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Pos. Taximo — village Molodezhny — Kindikansky pass — r. Kindikan — r.

Tuluya — Kedrovka mine — r. Tuldun — Promising Spit — r. Vitim. The length of the route is 152 kilometers, duration is 12 days.

The Vitim River is a tributary of the mighty Lena, one of the wildest and most remarkable rivers in Eastern Siberia. Vitim is especially beautiful and powerful where, rumbling on the rifts, it madly rushes through the gorges of the South Muya ridge. It was in these relatively sparsely populated places that an expedition organized by the Buryat Council for Tourism and Excursions found itself in September 1989. The expedition heading to this area was faced with the task of studying tourism opportunities and the environmental situation.

Most of the members of the expedition were power engineers; it also included doctor Tatyana Zhideleva, qualified photographer Viktor Kozlov, cameraman of the Ulan-Ude television studio Vladimir Zharov and other specialists. Almost all participants had many years of experience in mountain taiga treks. The starting point of our journey is the Bama village of Taksimo. From the airport we walk along the shore of Lake Barancheevskoye.

Among the slender tall pines is an obelisk to the pioneers of BAM — the explorers of the Vitim expedition “BAMproekt”, who died in the waves of this lake in a plane crash on August 15, 1940. Half a century has passed. And this year the Baikal-Amur Mainline is put into permanent operation. Therefore, not only the obelisk on the lake, but also the entire huge route stretching from Baikal to the Amur will become a monument to both the crew of the lost seaplane and all the nameless pioneers.

From Taksimo our path lay through the South Muisky ridge to the shores of Vitim. I will say in advance that we safely completed the planned route, spending 12 days on it. This was facilitated by fine days and low water in the rivers through which we had to cross. But, perhaps, the success of our trip was largely facilitated by the friendly and sincere willingness to provide assistance on the part of the shift truck drivers, geologists, prospectors, and power engineers.

It is impossible to list all the names of those kind people that we met along the way. And this is one of the most memorable impressions from the route traveled. Having overcome the South Muisky ridge through the most accessible Kindikansky pass, we continued our journey along the Tuluya and Tuldun rivers. Several times, bypassing the clamps, we crossed from one bank to the other, and the last crossing of the Tuldun River took several hours.

In a large coastal clearing there are buildings of an abandoned miners’ village — the Promising Spit. This title sounds like thanksgiving and hope. The spit is framed by the turn of the river to the left, on which the waves of the Tuldun Shiver play. It is in this place that one of the sites of the future Mokskaya hydroelectric power station is planned, the rock-fill dam of which will rise by 150 meters, and the reservoir will spill up the river for almost 300 kilometers.

We had an interesting conversation about the future of this river with surveyors from the Leningrad branch of the Hydroproject Institute. We met them on the Ivanovo Spit. The head of the detachment, Alexander Zuev, willingly spoke about the progress of the ongoing research. In connection with the government decree on the creation of a biosphere reserve on the Vitim River in the downstream of the Mokskaya HPP, in order to even out fluctuations in winter costs, it is planned to place a counter-regulator at the Ivanovo site.

Since then, the mighty Vitim has carried a lot of water into the ocean. But the Mokskaya HPP project remains unclaimed. According to the latest calculations, the estimated cost of the hydroelectric complex is $2.7 billion with a payback period of 15 years. We leave the Ivanovo Spit, and soon the beautiful powerful ridges suddenly part — Vitim enters the expanses of the Muya Valley.

The last big stop on the shore of Vitim, the last transition. In front of us are the BAM rails. A passenger train arrives at Vitim station exactly on schedule, and early in the morning we get out onto the platform of Taksimo station. From here by plane to Ulan-Ude.

I hope that the described route will attract the attention of tourists. The route can be diversified by rafting along the Tuldun and Vitim rivers, as well as access to the Paramsky rapids. The influx of tourists will certainly increase after the Baikal-Amur Mainline is put into permanent operation and passenger traffic is organized along its entire length from Baikal to Amur. Today, the second Trans-Siberian Railway, as BAM is called, is operating and is constantly gaining momentum.

But in order to develop tourism, we need not only good access, the most important thing is to preserve the crystal clearness of the rivers, the wild beauty of the mountains and taiga. It depends on you and me what we will leave to our descendants.