Camels and goats expedition

Dear Friends

Its been a while since we last posted the update. However I think I have a valid excuse. During most of the last two months we been travelling with very sparse internet connection.

Before I start my long story on how we travelled with camels and goats for 13 thousand kilometers, I want to make a small Patreon related announcement.

If you have already reached  the Voyager of the steppes status or above (if you “lifetime” pledge is equal or above 60 USD) and haven’t yet sent us your preferred t-shirt size/gender please send it via patreon system or directly to my email nzimov@mail.ru In addition if you have sent this information a while ago but still didn’t get your t-shirt or hoodie please let us know too.

And now back to the camels…

As you may already read from the previous updates this spring our highlight was the preparation for the expedition with camels and fur goats.

Last I told that we had all the animals gathered in one farm not too far from Kazan city (it is around 700-800km east of Moscow). All the animals successfully passed the quarantine and were getting ready to be picked up.

During that time we were preparing all our vehicles for the long journey and constructed the big containers for the animal transportation. Previously we always bought a 40-feet shipping containers and adapted them for the purpose of animal transportation – ventilations, doors, feeding lots etc. However this time we decided to create containers from scratch. First of all containers (everything that is made out of metal) has substantially increased in price, and additionally after we brought those containers to the Park they became a garbage which cannot be used for anything else (we have already 3 such containers piled in the local seaport, and we pretend it is not ours). So we hired some people who do welding and they bought some metal and plywood and built containers according to our design in the sizes we specified.  Later in the Park we can disassemble those containers and use those materials for some other purposes.

Containers on the trucks

Finally on May 3, one of our big trucks with camel container and smaller truck (which we hired just for this reason) with goat container left Novosibirsk, where we had a basecamp for expedition preparation and drove 2500 km west towards the farm with animals. I joined the expedition on May 7 flying to Kazan. Later that day we already arrived at the farm.

All animals looked good and were ready to be loaded next day. There was one complication which we faced. While we first brought goats we felt that one of them might be pregnant and our suggestion appeared to be correct. This goat gave birth on the quarantine. Since farmer did not have a desire to keep those animals, and we didn’t have desire to leave them behind we decided to give it a try and take mom and little goat with us. Since it was clear that in the big cage with many other goats, little baby will not make it, we took some construction materials we had with us and constructed a little separate room for the family in the goats container. I was a bit worried baby would not make it through this incredibly long journey, but (spoilers) it did very well.

Baby goat at the farm

So in the morning of May 8 we started the animal load. It went relatively easy with the goats. They are relatively small and one person can easily carry one goat. So we just manually caught them all and loaded into the container. We kept males separate from female in a smaller subsection. I think overall it took us less than an hour to catch all goats, even though have to admit no one in our team was exceptionally skillfull at goat catching.

Male goats loaded

Situation with camels were a bit more complicated. Originally we planned to build a big bridge through which animals will have to walk up from the quarantine area to the truck. However this plan would require a lot a construction materials and is a bit tricky. One of our truck drivers Roma (this guy was driving our yaks in 2017 and cows in 2018) proposed a different idea – to hire a crane which would unload the container on a ground, we would get camels in, and then this crane will load the container back into the truck. Idea was actually brilliant.  Crane has successfully unloaded the container and all we had to do is to bring camels to the container, which seemed like an easy task. Reality appeared to be more complicated. Camels had no desire to walk in, and no matter how much we tried to push them in, they refused to walk into the creepy container. In addition they had long legs and they knew how to use them. We had no desire to be punched, since that could result in very serious injuries. After maybe half an hour of different attempts we found an approach which worked. We had a long rope tight with one end to the container door, and the loop going around the herd.  Some of us pulled the other end of the rope and animals were pushed with this rope into the container.  Not that it went easy, but over about hour or so we got all camels into the container and succefully loaded this container on the truck. 

Camels don't want to get into the container

So around 11AM on May 8 our expedition officially started. Trip to Novosibirsk took approximately 5 days. Trucks we used could not be called very fast and on the highway they were far the slowest. Big truck was designed for offroad drive and on the asphalt roads it looked a bit awkward. On this section of the trip there was 4 people on two vehicles. Two truck drivers, one driver helper and me. We had some extra forage taken with us, and on both trucks were prepared enough free space to keep buckets, barrels for water, rakes, spare tyres and many other trip supplies.

Camels in the container

First unpleasant surprise was the appetite of animals. In the past when we travelled with the bison for example 1 roll of hay lasted 3 days. In this expedition camels and especially goats finished 1 roll in 1 day. So starting already second day of the expedition we had to look for places where to buy new hay, and some oats/concentrated forage.  Another complicated task we had to do over the expedition (every three days) is to clean all the dirty hay underneath the animal feet and put a dry one instead.

Animals we were bringing showed totally different attitude from the very first day. As soon as we stopped pushing/pulling/kicking camels trying to make them do what they didn’t want to do they became the most relaxed animals on earth. Over the entire expedition none of them fought with each other, they all were eating from the same bucket without any conflicts, and very calmly reacted on any interaction with us. Goats in contrary were hyperactive. Each time we fed them they created a giant crowd, jumping on each other head, bumping with horns, and showing super impatience.  Therefore each time we gave them water/forage we had to prepare all buckets first and then as soon as possible put them all at the same time, in order for them not to start fighting over the first food/water. Fortunately goats are relatively small and sturdy and none of them got injured during the trip.

First section of the trip went well, and we reached Novosibirsk without any big troubles. In Novosibirsk we had a plan to unload goats from the small truck and put them on the second big truck which would also carry crawling transporter we bought earlier for the Park purposes. At this stage of the expedition we started to face delays. I originally planned to spend 2 days in Novosibirsk for all preparations and cargo movements. However mechanic shop which was supposed to prepare/equip our crawling transporter with extra engine/mulcher failed to do it in time and we had to spend time trying to work in this mechanic shop with all our expedition members to speed up the process. In addition when we finally loaded the transporter we figured out that second truck had to get some maintenance too, and we lost another day or two. So finally we spent 5 days in Novosibirsk, which already put us on a tight schedule.

Final expedition set up

From Novosibirsk there was already 3 vehicles going. Two big trucks and a support car -pickup truck we used to transport goats in April.  Big trucks had no option to go off highway in case we needed to buy supplies, forage or spare parts. So based on our experience this vehicle is essential in order to make a successful trip with animals across entire Russia.

Our expedition before Novosibirsk could make around 600-700km a day, since trucks had light load, roads were flat and average speed was around 70-75km/hour. From Novosibirsk one of the trucks (one with camels) still had light load, but second one had goats, transporter and mulcher, with bunch of other heavy spare parts, which totally was around 20 tons (plus heavy 9 ton trailer). And for our truck that was really a lot. Any time truck had to climb up the hill, its speed dropped to 20-30km/hour. Because of that we barely were making 500km a day. And that required driving from 7AM to midnight accounting for stops for food and taking care of animals.

In addition we were losing lots of time since our heavily loaded truck had old tyres, which we didn’t replace from the start. In Novosibirsk we bought 10 spare tires, planning to change them if needed. And this need appeared very quickly. Over the first 2000km of the journey from Novosibirsk we replaced all tires of the heavily loaded truck. And that is very complicated and time consuming task. Each tire with the disk weight around 200kg, so our poor truck drivers had lots of fun, while me and Yaroslav (whom you know from the previous Patreon update) were driving around cities looking for extra disks and places where we could fix big tires.

Typical tire problem

Very fortunately that apart of tires trucks showed little problems. Except for one case when we bought surprisingly cheap diesel fuel at one gas station not far from Baikal lake. Next morning neither of the trucks wanted to start, and we had to replace all fuel filters at both trucks.

As I already mentioned all animals had a good appetite and me and Yaroslav were checking Avito (Russian online advertisement board) for the options to buy hay pretty much every day. Since that was a late spring most hay supplies were already over and in some regions we could not buy any hay, and in some places (like in Ulan-Ude) we bought a lot and none of the animals wanted to eat it, so we had to throw it all away and look for a new one. Late autumn dusty hay from the semi-desert didn’t impress any of our animals. This was a really time consuming and quiet expensive task. I think over the expedition we spent at least 2000 USD solely on hay.

Water on the way

So to sum up this section of the expedition, we needed to hurry up in order to make it to the Kolyma river on June 1 (time when the barge was supposed to pick us up and take to the Park), we faced a lot of minor troubles, and had to go many hours. But overall everything was ok.

From Novosibirsk road is going past towns of Kemerovo, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Ulan-Ude and Chita. This road is basically going along the southern part of Russia along the border with Mongolia. As we went we were pretty much going ahead of the spring. If at the farm where we picked up animals it was already summer and everything was green, then in Chita there was really nothing green yet. As we drove I was gathering some green grass to please the young mom, and at some point I could not find any fresh grass. 1000 kilometers past Chita there is a road junction and there we turned left going straight north towards the city of Yakutsk and past it to Magadan which is on the Pacific ocean.

Descending to lake Baikal

Semi-desert near Ulan Ude

In some places along the way we caught up after a winter

Aldan Plateau

Right after the junction we had one surprise. We were hoping to make it to the city of Tynda, where we could find a hotel (at this part of Russia, hotels on the side of the road are sparse). It was already getting late and there was still a 100km to drive to this town. All our trucks stopped for a dinner at one cafeteria along the road. I did not mention any of the gastronomical experiences we had over the course of our expedition, but the only thing I can say is that there is no Micheline star options (at all!).

To speed up the time our truck drivers Vitaly and Pavel Klimovich went to have dinner and me and Yaroslav were giving animals some hay and water. Changing tires was the job of truck drivers and feeding and cleaning after animals was on us. So as we were giving animals hay I felt that I hear some strange sounds from the goats container. Suspecting something I got into the goats container and saw that I was right at my suspects. At the side of the container I saw a tiny and very loud baby goat. Problem with fur animals,is that it is not very easy to detect pregnant ones, so this baby came to us as a big surprise. I took it and passed to Yaroslav outside of the container. Knowing how dense is the crowd in the container and how crazy are goats it was absolutely no way this baby would survive in this cage going to the Park. It wasn’t really clear what to do with it. First of all I tried to find its mom. This appeared not an easy task. There are 35 female goats in this room, they all look the same, and they all ran around me nonstop. I was grabbing one at a time and looked at their “behind” trying to identify one who just gave birth. After maybe 20 minutes of checking goat butts I gave up. Probably some goats I checked 5 times and some none.

If I wouldn’t be able to find mom then chances for baby to survive would be zero. I even thought of asking ladies in the cafeteria if they need a baby goat. As the last hope method I took the baby goat from Yaroslav and put it back at the center of the cage. It started crying and couple of goats even tried to attack it, but one goat expressed interest to the baby, so grabbed them both, passed baby to Yaroslav again and my veterinary skills allowed me to identify that this goat indeed gave birth recently. As the solution we got some spare plywood we had with us and created a second small room in the container for the new mom and the baby. From one point of view it was a good news that we had one extra goat, at the same time we were at the middle of the long journey and first of all I wasn’t sure little baby would make it, and what worried me the most we pretty much ran out of the options to make new separate rooms in our expedition, and we didn’t want any new babies to show up. Another spoiler is that we didn’t have any babies, and this baby did well.

Older and younger ones

Further road to Yakutsk went well. In some places there were sections of the gravel road, but those offroad trucks dealed with it well, and our average speed did not go down. We all of course were tired. One of our truck drivers, Pavel Klimovich was 65, and he was all his life driver of such vehicles but he never was on a road trip that long, so I was really worried that everyone will have energy to get to final destination in time. Near Yakutsk is the last place where there is a “civilization” – high speed internet, big shops with spare parts for the trucks and any supply needed. Past that point starts the road “Kolyma”. It is famous among hitchhikers as the Gulag road, and have only small towns and abandoned gold mines on the way. This road is almost entirely gravel. In some sections it is a good gravel road and in some it is not. Also there is Aldan river we had to cross. There is no bridge across it, and we had to use ferry. All previous times it took us just couple of hours to go through the river. Several ferries were waiting for a trucks ready to depart as soon as possible. We approached the river at around 6pm next day after Yakutsk, hoping to cross it and stop at the hotel in the town of Khandyga. However our dreams didn’t come true. As we came to the river we saw a huge line of big trucks eager to cross the river and only 1 ferry cruising in between. Overall we spent a full day at the river shore waiting. Finally next day after successful ferry ride we drove into the mountain region. This section of the road was considered as one of the most dangerous roads in Russia in the past. It was built along the cliffs, with the road only 2.7 meter wide. However in the last decade it was renovated and in my vision it now provides lots of nice views but not too dangerous.  Past the town of Ust’ Nera mountains are shorter but you drive in one never ending gold mine. This area provided gold since 1930th and all river valleys been processed since that moment.

Ferry across Aldan

Mountains

Anyway finally in the evening of June 1 our expedition reached town of Seimchan which is a small river port at the upper stream of the Kolyma river. Barge was already waiting for us and we were super happy we did it in time.

Loading on a barge and departure took us 2 to 3 days. We were taking animals, support car and crawling transporter. Big trucks were left behind until later in the summer.

Last river section of the journey is 1500km. Of which first 500km is a very complicated to navigate upper stream of the Kolyma with strong currents, lots of shallow places and is very hard to navigate. Later 1000km Kolyma is getting wide and slow and is much easier to drive.

Want to note that there is a big ship company on the Kolyma which transport lots of goods and have relatively big river ships. However their prices are quiet high and they are not really interested in dealing with some animals transportations (too much hassle and dung). So for all my animals I always rent a place on a small barge which is owned by a local businessman in Cherskii whom I know since I was a kid.

His prices are lower (though not cheap too), but there is no place to stay at his boat, so in the barge we stay in tent, also barge hit shallow places every once in a while and we have to help with carrying roaps, and doing other navy duties. Plus there was no second captain on the barge this time and to speed up the process of getting to Cherskii in the lower section of the river I was driving the barge during the night time while the captain was sleeping. Good that there is no night at this time of the year, so driving the barge rather boring than hard.

In the barge was another complication. We noticed that the mom which gave birth near Tynda is not feeding its baby. We found out that she has really little milk and probably it is painfull for her when baby is sucking her. Since none of us is the veterinary and moreover we could not find any veterinaries in the middle of nowhere on the barge we had little options. Over the couple of days milk was gone, baby was too small to eat anything else. So we grabbed the second mom whose baby was already quiet big and didn’t really need milk anymore, hold it by the horns, and let little baby feed of the second mom. Second mom wasn’t really happy, but there was no other option for us. So we did this procedure around 5 times a day until we reached Cherskii. Here I decided that in the Park it will be too complicated to do this procedure, so I took this baby goat to the research station and it is now on the diary milk feed. If you really want to know how it is doing please subscribe to my wifes InstagramJ I think we will keep it at the station until autumn and then take it to the Park when it is big enough. It is a male, and we have only 5 males among goats.

Finally after reaching Cherskii we unloaded some containers (one with supplies for our research station), our crawling transporter and a support car, and barge went straight to the Pleistocene Park. It is yet another advantage of the small barge. We could take animals directly from Seimchan to the Park. Road to the Park is complicated, since the river channel is narrow and near the park it make lots of sharp turns, so barge is barely fitting into the river. To help it navigate I was driving on a small boat helping the big barge to turn.

In the Park, barge put down the ramp and we started to unload animals. Goats once again were unloaded fast and easy. Some we pulled out and rest just walked out of the barge and went straight to the quarantine area. And with camels it was same story as when loading. They didn’t want to leave containers, they were kicking with their feet (once way to close to my face), and we had to use rope to push them out of the container, and make them walk down to the shore. But finally all animals were on the shore.

Next day we brought veterinaries who inspected all animals and treated them with anti-parasite medicine (for just in case), after that I released animals into somewhat bigger fences where they can already find themselves enough food. We will keep them there for a month and then after the quarantine will be over probably release into even bigger fenced areas. At least camels. Goats will probably be kept closer to the basecamp. If you remember I owe government to make a goat farm, so losing any of them because of the bears is not part of my plan.

Over the last few days I am digging through a huge list of duties which accumulated over the month of travel, which includes writing a patreon update. Reconstruction of the fence in the park is underway, but nuclear if it will be finished this year. There is some construction needs to be done in the park and at the station. We finally have to put together mulcher and transporter and take it to the Park, and also there is two new expeditions to bring animals I am working on right now. They are both also very complicated, hard to organize and they might be happening over the next 3-4 months. Uhh, too much going on. Can’t wait for October. Hope to finish all plans by then and just have a rest.

Thanks for all of you for your support and patience to read all this text to the end.

All the best

Nikita