Section 10. Sayano-Shushenskoye Reservoir – Sayan Mountain ecology, effect of hydro-electric dam and reservoir on ecology.

Days 23, 24 and 25: (September 3,4 and 5) Visit to Abakan Dam, followed by three-day boat excursion on the reservoir. Overnight at ranger stations or camping. Sayanskii Canyon, Katushka waterfall. Landfalls and short excursions to different ecosystems, wild goats, yaks.

On board the ‘Amyl’, on the Sayano-Shushenskaya Reservoir,
Tuesday, 3 September 2 p.m.

It will be hard to describe my current situation, but I will try. I am sitting on a brightly painted blue wooden bench on the foredeck of a small ship, surrounded by luggage and students. The luggage is piled helter-skelter all around the blue bench, and the students are lounging on and over the luggage, reading, writing or just enjoying the landscape. Jeri is sitting beside me, writing in her diary. The ship is an odd looking craft, like a very tough looking, elongated tugboat. We are sailing southwards along a narrow reservoir that was formed when the dam was built twenty years ago, and the water of the Yenisei was raised by approximately 200 m. If it were not for the roughly six meter dead zone above the current water level all around the shore, one could imagine that it was a natural lake we were cruising on. Above the dead zone, the densely forested hills rise steeply to rounded tops some three to five hundred meter above us, beyond which the Sayan mountains rise to craggy ridges of 1500 to 2500 m altitude. Many of the north-facing slopes are forested, but the south facing ones are alpine steppe and tundra near the top. On some of the higher peaks, I can discern the unique red color of dwarf birch in autumn. In short, the scenery is spectacular. A few minutes ago, we made a brief stop to admire a fine waterfall, and I clambered up the slope to have a look at the forest, and promptly came face to face with two of my favorite plants: Paeonia anomala and Bergenia crassifolia. The Russians call the forest here a mountain taiga, but I prefer to think of it as a north-temperate montane forest. The trees, firs, pines, birch and aspen are indeed the same species as one encounters in the taiga, but the ground vegetation is very different.

The Amyl is normally used for collecting driftwood, i.e. dead, floating trees, of which there are millions in this reservoir. When the reservoir was filled, nobody bothered with first cutting the trees and removing the topsoil. On the steep canyon walls that would of course have been a major job, but given the free labor of the gulag workers and prisoners of war, and the Soviets’ disregard for life, they could have done so. I guess their disregard for the environment was even greater. Now, twenty years later, the trees are still there, but those that stand in the top 100 m are inundated each summer, and then exposed to the air each winter, as the turbines run at top capacity while virtually no water comes down from the mountains. Between decay and the action of ice on the reservoir, the trees are breaking up, and all that driftwood ends up near the dam. This is where the Amyl and her sister ships come in to keep it from clogging up the water flow to the turbines.

We were up at seven this morning, went quickly through our now familiar packing routine, and after a hasty breakfast were ready to leave our Brezhnev era hotel. Our group still has its full complement of travelers, plus a miscellany of new guides and some mysterious hangers-on, who seem to be associated with the Sayano-Shushenskaya Reserve. Our official science guide is still Kostya, and our organizer who makes arrangements for boats and busses and such things is Tatyana. Besides these essential people, we also have Nikolai Ermakov (a botanist), Vladimir (National Parks official), Peppi (a Sikh from New York, travelling on behalf of the Sierra Club), Lena (Peppi’s translator), and Larissa (a tourism person). Nikolai speaks English very well, and is an effective and knowledgeable teacher. The others are totally useless, and merely get underfoot. I suspect that they are having a paid-for vacation, while pretending that they are working.

This morning, before embarking on the Amyl, we made a few stops. The most interesting one was at the Sayano-Shushenskoye dam near Ceremuski, which is a giant, 240 m high concrete arc, 1.2 kilometer wide, blocking off the Yenisei gorge. We had arranged for a visit to see the interior workings of the turbines etc. It was a bit disappointing that our guide was still firmly of the old Soviet school, filling our ears with propaganda, and ignoring questions. Kostya wants to get together with the students tonight for a discussion of the environmental impacts of this dam/reservoir system, to make sure that the propaganda stops at their ears. Knowing Canadian and US students, I am not too worried, but the discussion will be informative and thought provoking.

Still on the ‘Amyl’, Wednesday 4 September – 10:30 a.m.

Just back on board after a ramble up a steep, log-strewn slope. Being on the northern part of the Zapadnyj Sayan range, this area receives considerably more rain than do the previous regions we have seen, and this results in a gorgeous, unique form of taiga forest. It even starts to resemble a temperate rainforest; lichens such as Lobaria and Usnea species form dense epiphytic growths on the conifers, and a deep spongy moss layer covers the ground and older fallen logs. Some of the Pinus sibirica trees are over a meter thick, 40 meter high, and up to 600 years old. At first I questioned the Russians calling this a taiga, but after walking through it, and thinking about it, I think they have a point. In fact, not only the tree species, but also the majority of the ground vegetation is typical of the northern taiga (e.g. Linnaea borealis, Maianthemum bifolium, Dryopteris spp, Calamagrostis obtusata, many mosses and shrubs such as Sorbus sibirica. But some of the typical taiga species are absent; there are no Vaccinium spp, and only a few sedges. Also, there are a few typical montane species, such as the large leaved Cerastium divuricum, and some southern influences, such as Rhododendron. I described this site in some detail because I want to use it as evidence for my argument that it is not very useful to classify plant communities as typical this or typical that, since they come in all gradations from one extreme to another, and change over time.

Based on our general knowledge of the climate of the glacial period and the Asian geomorphology, and a bit of speculation thrown in, it is fair to think of the deep gorges and sheltered slopes of the Sayan and Altai mountains as one of the glacial refugia for most of the species that make up the present forests of northern Eurasia. Similar refugia probably existed in other mountainous areas such as the Balkans and
Manchuria. Of course, this so-called ‘dark taiga’ is only found on a few north-facing slopes. On other, dryer slopes we see a predominance of light coniferous forests dominated by common pine, larch and birch. There is also much more evidence of fire, resulting in stands of trembling aspen and birch, often with an undergrowth of young conifers. We are now heading southwards, and later today, after passing the main mountain range, we will enter a very different ecological zone, essentially Mongolian in character.

We spent last night at a floating ranger station of the reserve, which occupies the eastern shore of the reservoir for about a hundred kilometers. The station consists of two barges with buildings on them. One has a single barn-like building, which has an open area where the students bedded down, and a number of rooms with cots for couples or fussy sleepers. The other barge had a few ramshackle buildings, which houses the staff and what I presumed were family members of the staff, as well as service spaces for generators, equipment etc. I soon discovered that one of those buildings was a functioning sauna. I decided to try it out, and found myself sharing a very small and very hot space with two Russians who were vigorously thrashing themselves with birch branches. Rather halfheartedly I joined in this self-flagellation, but soon decided that the place was so extremely hot that I had to get out. Since some of the Russians had been diving into the water a while ago, I assumed it was a safe thing to do, so I ran across the deck and jumped, only to find myself sharing the water with the floating garbage and sewage of the entire station. After hoisting myself back onto deck, I discovered that the sauna, which I had hoped would sterilize my outside if I returned for another few minutes, had been handed over to the Russian women who indicated very clearly that I was not welcome. So far I do not seem to have suffered any lasting ill effects of my swim.

Still very much on the ‘Amyl’, Wednesday 5 September – 10 a.m.

We are underway again, but not exactly the way we had planned, nor the way we would want to. All further fun for the day has been cancelled; we are now on a medical evacuation mission. After breakfast this morning, one of our passengers, Annabel Richards from Australia, slipped and fell on the just cleaned deck while exiting the ship’s toilet, and gashed her shin to the bone on the sharp metal doorstep. She bled profusely until Ben and I managed to bandage her up. The wound is deep and ugly, so that she is now lying in a cabin, with her leg up, on her way to hospital in Kyzyl. It will be a four-hour boat ride, followed by a one-and-a-half hour ambulance ride. Poor Annabel is trying to keep her spirits up, but she is obviously worried, and keeps saying how sorry she is. Once she gets sewn up, she should be ok. For now, all we can do is give her painkillers; Roger, her husband, is holding her hand and keeping her from worrying too much.

This event has shaken me a bit, as it came only hours after another potentially serious accident. Last night, only minutes after turning off our light and starting to doze off, there was a knock on our door, and I was told that Scott, one of the students had burned his leg in the sauna. Obviously, the Russian women had vacated the sauna and Scott and a few others had gone in. Within minutes, someone accidentally spilled a container of water, which was so hot that it burned Scott’s legs quite badly. I quickly got into my pants, and ran outside, to find Scott swimming among the sewage. He had wisely surmised that his legs were burnt, and that cold water was the best first aid, so in he went. I was immediately worried that he could go into shock if his burns were severe, and would not be able to get out of the water. Furthermore, that exposure to dirty water could cause infection was an unfortunate side effect, which hopefully will not come to pass. When Scott got out of the water he was cold and shivery, but otherwise ok. Kostya produced the expedition’s first aid kit, which to my annoyance contained only a few small bandages, barely enough to cover all the burnt spots. As a result, we are today using bandages for both Scott and Annabel that were brought by various students or travelers. We will soon run out, but hopefully we will be able to get new ones in Kyzyl tomorrow. We better not have any more accidents today.

1:30 p.m.

This morning’s accident has, of course, curtailed our exploration of the transition from a forest-steppe ecology to a scrub desert. We can watch from the deck, as the landscape slides by, but we can not go ashore and look at the details of soil, vegetation and evidence of animal life. All morning the hills and mountains have become drier and drier, the vegetation is now totally devoid of trees, and even grass is getting very thin on the ground. After two days travel on the relatively narrow channel of the Yenisei gorge through the mountains, we are now approaching the end of the 300 km long reservoir. The mountains are lower, more dispersed, and farther away, mere hazy silhouettes. The reservoir is much shallower, spreading out, covering what must have been a broad valley, probably a shallow lake in prehistoric times. We are now in Tuva, and no longer sailing past the reserve. This became quite obvious as the vegetation now shows signs of heavy grazing, and we see occasional herds of sheep and yaks and a few horses as well. On the rocky slopes of the reserve, we saw a lot of wild goats (Capra sibirica), but we have not seen them on this side of the border. At the moment, the views all around are incredibly beautiful. Steep craggy cliffs alternate with gently sloping screes and rolling hills covered in dry steppe or scrub desert vegetation. The distant shores are shimmering in the sunlight, beyond which layer after layer of gradually fainter ridges dwindle into eternity.

Somewhere near Aryg Uzju, on the south shore of the reservoir, 5 p.m.

The Amyl has just dropped us and all our luggage off on a desert shore, and then sailed off into the sunset. Our situation reminds me of the point in Babar’s adventures when the whale drops him and Celeste off on some rock, and never comes back. The late afternoon sun is still warming the west facing slopes, but Jeri and I sit in the shade of a rock, and are starting to feel the cool of the evening. We are here with about half of our group, waiting for a bus, which was to pick us up at 3:30. So far there is no sign of this transport to civilization. The other ship, with the remainder of our group is somewhere on the reservoir, searching for the ambulance to take Annabel to the Kyzyl hospital. I hope they have succeeded in making the connection. On this quiet bit of desert shoreline, the only sound is of little bees and hoverflies, which are interested in our sweat, and every now and then, a large red and black banded grasshopper performs its courtship flight, which sounds like a jazz musician ‘brushing’ a drum. Otherwise, the silence is very noticeable. Some of our little group has gone skinny-dipping some distance from here, while the others are reading or dozing away the time. The hill above us is very steep, and vegetated by a diverse community of typical desert-steppe plants, such as small tufted grasses (e.g. Koeleria cristata and a small species of Stipa), a ground-hugging miniature cinquefoil (Potentilla acaulis), some wormwoods (e.g. Artemisia frigida), a small Euphorb, a miniature yellow Alyssum, several spiny shrubs, and a large number of species of the Chenopod family. The most amazing species here is a small woody plant that looks like the perfect Japanese bonsai conifer, but it is another Chenopod. I managed to find a dead one, and with my pocketknife I slowly cut through the 12 mm thick wooden stem, and will try to establish the number of growth rings. In fact, I gave it to Louise Fillion, who runs the tree ring lab at Laval. If anyone can age a piece of wood, she can.

6:10 p.m.

A small boat with two local Tuvans has just arrived, and Kostya and Nikolai are talking with them. The locals are excited about something, but I sense that it is not related to us. The valley we are in is now in shade, but the upper slope is still starkly lit, and the yellow lichen splattered red sandstone pinnacles that form the top of the ridge, like giant dragons’ teeth, are a wonder to behold. The distant mountains on the other side of the reservoir are highly contrasted, their erosion channels are in deep shade, while the west-facing ridges are still brightly lit. Smooth hills and mountains without forest cover always remind me of shorn sheep, showing their skeletons through their smoothly stretched skins. If our bus doesn’t come soon, we will have to start pitching our tents; darkness will come around 7:30.

Kyzyl, Friday, 6 September 2002 – noon

Upon arrival in this sunny city we were greeted by Annabel and Roger, smiling happily and full of stories of their experiences with the Tuvan medical services. Annabel had her wound sown up with the modern filament that she brought herself in her first aid kit, because all the hospital had was some kind of coarse cotton thread. The doctor loved the Australian filament, and Annabel has promised to send him a big spool of it for his surgery. So, we are all together again, Scott and Annabel with bandaged legs, and Willem well on the mend. We are now in the middle of sightseeing in the capital of Tuva, that is we did the monument to the center of Asia, and are now in a large, new, Buddhist temple. Well, most of us are, but new buildings with little architectural merit do not hold my attention for long, so I am taking a short break in the temple garden to write about last night. Our bus did not arrive until early this morning, but shortly after we pitched our tents, and turned in, we discovered what the locals were so excited about. One poor fellow had either drowned, or died of an alcohol overdose (I have not managed to find out which), and his body had to be transported to his home. It so happened that we were camping on his funeral route. In pitch darkness, but with headlights on full, a large truck arrived, loaded with a cast iron bathtub and a bunch of men. Then after a long wait, with the men smoking and talking loudly, a small boat arrived delivering the corpse, which was carried ashore. It then became clear what was the purpose of the bathtub: it was the coffin, and the truck was the hearse. The entire happening was like out of a Fellini film, quite out of this world. With the engine roaring, and lots of shouts, the funeral procession departed, and silence returned to our campsite.