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2003-04-04 Across Lake Baikal on Horseback
In March 30–31, Winterida hosted a unique expedition — horseback ride across lake Baikal ice surface. This had been the only horseback ride of 100 miles on the ice in Russia and in the world as a whole. Two people participated in this adventure — Dmitry Govorukhin and Ulyana Mazelyauskaite. Dmitry Govorukhin guides tours to Lake Baikal. He took part in lots of distant expeditions and started the first horseback riding tours at Baikal. Ulyana is a 6th grade school student from Irktusk. The expedition covered 100 miles (160 km) during two days. A journalist and a biologist followed the expedition by snowmobiles. The path began at port Baikal, and then went through Listvyanka to Kadilny cape, Mishikha, and after coming to Tankhoi returned to port Baikal where it started. First day they crossed Lake Baikal in 7 hours and stayed at Mishikha village for overnight. Next day Dmitry and Ulyana covered the way back in 6 hours. Ulyana went for this kind of adventure for the fist time. She had been riding a horse for year and a half. Dmitry delivered Ulyana special training in horseback riding. This kind of adventure (which is very popular in the world) requires special training not only for riders but also for horses. Mars and Grim had been trained for six years getting accustomed to long-distance rides. The horses got special shoes with calkins to walk on the ice. Participants had to check the horseshoes each 10 kilometers (6 miles). The riders encountered the most serious obstacle when 26 km (16 miles) away from Listvyanka. This was a crack in the ice. So they had to construct a wooden platform to cross the obstacle. Dmitry Govorukhin trained Mars and Grim to overcome this kind of difficulties. And the horses succeeded. The main goal of the expedition was to cross the lake Baikal ice surface on horseback — the way people had gone it before 1903 when the circum-Baikal railroad was constructed. This made an end of the only official ice road across Lake Baikal. Being a part of the famous “Great Ambassador and Tea Road” (Europe to Asia passage), the ice road had been used since 1673 and connected the two shores of Lake Baikal. Dmitry Govorukhin supposed that people would take an active interest in the new extreme tour when learned about it. He was going to run the first horse sledding tour next year. Besides that, in 2004, Dmitry plans to organize another expedition — a horseback riding trip on the ice around Lake Baikal (which would cover 2000 km and take 50 days). This adventure may be registered for Guinness World Records book.
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