The Altai Mountains are both a practical destination and an imagined escape in Eduard Limonov’s story: a remote landscape where a rumored National Bolshevik training camp proves unreal, but where a modest cabin and an encounter with a local guide briefly offer a different way of living. In the summer of 2000, Limonov travels into the mountains with four of his men, ostensibly combining reconnaissance near Kazakhstan with a survival course. The trip carries political expectations, yet its most consequential discoveries are personal and elemental: the discipline of the wilderness, the knowledge of Zolotarev, and the possibility of staying through winter.

Setting and Scale

The account places the Altai region beside Kazakhstan and emphasizes its immense distance from the seas. It describes the area as the most landlocked location in the world, far from and equidistant to the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, and Arctic oceans. The surrounding territories are said to be five times larger than France. The landscape is evoked through high plateaus, tall grass pressed flat by the wind, and a sparse population: vast expanses beneath an immense sky, with almost no one in them. This remoteness is not incidental scenery. It makes the region plausible as a secluded base and gives the journey the character of an exit from Moscow’s political density.

Limonov’s decision to go comes after Moscow has begun to feel oppressive and political complications have worn him down. He imagines that Central Asia might offer fresher air and open space, then joins two aims in a single expedition: investigating the possibility of destabilizing Kazakhstan and undertaking a Rambo-like survival course in the Altai Mountains. The narrator compares this ostensibly restorative vacation to Joseph Stalin’s holidays in Abkhazia, where the leader appeared in military clothes among men dressed much like him. The comparison sharpens the contrast between ordinary leisure and Limonov’s conception of a break: even away from the city, he approaches rest through expedition, discipline, and political purpose.

The Proposed Camp and the Cabin

The National Bolshevik Party has acquired a legend that Limonov has already established several secret training camps modeled on those of jihadists in Pakistan. He does not dispel the rumors, but the account explicitly distinguishes reputation from fact: at this point, no camps exist. The group’s search in the Altai is therefore an exploration of a possible site, not a visit to an operational camp. Zolotarev, their taciturn guide, has identified a secluded location in the southern mountains that might serve as a retreat and training ground.

Their destination lies at the end of a road, six miles from the nearest village; traversing those miles takes almost an hour. There they find a log cabin with a half-caved-in roof and windows covered in plastic. It has two rooms, four beds, and a stove that seems to work. The travelers unload sleeping bags and provisions and settle in; at night they eat beneath the stars. The shelter is rudimentary, not a concealed military compound. Its smallness and isolation make the gap between the party’s camp mythology and the actual place tangible: this is a cabin from which a camp might be imagined, but whose immediate reality is weather, basic supplies, and the people staying in it.

Three Weeks in the Mountains

Limonov spends three weeks at the cabin. Alongside hunting and gathering, the men practice shooting and close combat, and no one disturbs them. The narrator marks the change in Limonov as a discovery: a man shaped by concrete urban life encounters a world he had not known. The account deliberately passes quickly over the conventional wilderness inventory of rivers, campfires, grasses, mushrooms, and animal tracks, while lingering instead on the change in Limonov’s relation to the place and to its guide. The mountains are not made into a catalogue of scenic attractions; their importance lies in the experiences and capacities they disclose.

The cabin is thus neither merely a political outpost nor simply a picturesque retreat. Its routine joins physical practice to dependence on the surrounding land. The men hunt and gather as well as train, while the remoteness that makes them difficult to reach also means they must prepare for the coming cold. The expedition’s practical conditions gradually give the place a longer horizon than a brief field trip: by the end of the summer, the group is considering a winter stay cut off from the outside world.

Zolotarev and the Banya

In the city, Zolotarev had struck Limonov as a provincial hippie with dirty hair and a bandanna, given to vague talk of energy and karma. In the mountains, the guide’s knowledge becomes concrete. Limonov finds him meditating in the lotus position toward the rising sun; within days, the initial amusement gives way to a sense of calm and positive force. Zolotarev takes him fishing in mountain streams, shows him how to gut and cook the catch, and helps him choose herbs and berries. Limonov is impressed not only by what his guide knows, but by his ease in the natural world. The narrator compares Limonov, in Zolotarev’s presence, to an over-civilized traveler beside the Mongol trapper Dersu Uzala: a figure whose modest appearance conceals strength and mischief, and whom one might otherwise fail to recognize as extraordinary.

The banya beside the cabin becomes a setting for their growing understanding. Limonov is physically able to endure the rudimentary sauna, but ordinarily finds sitting in it a waste of time. For Zolotarev it is nearly a religious ritual, and he draws the impatient visitor into its quiet. After long mountain walks, they spend about an hour drinking vodka in the steam, letting their muscles relax and remaining silent. When Zolotarev recites a saying by his favorite author, Lao-tzu, Limonov no longer finds it ridiculous: “He who knows does not speak. He who speaks does not know.” The mountain setting alters the weight of the words for him. Zolotarev’s reserve, practical knowledge, and calm make him a kind of master, and the relationship becomes one of the journey’s central results.

Winter Plans and the Return

At the beginning of September, cold arrives and icy fog rises from the valley at dawn. The party cuts and stacks wood because three National Bolsheviks are to remain at the cabin for the winter, when snow will make the road impassable. They gather necessities that the landscape cannot provide, including sugar, candles, and nails. The preparations turn the retreat into a deliberate commitment: the men will be isolated, and their provisions must sustain them until the thaw. The narrator likens their inventory to the lists in a Jules Verne novel, recalling the adventure reading shared by Limonov and the narrator in childhood.

Limonov envies the three who will stay. He thinks the winter would be difficult but exhilarating and would gladly remain himself if the party did not require him back in Moscow. The plan is for him to return in April, when the thaw comes, and relieve them. Before leaving for Barnaul, where Zolotarev lives, Limonov tells the guide that he had underestimated him at first and is proud to be his friend. Zolotarev answers that he had been watching Limonov, judged him to have a soul, and liked his men despite not being involved in politics. Limonov offers to bring him a party membership card on his return. The exchange leaves the Altai episode poised between political project and personal attachment: the hoped-for training ground has not yet become a camp, but the mountains have already produced a demanding winter plan and a friendship neither man expected.