that we could discuss
this
with Martha directly and personally – and not just by e-mail.
Gradually, the
time for further preparations was getting short. The date for the
flight there
was 3 August 2006.
In the meantime, we had invested a large part of what we had won from Globetrotter in equipment and dried food. That lightened our budget considerably.
Two
days before we finally left, we started our
‘final packing orgy’. In the end, there were two collapsible kayaks
stowed in
their bags, two absolutely full trekking rucksacks, and the two paddles
– in a
packet that had been tied and stuck down.
On
3 August, after a leisurely breakfast, we
set off in the direction of Munich. Our flight didn’t leave until 23
hours. We
had arranged to meet Annette’s sister and her friend at the airport.
They were
to take our car with them, to Munich.
Our
first unpleasant surprise was when checking
in our luggage. The travel agency had told us that excess baggage would
cost
6.80 Euro per kg. At the airport, they demanded 10.50 Euro per kg from
us – and
that was only for as far as Moscow. But there was nothing we could do –
we
wanted to take everything with us.
On
arrival in Moscow, we had to change terminals.
International fights arrive at Terminal I and flights within Russia are
from
Terminal II. A bus ran between the terminals. However, the taxi-drivers
wanted
to get their slice of the cake. It wasn’t so easy to make it clear to
them that
we wanted to use the bus, and didn’t need a taxi. We had a twelve hour
wait for
our connecting
flight. Unfortunately, that was too
short to make a trip into town with so much luggage. After we had got
all our
things into the bus and let ourselves be packed into the bus – like
sardines in
a tin, off we went – at breakneck speed – on a 30 minute drive to the
inland
terminal at Sheremetjevo airport. On arrival there, we discovered that
– in
contrast to other airports – there were no trolleys. To increase
security,
baggage was inspected at the entrance to the airport. Without trolleys,
that
was a hassle. Luckily, with the exception of a few batteries, we had
nothing
that was really forbidden. After putting our luggage in a quiet corner,
I went
in search of coffee. It was now seven o’clock in the morning, and we
hadn’t
slept a wink that night.
The attempt to get even a little
sleep, sitting
in a corner with our heads on the rucksacks, was not a great success.
Soon we
got books out, in order to fill in time usefully. Another possibility
was to
watch what was happening at the airport. There were several places
where one
could have one’s luggage packed in plastic foil. Although I couldn’t
see the
point of this, it certainly used an enormous amount of plastic foil.