Zyuratkul National Park

We really feel we had enough of huge Russian cities. Don't get me wrong, some of them were really nice, but there are just too many of them. And at the end each of them has a river, a Kremlin and at least 1 million people living in it. That is why we decided to stay out of them for some time. Instead we decided to check out a national park and enjoy a day of swimming and sunbathing. Russian nature is amazing even along the highway so we were really looking forward to see how it looks like when you get out of the paved road. Getting to the park really was some hardcore off-road driving experience. At one point we even lost a part of our luggage which was fixed at the top of the roof, since the car was vibrating too strongly. But we managed to collect it again and got to the lake without further problems.

The lake and the park surrounding it were really wonderful. The water was nice and the weather was perfect. And we really enjoyed the break. No more driving that day, just swimming and picnic on the beach. And the whole area was a camping place so we could spend a nice night in our beloved car. It was simply perfect.

Unfortunately we have discovered that even in the national park some typical Russian problems are still present. Trash. It is really unbelievable! Nearly every public beach we saw so far looked like a gigantic ashtray with beer bottles lying all over the place and we often saw a huge mountains of trash in the middle of the forest. They really shouldn't wonder they have so many problems with fire. I am surprised the woods haven't burn down completely yet! But we hoped it wouldn't be an issue in the middle of the national park. We were obviously wrong. Bottles and plastic bags were all over the camping space. But even that couldn't spoil our moods. We spent a perfect day and gathered enough energy to start exploring Siberia.