110 zimnik - lake Baikal: there, around and back againPart 5, Leaving "110 zimnik", Umkhay and Barguzin valley

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Leaving "110 pimnik", Umkhay and Barguzin valley, 21-23.07.2012

In the morning, we passed Birankur river and tried to "translate" it from German as "Bier-an-Kur". Strange word combination, but our free translations made some people inspired :). The road was getting better with every meter. There we have met huntsmen; they were taking a group of water tourists to Barguzin. We talked a bit, and the tourists were really impressed that we had a kid in our crew, and the huntsmen admitted that they were in doubts that my car could withstand the road. Well, it was no surprise for me, all people were having doubts, and we were making our ways.

There was a cordon where we paid 250 rubles for every single person for being in a nature reserve and picked up one of the workers to show us a totally safe way to cross Bargusin, which looked here much wider and much deeper than yesterday. If we just went straight across it, most probably it would have been fun for some gawkers and Lithuanian bikers  on the other bank, but we didn't want to take the risk and opted for the long track; the water there was just half-wheel-deep. By the way, this track is quite well shown in at least one of the videos on YouTube.

110 zimnik - lake Baikal: there, around and back againPart 4, 110 km checkpoint, geocaching and saving Rexton

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Clearing the "110 km" checkpoint, geocashing, swimming and saving a Rexton, July 20, 2012

It didn't take us long to reach the well-known stud after which this whole road is named now. It is the only stud left on the road: 110 km.

110 zimnik - lake Baikal: there, around and back againPart 3, Svetlaya and Namama rivers

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Svetlaya river, Namama river, 19.07.2012

After the hydrotherapeutic procedures, we started from Sramnaya with an absolutely healthy pilot. Soon afer that, we've seen several pretty interesting lakes which could be a nice place for a camp as well, but it was indeed too late… Generally speaking, pitching a camp at 110 zimnik is not a problem. It is not necessarily a large emerald green glade rolling in grapes full of stacks of firewood looking at a limpid azure mountain lake with taimen fish (or at least grayling) playing and splashing in it, but you can always find a place for camping.

The road until Svetlaya included parts of both real off-road "asphalt" and bogs. The other stories say that there are more boggy parts than "asphalt", but we could not find all of them. Probably the weather was kind to us. I slightly stuck a couple of times, if I'm not mistaken, and we tore off the sling in one of the places. Fortunately the hook has softly landed on my roof rack and did not hurt anything. Somehow I didn't say it to Mikha through the open window that I have been hampered by a large rock and that I can go forward without any problem already, so Gavrilov pulled harder… and the rock appeared to be stronger than the sling that eventually suffered.

That's where we wore the sling

110 zimnik - lake Baikal: there, around and back againPart 2, Severobaykalsk - Zelinda hot springs - Sramnaya river

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Lake Baikal, July 17, 2012

We spent the whole morning jogging down the bumpy road that everyone got really tired of, but it was not even the noon when we eventually arrived to Severobaikalsk. We went to a cafe indeed (Irina didn't eat her breakfast on the river bank, so she wanted something to eat, and Gavruilovs ate something, and we had some coffee) and indeed bought a lot of food and drinks in local stores. Well, we asked for a supermarket, but people sent us to some sort of market. Anyway, we could buy everything we needed.

Mikha's dream came true, he bought some liver. My dream came true, I have bought wonderful veal to prepare it for my birthday. And many other dreams came true – in particular, we have bought lots of beer.

110 zimnik - lake Baikal: there, around and back againPart 1, Tomsk - Severobaykalsk

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110 zimnik, historical note

In 1974-1975, the winter was extremely warm, and therefore there were no ice road to cross Baikal and it was impossible to supply Baikal-Amur Mainline with the materials. One of four projects for building a surface road was accepted and built. It was designed as a temporary one, with the purpose just to deliver the supplies during this winter. And the road was open on February 1, 1975. The road was not easy even those days, so they have also built some sheds where the drivers could take a rest or wait for spare parts if the lorry was damaged.

BAM was eventually finished, and the road became unnecessary. It was used as the winter snow road for some time as the rivers and bogs get frozen and it is much easier to drive there. Anyway, the bridges were getting ruined with time, and the traffic has stopped. But the road started to become legendary.

Since that, tourists, and especially auto tourists fell in love with the road which was named "110 zimnik" after the only stud that survived until now