Final Days: The Naadam Festival and UlaanBaatar

Karen and Helge end their journey in UlaanBaatar, the capital of Mongolia, where they witness the extraordinary Naadam Festival.

There was an army of women enrobed in the most beautiful outfits I have ever seen. Representing historical national dress from different provinces, they took center field walking slowly and proudly in their glorious garb. Fox and sable fur trim and hats adorned many outfits. Long robes in earthen colors of finely embroidered silk with capes and beads, headdresses and towering hats slithered by no more than ten feet away from us. There was so much detail and variety in the wardrobe feast, it's quite impossible to describe. Mongolian nobility, they were absolutely breathtaking and they ushered in the beginning of the games.

There was silence in the crowd, then crazy cheering as a live, big-screen view showed the first two-year-old horse, or "Azarga," crossing the finish line. Horse races are determined by the age of the horse and the age determines the distance to be run: anywhere from 10 km for a one year old, all the way to 33 km for six-year-olds. Horses of the same age run together, all ridden by children, some as young as five or six.

The festival's vibrancy catches Karen by surprise, and she finds herself accepting a grain of wisdom about life from a 15 year old girl who tells Karen, after Karen has watched a horse die, that "the living of life teaches about life."

With this grain of truth in Karen and Helge's hands, their journey along the legendary Trans-Siberian route ends and Karen muses that her trip has truly been about "the living of life."

Day 10: Ulan Ude and the Old Believers Village

Helge and Karen stop in the "rolling hills of Siberia" to experience lunch at an Old Believer's village.

There are some 200,000 Old Believers living in Siberia; their forefathers settled here around 1765. According to our guidebook, the Old Believers are an Orthodox Christian sect who fled persecution from the doctrinal reforms of their church in the 17th century. In doing so, they avoided imprisonment, forced labor, execution and being burned alive. Some settled in the U.S., Canada, Brazil and even Australia while others, thanks to Catherine the Great and her religious tolerance reforms, settled in Siberia. Safe in their isolated communities, they've managed to preserve their culture. In 2001, they were recognized by UNESCO as one of 19 original "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity."

Karen finds the group welcoming and hospitable, and the travelers enjoy an organic meal of local favorites while being treated to the singing and musicianship that the Old Believers are famous for.

Karen and Helge then departed Russia and are making their way toward UlaanBaatar, Mognolia's capital, aboard the Golden Eagle Trans-Siberian Express.

Continue to follow along on their adventure across this legendary journey or take a look back on the 3,485 miles they've traveled so far!

Days 8-9: Lake Baikal and Irkutsk

Karen and Helge's Trans-Siberian adventure continues as Karen comes up with a new name for the famed Lake Baikal nerpa (seal): "Little Piggies"! At Lake Baikal, they have a "delicious lakeside BBQ" and Helge takes a dunk in the chilly lake.

Then, they travel on to take in the breadth of history represented in Irkutsk, contemplating the failed Decembrist's revolution and the exile to Siberia endured by its organizers and the beauty that some were able to find after the ugliness of their sentencing:

We toured one such place, Maria Volkonsky's House. Maria was the wife of a Decembrist, who along with other army officers, comprised a group of Russia's first revolutionaries. On December 26, 1825 the Decembrists tried to overthrow the government but failed. Some were hanged, while others were permanently exiled to Siberia. Some wives, wishing to stay with their husbands, decided to follow them into exile. As a result, these women, stemming from nobility, lost all rights, property, and possessions and traveled east into Siberia. Reduced in status to that of an exiled prisoner's wife, they even had to forfeit their children, leaving them with family who remained in eastern Russia. While they waited X number of years for their husbands to complete their sentence of hard labor, they built homes and got on with life. Maria Volkonsky's house was gorgeous.

After, they experience a private concert, a bell-ringing ceremony, and a champagne toast all on the legendary trans-siberian train trip.

Days 5-7: Ekaterinburg and Novosibirsk

Helge and Karen have now traveled over 2,000 miles in their journey across Russia. The photos and slideshows from Day 4 and Day 5 have been posted and the train has crossed from Europe into Asia. In between enjoying their luxurious accommodation, MIR's Trans-Siberian live blogging team has been exploring Russia's long and storied history with lectures from MIR guides and excursions to historically important sites. Karen weighs in on one such site:

With his thick Russian accent, our guide Alexander came to life as we toured at the Cathedral on the Blood and Czar murder site. A merchant's house used to stand there... the cellar was the place where the family took their last breaths. The house has long been torn down, and now a gorgeous church stands in its place, marking the historical legacy of Ekaterinburg.

In Novosibirsk, Helge snapped shots of the many locomotive cars produced throughout Russia's history, and Karen mused about what heroics must have gone on in the medical cars of the Russian trains.

Stayed tuned as Karen and Helge wind their way around Lake Baikal and enjoy a lakeside barbecue.

For more information on this or any other tour, visit MIR's website.

Days 3-4: Moscow to Kazan

Helge and Karen's train has reached Kazan, and they've sent two more blog updates from their journey!

Karen describes her encounter with a birch branch in a traditional Russian banya before she and Helge head to Novodevechy Monastery and Cemetery where they visit the graves of Stalin's wife, Boris Yeltsin and other famous Russians.

After boarding the train, Karen learns about the history of the Tatars as they approach Kazan, and why "Ivan the Terrible was a big baby."

Like a petulant child throwing a tantrum over a toy, he stomped his way to Kazan, a beautiful city perched on the banks of the Volga River. When Ivan arrived with his troops in 1552, he set to work destroying all the gorgeous mosques that dotted the landscape, conquering the city and forcing the local Tatar population into swampy, disease-infested areas of Kazan.

But the Tatars were a hardy bunch. Sprouted from tough Mongolian and Bulgarian roots, the Tatars resisted the Russian conquest, and continued to pray in their homes. And just to make double sure that cranky Ivan didn't seize any more than he already had, they tossed all their treasures and jewels into Lake Kaban for good measure. Take their mosques AND their money? No way.

After many years of suffering under the sledgehammer of Russian rule and during the rein of Catherine the Great, religious tolerance once again flourished and mosques were rebuilt. Today we visited one such jewel and newest construction, the Qol Sharif mosque.

For pictures of the Qol Sharif Mosque, slideshows of Karen and Helge's travels and information about the legendary Trans-Siberian Express, visit MIR's website.

First Stop: Moscow

Read the first installment of Helge and Karen's blog and see the stunning pictures as they arrive in Moscow and have an adventure in the city across 8 lanes of traffic:

Traffic whizzes by just inches behind and in front of us. Can't go forward. Can't go back. Can't go forward... until Tatiana spots a lull in oncoming traffic and we make a break for it. Whew! We lurch safely to the other side of the highway, sweating just a little. I rather liked the excitement of it all. But here's the kicker. Climbing to the top of the River Road bridge amidst spectacular views of the city, Tatiana cautions against my going overboard as I sit along the wide edge of the cement bridge, ready for a photo op. She's not particularly worried about whether or not I would survive the 120 foot drop. Instead, she's worried that IF I were to fall... "the water is dirty... very, very dirty" she says. I had to laugh. Putting the dreaded River Road highway aside, sweet Tatiana IS looking out for our best interest after all.

Helge and Karen are now aboard the legendary Trans-Siberian railway and will be reporting back with posts from across Russia and Mongolia.

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Helge Pedersen and Karen Ofsthus set to start Trans-Siberian Journey!

Join Helge and Karen as they chronicle the legendary trip from Moscow to UlaanBaatar, Mongolia. Check back daily for new updates and photos.