Arrival in Barnaul, Altai. Group transfer to our hotel (200 km away). All flights from Moscow land in the morning. We will have a free afternoon to recover and rest. Living conditions are basic here. Altai National Reserve “Lebediniy” occupies thirty-eight thousand hectares (147 square miles). It blends meadows, forests, swamps and one hundred kilometres of the river Katun itself with about seventy inhabited islands. The reserve maintains the ecological balance of the entire region, and it is especially important as a wintering place for whooper swans and other birds, and as a breeding site of elk, roe, badger, rabbit, beaver-rat, beaver, min and Siberian stripped weasel.