By Alissa de Carbonnel

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Irate holidaymakers beat up Aeroflot staff at a Moscow airport on Tuesday as thousands were stranded with little food or information, after icy rain and blackouts disrupted traffic for a third straight day.
At Sheremetyevo where Russia’s flagship carrier is based, Aeroflot personnel were now scared of dealing with agitated passengers, saying the airport did not have enough security guards, state-run RIA quoted an airline employee as saying.
Police told Reuters they were not involved in the reported violence at Sheremetyevo and declined to comment.
On Monday a group of passengers stormed passport control at Moscow’s Domodedovo, Russia’s biggest airport, where OMON riot police have since been dispatched.
“People are desperate. Fights have broken out. It feels like there is no air in here,” one woman at Domodedovo told Vesti 24 television on Tuesday.
Russia’s transport minister issued blistering criticism of the management of the country’s largest airport, Domodedovo, saying it should have shut because of the power cuts instead of keeping passengers hostage waiting for their flights.
“Here is a question for the airport’s management — why did they keep receiving passengers?” Igor Levitin was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying.
“After the lights went out, they should have shut!”
Prosecutors launched a probe on Tuesday into the widespread delays at the Russian capital’s two main airports.
Only 150 flights took off overnight at Domodedovo, which typically runs some 700 flights a day, after freezing rain snapped power lines leaving it in the dark for more than 10 hours over the weekend.
Arrival and departure information boards were almost all red, warning of delays and cancellations as passengers slept on baggage conveyor belts and departure hall floors.
Russia’s aviation agency chief Alexander Neradko said in televised comments that it would take another two to three days to normalise transport at Domodedovo and that priority was being given to passengers stuck since Sunday.
Shortages of de-icing fluid at Moscow’s second airport, Sheremetyevo, grounded about half its flights.
Other Moscow airports have also seen traffic severely cut after freezing rain coated the city in a thick sheet of ice, and health officials advised Russians to stay at home. Heavy snow and sub-zero temperatures are typical fare for Moscow’s airports but the weekend downpour of freezing rain was unusual.
The Russian Tourism Association said some 20,000 passengers have had their flights delayed, though airport authorities say the number is in the low thousands.
Exasperated passengers told Ekho Moskvye radio that restaurants had hiked their prices, with bottles of water selling for up to 500 roubles ($16).
Domodedovo handled nearly 19 million passengers last year, while Sheremetyevo handled almost 15 million. Domodedovo plans a stock market flotation in 2011 and could raise up to $1 billion (645 million pounds), financial sources told Reuters in November.
(Editing by Louise Ireland)

 Deep in the heart of the Siberian wilderness, covered by impassable taiga forests and high mountain peaks, Altai is one of the top attractions of the Russian wilderness, and an incredible place for outdoor adventures from rafting, hiking and mountain climbing to fishing, horse-riding and many others. Altai is second to none in the beauty of its landscapes, and in diversity of its attractions. A flowery fragrance of Alpine meadows; grasses along the icy mountain streams; the famous Altai honey; the nomadic stone idols and Rerich’s trails; the settlements of the “old believers”, the Siberian shamans…

 

 Discover the high mountain glaciers, where during the summer snowfall is higher than in winter, deserted steppe, dense Siberian taiga, meet pastured camels on the valley floor and gather a basket of ripe cedar-cones amidst the lofty forests during your horseback riding tour across the Altai mountains. Discover the most spectacular adventure destinations of Altai: Mount Belukha, Teletskoye Lake, Denisov Cave and Plateau Ukok .

The mount Belukha. The Altai is the highest mountain range in Siberia and includes the regions highest peak, Mount Belukha, which stands at 14540 feet. Belukha attracts with some inexplicable magnetism, people called it “the cradle of the future civilizations” and believe that this place is the hub of the universe. Belukha is surrounded by glaciers from all sides. It terrifies the locals with avalanches and landslides because of the frequent micro earthquakes. It is the character of many legends and myths,locals were afraid to look at it and believed that anyone who ascends its slopes would become blind. And now we have an explanation for it - the mountaineers of the time didn’t wear sunglasses!

Reserves. There are two big reserves in Altai - Altaisky and Katunsky, which are registered by UNESCO in its list of the World Heritage of Mankind. It’s amazing that there are 1190 lakes in the reserve from the smallest, that are not marked on the map, to big like Dzhulukul, and the biggest like Teletskoye.

The Teletskoye Lake attracts tourists for its stunning and mighty beauty, The name of the lake comes from the name of the tribe Telesy, who lived on it banks. In Altaian it is called Altyn-Kol (Golden Lake) - according to legend at the times of the great starvation in Altai a poor man found a bar of gold the size of a bulls head , but he couldn’t buy anything with it, when he has lost all hope he plunged into the water of Altyn-Kol with it. Since that time the waters of the lake are considered to be gold-bearing. Only very brave tourists can risk dipping into these waters because the lake remains cold even during the hottest days. The lake is so clear that if you stand on the ice in winter and take off the snow from the surface you may see the bottom of the lake through the ice. During the day the lake changes its face - in the morning it is crimson, at midday it is blue, in twilight it is black, in moonlight it seems to be golden justifying its Altaian name.

Ulalinsky mellow bank. In 1961 the famous Russian archeologist found under the old town cemetery one of the most ancient archeological objects of the Stone Age in Siberia - Ulalinskaya stop. It was one of the greatest discoveries of XX century!

The Denisov Cave. Not far from the village Black Anuj in the Ust-Kansky region, in the steep bank over the Anuj river in 1982 archeologists discovered the Denisov cave - this unique archeological monument, the place of habitation of ancient man. People lived in this cave 300 thousand years ago, and 20 sediment layers show us the different epochs of the human development.

The plateau Ukok and “The Ukok Princess”. The plateau Ukok is one of the most remote natural objects in the south of Republic Altai. On borders of plateau pass frontiers of Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan. At the end of the last century, in one of plateau barrows, archeologists had found a mummy of the young woman not less than 2 500 years old, she’s got the second name - the Ukok Princess. This discovery provoked the wave of interest to the Plateau all over the world, but since the Princess was taken out of her place and carried to museums, Her spirit was outraged. Local people believe that all cataclysms now happening at the Altai are excited by the Princess’s spirit and as soon as she come back Home a tranquil life in Altai will return again …

 

 

 

 

 

 

DiscoverRus Travel Club and Russian Railway Tours exclusively present Trans-Siberian Voyage via private train “Alexander Nevsky”. Undisputedly the world’s greatest railway journey, the Trans-Siberian Railway runs from Moscow over the Urals, across the magnificent Russian steppes and alongside the shores of the world’s largest freshwater lake. Through the territory of Soviet Russia and the land of the Tatars, across the Steppes and on to China and Japan, the Trans-Siberian express takes from nine to ten days to complete its journey. Russia’s Trans-Siberian Railway is the longest continuous rail line on Earth, that runs in an epic journey of almost six thousand miles over one third of the globe. The Trans-Siberian line runs from Moscow to Vladivostok, passing through Yaroslavl on the Volga, Yekaterinburg in the Urals, Irkutsk near scenic Lake Baikal’s southern extremity, and then Khabarovsk. Just sit back andenjoy the trip!