In the middle of Asia (Saturday 13th of July 2002)
It's early morning and we are in Kyzyl, a capital of the Republic of Tuva. It is said that Kyzyl is the center of Asia - of course only in terms of geography.
We have just received great news: Premek Rabas stays near a stork nest which he found about 200 kilometers from Novosibirsk. We hesitated whether to turn north and go to Novosibirsk across Krasnoyarsk. Anyway, we decided to stay in Tuva for just one more day as ornithologist Stachajev showed us photos of rock nests yesterday an outlined the way there. The trouble is that the Mongolian boundary is very close and that sakers nest at the same rocks whose hatches are usually stolen out by profit-seeking individuals for Arabian traders. To say it shortly: we cannot catch the storks without local authorities' agreement. But to mark the storks in Tuva is very attracting