Three weeks in Altay region on a ‘GoEast’-summer school financed by the DAAD, and another week by myself in St. Petersburg – here are finally the pictures. The summer school in Human Geography was run by the Altay State University in Barnaul. The group was made of 14 German students, 11 Russian students, 2 lectures, 2 translators and 2 bus drivers. A couple of days in Барнаул with introductory lectures on the regional geography, then we went on the field trip: First to the steppe in the Northern part of the Altay region, and then to mountainous Southern part, passing through the semi-desert, up to the Maashey Glacier. Out of 10GB of photo material, here is a selection of the most beautiful ones:
A closer look at some of the pictures is possible in the Photo section of this blog, in the album Russia. Anyways, I also made a couple of panoramas. They can be viewed in full screen mode if you click on the link. In the right lower corner of the panorama is a button ‘full screen’ – enter, then press and hold the left button on your mouse to let eyes wander! Altay panorama 1 Altay panorama 2 Altay panorama 3

Now, here are a few random shots from the summer school, in no particular order:

St. Petersburg

I used the maximum length my visa permitted, and went to Ст. Петербург for couple of days more. The city is pretty much European (and they’re selling Estonian cheese in the shops ), in contrast to Barnaul, which left the impression of typical provincial Russian city somewhere out in the sticks. St. Petersburg is a bit too big for my taste, it takes forever to walk around there. However, thanks to Couchsurfing, I pretty much discovered quite a bit in the centre. Here are some snapshots: