Most images are approximately 768 x 1024 pixels in size, numbers in front of the picture descriptions are serial numbers of the original photo files. The photos show the participants of the caving expedition Chul-Bair 2024, organized by the Ural Speleological Association (ASU): Jaroslav Rogalski, Dmitrij Čeredničenko - Dima, Marija Studenikina - Maša, Aleksandr Kuznecov - Saša, Dar'ja Krasnojarova - Daša, Nikolaj Južakov - Kolja and people from Dehibolo - Sadik, his son Ali, Džavahir and Azadbek.
Page, texts and photos copyright (c) Primož Jakopin - Klok 2024.
54127. The view to the west from the highest point of the road that leads from Kurganča to Dehibolo, at the first dawn, at five in the morning, when the off-road truck was supposed to take the Chul-Bair 2024 expedition from this place to Boysun. The truck was there on time, but empty, deserted. We left at six.
54128. All the luggage had to be brought from Sadik's house, situated downhill, some 150 meters to the east. Here is the heavily loaded Jaroslav ...
54129. ... and an even more burdened Dima.
54133. View of by far the strongest spring in the vicinity of Dehibolo, a little above the bed of the rivulet that flows below the village towards the southeast, to the Oltinsoy plain.
54130. Maša, Saša and Daša at the spring pool
54131. View from the spring to the southeast, to the end of the gorge
54132. Kolja, Daša and Dima
54135. The view from the road above Kurganča towards the east, towards the Chul-Bair ridge, where Dehibolo is hidden (upper right), with the first sun rays peeking through the clouds.
54138. We made a stop at the old cemetery on the pass where the road begins to descend towards Boysun. Sadik is in the photo.
54136. Ali, son of Sadik
54137. Džavahir and Ali
54139. Azadbek, the truck driver
54140. Blinding sun above the ridge to the east
54149. Decorative ceramic tile with a star-shaped geometric pattern, 6 x 7.5 cm, a souvenir from the airport in Samarkand, acquired before the departure of the plane
54150. Round ceramic plate, white-red-green-blue ornamented with brown dots, diameter 9.5 cm
54151. A similar plate of the same size, in white-red-dark green-light green tones
54152. Metal plate, 7.5 cm in diameter, hammered brass, with Arabic ecclesiastical lettering
54142. Clouds over the Caucasus...
54144. ... and over the Black Sea
54229. The writer of these lines did not know for a long time whether he would go on this journey or not, and therefore only bought a flight ticket Ljubljana-Constantinople-Samarkand and back on July 12. For the return day, August 20, the Constantinople-Ljubljana flight was almost full and therefore the price of the return flight was four times more expensive (1,700 euros). There was no other solution but to spend the night in Constantinople and return on the morning of August 21, at an acceptable price. There is a decent hotel at the airport, Yotel, but the price of a room has jumped from 200 euros to 439 euros since 2023, with the limitation that the guest can only occupy the room at six in the afternoon. So the only option was, with a heavy backpack of personal luggage on the shoulder, to look for a place to stay in the city. At the same time the longtime desire could be fulfilled, to make a purchase, which is no longer possible at home, in a store. A low enameled kitchen pot for milk or cooking porridge with a lid (an example is shown in the photo) has always been a regular in our kitchen, and every few years the enamel on the bottom rubs off so much that a new pot has to be bought. It was never a problem until 2024, but things change, often to the worse. Each year, retailers try to sell only products that are more expensive, and discard more affordable standard ware. Super stainless fancy-shmancy pots galore, while a standard pot with bright enamel inside so you can see when it's rubbed (what not immediately visible with black enamel), is nowhere, really nowhere to be seen. At the airport, general opinion was that you can get just about anything at Eminonu Bazaar and, certainly, such pots as well. It all worked fine with a hotel, for 65 euros, right near Taksim Square, where there is a bus from the airport, even at night, but things were a little more complicated with the pot.
54145. Taksim Square, the heart of modern Constantinople. It's an hour's walk to the bazaar, much less by bus, about ten stops. All you have to do is buy a bus card (just under five euros), available in every shop, and put a few euros of credit on it. The locals are friendly, not really enthusiastic about English or Russian, but sooner or later a kind soul pops up and offers the tourist a good advice.
54147. New Mosque, on the south side of Galata Bridge, and right next to Eminonu Bazaar.
54148. View to the north across the Golden Horn Bay, known from the famous Slovenian novel Under the Free Sun, when Constantinople was still Byzantium, a window into the world for Slovenian Great Grandfathers.
54153. Ceramic plate with a diameter of 7.5 cm, with the motif of the Turkish eye or nazar, a talisman that protects against the evil eye.
54230. In the bazaar there was an abundance of metal plates, from aluminum of all sizes and purposes at very affordable prices, to copper and brass with national patterns, and the latest stainless models. The enameled puts were in extremely short supply, and only coffee pots and jugs. Not a single low pot with a lid. To save the day the author purchased these three stainless, very light plates with a diameter of 17 cm, which would be most useful on Chul-Bair, they were to be had at one and a half euros each.
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*For greater accuracy the cyrillic names in this report were romanized according to the Scientific transliteration of Cyrillic with the pronunciation of the main additional characters as: č = ch, š = sh, ž = zh, y = hard i, j = y, ë = yo, u = oo - i. e. Dmitrij Čeredničenko = Dmitriy Cherednichenko.
Dehibolo, August 18, 2024
Lanski vrh, August 22, 2024
This page, text and photos by Primož Jakopin,
member of the Ljubljana Cave Exploration Society (DZRJL).
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