The town Kosh-Agach, situated in Altai republic, was founded by Russian merchants in the far 1820 for trading with the Asian countries. It was the last Russian trade putlet on the path to Mongolia and China, and in the 1880s it even became the Part of China for some time. Now it is the biggest settlement of Altai and the driest inhabited place in Russian Federation. Also it is one of a few places in Russia where people breed camels.
Buy the way, most of the population of the town are Kazakhs, so it’s not a secret that Russia is a multicultural state.
On some pictures you can see the rain – very rare phenomenon for this place.
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Some private DVD shop.
A kindergarten.
“Car spare parts”.
A hotel.
Flour sale.
Most of the roofs are flat, because there are almost no rains.
Wooden play field for soccer.
Board of fame. Like in the Soviet times.
Another play field.
World War 2 memorial.
A mosque.
A bakery?
Welcome to Kosh-Agach.
From left to right: “Insurance company”, “Sports shop”, “Car spare parts”.
Lenin is eternal! 
The school is the highest building in the whole town. This region is seismically active.
A savings bank.
The only one apartment house in the town.
The main street.
The Kosh-Agach Region.
The tax inspectorate.
The Treasury.
via lindberg
Aw, lovely Kosh-Agach. I remember it well. OK, full disclosure: never heard of it until I read it here in the digital pages of EnglishRussia.com.
Interesting that there is water in most all of the pictures of this incredibly dry Russian town: puddles, falling rain, or clouds hanging heavy with the rain for which we Californian’s would die.
Aw, well, all a matter of perception, am I right?
And speaking of perception, what’s YOUR perception of the state of theme parks, amusement parks, water parks, and funky out-of-the-house entertainment in “The Union Formerly Known As Soviet?” DeScope — A Cranky Journal of Themed Design and Development (http://www.descope.com) is planning a new issue (after a long, LONG dry spell of its own, speaking of dry), and we’d welcome someone to tell us about what’s going on. For that mater, what did a hip family do ‘back in the day” when they wanted the CCCP version of a day at Disneyland? Anyone got any pictures of current or — better — now gone theme or amusement parks in Russia and the surrounding world?
Hope to hear from you!
– E “Eddy” Edwards
DeScope — A Cranky Journal of Theme Design and Development
DeScope.com
e.eddy.edwards@descope.com
Check out the answer below.
Not really a matter of perception eddy, just that other Russian towns are much much wetter!
Excellent selection of pictures =)
Nice landscape but the town is a real dump!And wheres all the camels???? Heres another nice one and I quote”The school is the highest building in the whole town. This region is seismically active.” Classic!If it would be prone to flash flooding would we build the school right next to the river bank or down in the canyon?
Why you be mean to me??
Maybe it’s not you. I’m not sure if you are THAT IGOR. No worries..
Besides, you are Igor and not IGOR.
Nice Opel Corsa (13 pictures down)!
I too found it odd that the driest place in Russia has such heavy cloud cover. Unless, all of the pictures were taken in close proximity of each other, which very well could be the case).
why you write between the pictures “A Kindergarten”? it was german language..
greez from switzerland
Kindergarten is one of the (relatively) few words that English borrowed from German. There are also lots of borrowings from German in Russian, but Kindergarten is not on of them.
I have heard that russians also know “Schlagbaum”
Was ne Schranke is wissen die ollen Russen auch *g*
Where are all of the people? It looks very desolate.
Kosh-Agach ist definitely not in the middle of nowhere.
I’ve been there in 2006, it is the last town before the Mongolian border, the last one is Taszanta… when you go up the Altai Mountains from Novosibirsk, you might think to be in the Schwarzwald, Germany. Signs for heliskiing, souvenir stalls, facloneers… once you get higher into the mountains, the traffic suddenly ebbs, no more tourist cars and one of the most beautiful roads in the world – comparable to Norway. Once you cross the pass, you fell that you are in Asia, no more caucasian faces there.
Though it is quite dry there, the town lies at the banks of a river coming down from the Altai mountains. Just cross the border and you see only mongolian tent camps, sometimes with fences as windshields, nothing more. Still the people there are more friendly and welcoming there than I have seen anywhere in Europe.
So long, if you would like to go there some time, go to http://www.silk-road-rallye.de/en (shameless self promotion
Stefan
I always thought Tuva was the most far inland place on earth.. Excellent gallery this post. The Altai region, not much has changed there for the last 100 years. And traffic is still low judging from the pictures.
I guess all the people are chasing the camels somewhere ?
What a scum hole
I have found some information about Kosh-Agach on some Russian website. Some of the excerpts (translated) are below.
Kosh-Agach means Two Trees, but if there were any trees there, they are not there anymore.
This is the biggest village in the southeast region of the Altay republic.
The weather is usually sunny and warm, with very little precipitation.
There are several hotels in the village, quite a few stores and cafeterias, and a few small bazaars. There’s also a gas station and a small airport with a single runway, which is not in service since the 90’s.
Kosh-Agach is only 50km from the Mongolian border.
Now I’m thinking, there’s something terribly wrong with people who make pictures of all these fascinating places. Stores? Cafeterias? Bazaars? Where are they on the pictures? One thing I would definitely want to see is what kind of food do they have there. There’s this thing about Russians (I mean ethnic Russians), they know zip about culinary, they have absolutely no taste buds on their palates, and they have no interest whatsoever in other cuisines but their own (if you can even call what Russians eat a cuisine). I am an ethnic Russian myself, but I love all kinds of food (my wife tells me that I look a bit like Chinese sometimes, so this could be the reason..). Anyway, what a beautiful place! I would definitely like to visit. They also say that the steppe there (Chu steppe) is like a fine road that you can drive on in any direction, although to travel towards the Mongolian border, you will need a written permission from the authorities.
Good post. That is funny commentary.
в Тыве если не ошибаюсь Путин на днях зажыгал с президентом Монако
Не, не с президентом, с прынцем Монако.
Wonderful photos! More of this please!!!
pic number 24 is actually a barber store (where they cut your hair don’t know if i sad it right)….and on pic number 8 you can see on the signs ‘Novosibirsk 663 km” pretty far away from first big city.
Wow. Just wow. I’ve been to Siberia, and I’ve been to Oman and the UAE, and this place looks like a complete mix of both.
Where are the people?
Damn, i love these wooden houses, russia got so damn much history, i’d love to just travel to each one of these citys one day.. damn russia is cooler than i thaught.
Greetings from Sweden
how do you know that they r poor. many people in the village are richer than the city one only they did not realize it. always lament over us city people, the village people had their own house, many lands and even livestocks animals that cost much money.thing is they just do not know how to spend on luxuries or just refuse?, just keep their money in bank or under their bed and then die for others to enjoy it. their children of course.if the children is smart enough to manage it or just continued with family tradition then.
Excellent photo-report of real life.