The Steppe (draft)

Kazakh Steppe around Baikonur, as we discover it on our commuting trips every day from hotel sputnik to the MIK in the cosmodrome always offers a wide range of extremely beautiful landscapes.

Light at Dusk and dawn makes the landscapes simply amazing.

Sun rise on the steppe when arriving at the MIK in the morning (ca 09:00 am)



The steppe during day light (observation point for Launch pad #109)


A young dog used to live in the steppe


...and likely his or her mother few meters away.


Sun set on the steppe when leaving the MIK (ca 18:00)



A. Tchekhov's novel "the Steppe" - or the story of a trip, describes the fascination of the Russian writer for that kind of desert land. In this novel, partly autobiographic, A. Tchekhov is the young Iegorushka on the horse pulled carriage traveling together with his uncle Kouzmitchov (a wool trader) and Father Khristofor an orthodox priest. Another interesting character is Deniska the carriage coachman.

The young Iegorushka leaves home for the first time for going to high school in a larger city. It is mid summer time. The kid is a bit afraid by this adventure but he is also amazed by this trip so that he will remember it all his life long.

The Steppe is one of the first Tchekhov's novel (published in 1888) after he revisited ca 1887 the country of his childhood around Taganrog on the North East side of the Black Sea where he was born. The Novel is a sequence of sections describing a trip through the steppe likely between Tangarog and Rostov (?). It is also a sequence of beautiful paintings depicting the variety of the steppe: Fauna, storm, overnight in the Jewish inn, churches and villages, nomads, wool traders, legends... A. Tchekhov himself, very proud of this work, would have said "it is my master piece".

He describes with lot of emotion the beauty of these changing landscapes. He also says that there are no better places than the steppe to observe the starry sky at night.

to be continued...