Thurs 5 June Tulin to Krasnoyararsk

A cool but dry day. We seem to ride anywhere between 250km but not often to 650km fairly often. Today we had lots of villages, tree lined roads, some of it fantastic, huge and beautiful lanscapes however the roads did not give one a lot of gazing around time.
To be fair they are doing their best in awful conditions. The ground freezes in winter causing the water to swell and then as it thaws the traffic creates "moguls", so we have new tar seal, old tar seal, completely buggered tar seal, metal roads good metal roads bad, holes, lumps, ruts, some lamost impassable in a small car but it was dry, fortunately, but cold.
The good thing was the lanscape. It stayed, endless, flat, grass, trees, and then the villages, small with dilapidated houses all wood, some logs some sawn wood, all with seemingly corrugated fibrolite or asbestos, unpainted, with yards fenced again in wood, but the houses with their brightly coloured window frames, sadly not maintained, but they add a real splash of clolour and individuality.
We were on our own again finding the Hotel. Our directions were useless, so again we relied on our riding mate Tom who speaks Russian to bring us home.
We will stay here two night. This is not a very pleasant place to visit. Apparently it was a walled city (Gulag) used to incacerate politcal prisoners by Stalin but to which he and Lenin were later sent.
There are other closed cities that were built for "secret" purposes nearby. No one would seemingly want to come here unless they had to. We did experience some of the local grenn tourism by walking into the woods, with lots of mossies, but failed to see any other wildlife like a bear, perhaps just as well.
nzl07