This page contains Dateline Kurai, Altay Republic: The Russian Paragliding Championships, which was published in the summer of 2006 in Hang Gliding and Paragliding Magazine.
Dateline Kurai, Altay Republic: The Russian Paragliding Championships
After a forty-day journey across Western Mongolia, my wife Ursula and I hitch hiked north from the small town of Tsaganuur into the Altay Republic, our packs filled with camping and paragliding gear. This border crossing, closed to foreigners for over three hundred years, opened just last year. The nine-hour, three-checkpoint ordeal seemed simple compared to the confusion, pushing and shoving that began the multi-day task of registering our visas.
Told we couldn't register in the town of Kosh-Agach and facing a six hour drive north to the republic's capitol of Gorno Altaysk, we did our best to not understand. At this point we learned to confidently recite "Ya ni ga va ryu pa Ruski" which helpfully means "I don't speak Russian". We eventually arranged a meeting with the head inspector in the back office of the visa registration office. Not able read the Cyrillic forms, we felt helpless. A secretary in the office aided with translations and after three days they agreed to register us for the next two weeks.
Relieved, we hired a taxi to the ideal camping area above the small village of Kurai in the Chuysky Valley. Ready for a break from our endless traveling, I was psyched to meet and fly with the Russian pilots.
We arrived in Kurai the day before the Russian Open Paragliding Championships. A large group of British pilots camped in a nearby field finished a paragliding tour to the area the next day. The trip organizer explained their policy of refusing pilots not in the group a ride to launch. I faced a very long hike, but their doctor with his own jeep kindly made room for me.
Ecstatic to have finally arrived, my journal entry from July 21st captured the spirit: "Finally flying in Russia- all of what I expected- the huge Kamaz trucks- the hills blanketed in wildflowers- edelweiss thick like weeds! A perfect launch site- with drive to access and puffy clouds extending down the valley. First flight thirty-three kilometers. Not too big or too bumpy-"
Launch, a huge grassy ridge that sits at 8300', looks across the valley at the beautiful glaciated Altay Mountains dominated by Mount Belukha at 14,784' or 4506 meters. The normal flight plan goes south down the valley towards the border with Mongolia.
The Kurai is considered the best flying site in the former Soviet Union often called "The Owens Valley of Russia". Once a Soviet tank bombing range, near launch lie unexploded ordinance. Most pilots came from Moscow and Northern Russia. Pilots from flatland towing areas especially respect Kurai for advanced big mountain conditions. Only experienced or sponsored and supervised intermediate pilots are allowed to fly here. When I registered for the competition, I qualified as a "Master of Sport" on the entry form. I knew the significance in the former Soviet Union and felt humbled by the rating.
The local club in Bernaul sponsors the first of two competitions, the Triada Cup. This week of organized competition wasn't mentioned in the English pages of their website. I came early, hoping to practice and thinking to hike to launch if no other pilots were around. We also gave ourselves the extra week since we didn't know if we could get into Russia at this border crossing. To add to our concern, our Mongolian visas expired a week later, so that if we didn't get into Russia we would be in serious trouble.
The second competition, the Russian Paragliding Open Championships, included in the same entry fee, was a FAI sanctioned international event. Both events had over one hundred competitors.
There were two kinds of tasks called. The distance run of sixty to one hundred twenty-five kilometers flew past what is known as "the Bottleneck", where the Chuysky Valley ends and after a rocky canyon, big flats begin. Getting beyond this neck was usually the crux of these flights. The second type of task was shorter and called on overdeveloped days. These triangle flights ended closer to our campsite somewhere in the Chuyski Valley, after thirty to fifty kilometers. Cloud base was usually around twelve thousand feet, but one day lifted to over sixteen thousand.
The hang gliding competition held at the same time often called the same tasks. Around thirty delta pilots competed. Several women delta wing pilots had recently learned to fly, unlike the trend in the United States. A large group the delta pilots came from Kazakhstan and we joined them the next month flying near Almaty.
The Kurai Valley is several miles wide with endless grasslands for landing. Because of the old public ownership policy of communist Russia, none of the land is private property. Trespassing, the local sheriff and eventual court appearances are all unknown. Applying for a Russian visa seems like a hassle with the required letter of invitation and various hoops to jump through. Yet, when you invite Russian pilots to visit the United States, they sadly shake their heads and explain that for them, US visas are very hard to get.
Many Russian pilots flew their local AVA brand and several were on the AVA team. Most flew down from Moscow, several drove from Germany and one pilot came from the Czech Republic. For the most part it was a Russian competition. The organizers told me I was the first American to fly in the Kurai Comps, which have been organized for deltas for twenty-five years, but only have a five-year history for paragliders.
Guidebooks to the region warn against drinking with locals. Widespread vodka consumption throughout the old Soviet Republic is a serious social problem, as is alcoholism. Pilots explained that locals in the Altay Republic have a genetic deficiency that makes them especially susceptible to alcohol and dangerously violent when drunk. We saw plenty of European-stock Russians who easily made up for their supposed superior genes by drinking even more vodka.
The flying was spectacular, set against the backdrop of the Altai Mountains. The site is ideal with consistent launch conditions, soaring possible by ten and cross-country adventures by noon. In two weeks of flying every day, I never sunk out from the huge grassy ridge. We did wait through some rainstorms on launch and one task was called while we were on course due to over development.
The smooth and broad thermals allowed several hour flights without any significant collapses. After the dry desert Southwest of the United States and some of the midday rockets I'd found in Mongolia, the Kurai seemed very friendly.
Nevertheless, competitions bring out the worst-case scenarios and accidents. Flying into a tight valley not far from launch, a Russian national team pilot fell into her Gin Boomerang and barely got her reserve out. The daily reserve deployments and accidents, accepted as normal, seem to be a part of the competition scene everywhere. A local doctor, seeing the first injured pilot, asked how long the competition was and then promptly left on vacation for ten days.
During the trip, I encountered several novel paragliding expressions. Some required long explanations to understand. For example, the sink out LZ below launch is called "chainipolia" or tea fields, because beginners land there. Pilots call beginners "chainic" or tea kettle. This idiom is borrowed from skiing since novice skiers make the same noises as a boiling kettle, huffing, puffing and sweating. It follows naturally, but not necessarily closely, that the fields where beginners sink out are called tea fields. A simpler idiom is "la mierca" or the meat, which is what they call the wind dumby. Hang gliders are nicknamed "rastaduska" which means metal cot. This explains why "matrasy", which comes from matrasnic and means mattress, is used for paragliders.
By the end of the comps I felt comfortable with the area. One hundred kilometers seemed reasonable since I knew the cross-country route so well. My flight log for August 1st reads: "Flew 108 km, 18 km short of goal, but a good flight. Had to fly into headwind for 17 km with 12 km groundspeed. Got very low on small ridge and ridge soared for a long way, then took a strong thermal up and out, back to cloudbase. Got to 15,200' above clouds but base was at 14,500' generally. Out front most of the day, then got passed at second turn point, and then out over the flats three more comp wings flew by, the Avax RSF is definitely faster than the Aspen." After a five and a half hour flight, I took forth for the day, which put me in fifth place overall with one day left in the competition.
The last day many pilots launched into a huge sink cycle. Finding no lift for the first five minutes, a couple of us dared to fly low over a nearby forest in a light, drifting thermal. Eventually the two of us held on and climbed to base and a newly formed cloud at 15,200'. The thermals had serious drift and we found 80 km per hour ground speed. I landed 7 th at goal after two and a quarter hours, but ended up ninth for the day and sixth overall out of one hundred sixteen pilots. Four of us formed Team Gradient International and took second, third, sixth and eighth places for a huge lead in the team standings.
After an incredible two weeks in this flying wonderland, we were filled with both flying adventures and life experiences. Volley ball in camp and adventures like packing fifty-two pilots into a single Kamaz truck and returning from goal as late as 11:30 at night kept it interesting and so the time flew by.
We made many new friends, some we would see again as we traveled, visiting flying sites throughout Kazakstan and Krygyzstan in the next two months. As our bus pulled out of the camping area I thought about how far away this place felt to me. I realized that by coming from Mongolia it seemed even more remote, but that with a visa and plane ticket we could return and play again above the mountains of the Altay Republic.
Go to Forty Days Over Mongolia, A Paragliding Expedition to the Lands of Ghengis Khan.
Go to A The Celelstial Tien Shan of Kyrgyzstan: Between Mountains and Sky.
Go to Paragliding In The Callejon De Huaylas.
Go to Paragliding Huaraz Peru.
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