Discussion: Orienteering Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan & Uzbekistan

Hi all,
My partner and I are planning a big trip from Europe to Australia. We will do this without flying, relying only on trains, buses, cars, boats and maybe the occasional tuk tuk. As orienteers we are quite keen to go orienteering in the countries we pass through. If anyone knows of orienteering events (or even just some fun maps) in the following countries can you please let us know. Thanks!

Finland, Helsinki: 16-17 July
Estonia, Tallinn & Tartu: 17-21 July
Latvia: 22-24 July
Russia: St Petersburg (25 July -2 August), Moscow (2-4 August)
Kazakhstan: early-mid August
Uzbekistan: mid-late August
Kyrgyzstan: late August - mid September
China: mid-September - mid October
Vietnam: mid-October
Laos: mid-October
Thailand: mid-October
Malaysia: mid-October
Singapore: mid-late October
Indonesia: late-October

You may think of attending the World Rogaining Championships, which are south of St. Petersburg and west of Moscow. The event is not sold out. There are unlikely to be major or even semi-major O-events on the same weekend since most of their organizers will be at the rogaine.

And other opportunities:
July, 17-22 Russian Masters Orienteering Championships - Smolensk region (somewhere between Latvia and Moscow)
One local o-meet in St Petersburg on July, 28
St Petersburg Orienteering Federation calendar (in Russian):
http://o-site.spb.ru/calend/calend_leto_2013.htm
Two local o-meets in Moscow on August 1 and 6.
Moscow Orienteering Federation calendar (in Russian):
http://moscompass.ru/kp/
Not sure about orienteering in Central Asia on August because of extremely high temperature.
My opinion, now is doubtful condition for the visit to Uzbekistan, maybe later.

Park World Tour Travel http://www.pwt.no go to all sorts of exotic destinations and make maps for their tour parties to orienteer on.

I'm sure they've been to all your destinations so they might be worth contacting.

Our local leisure orienteering calendar:
http://suunnistavauusimaa.fi/wp/wp-content/uploads...
You can just show up there and buy a map and get to run.

17.7 Puolarmaari. A head cam video from a forest sprint training sprting 2012:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EYv0lRuntk

Thank you for your helpful responses. I should have added that yes, we are going to the World Rogaining Championships. Directly after this we will be in St Petersburg.

The APOC 2004 middle and long areas in Kazakhstan are pretty special areas to run on whether there is an event or not - think Flinders Ranges forest with complex granite - but they're about 100km out of Ust-Kamenogorsk and would be hard to access independently, I suspect.

Second Blair. My maps from that awesome event are still online at the link below if you are interested. Click and search for "May 2004" and look for the KZ flag. BTW, Ust-Kamenogorsk is a cool place in its own right. YMMV, of course.

http://www.mapsurfer.com/ol/ol_map.html

Of course, I can't easily give directions as to how to get to these maps, but my understanding is that the local scene may be still active, so a bit of googling may get you in touch with the right people. Good luck!

Rental cars work very well in Russia nowdays. Can't provide firsthand info for KZ.

Singapore has no orienteering, and it is virtually impossible to get maps with details that are not 50 yrs old - government very protective, and those in the army who have learned some orienteering while doing their service may not keep them or make copies. But they have an abundance of Hash Houses, the best actually being (in my view) is the kids' Hash House Horrors.
In terms of China you may want to check with Natalia Fey (on FB), as far as I know they are still in Zhejiang, Carl Fey at that university.

Rental cars work very well in Russia nowdays

True. Just choose the right
one

That's awesome.

The PWT Travel link referenced earlier is certainly the place to go for more information about some of those destinations!

They actually organized a tour to the countries in "Langtvekkistan" (basically Faraway-istan) mentioned in your question last May.

A great reference for maps and stories from the whole world is Norwegian orienteer Trond Rönneberg. His map archive covers an amazing number of maps from distant countries and is sometimes accompanied by stories in his blog (in Norwegian, but there´s always Google Translate).

PS. There are National Federations in both KAZ and KGZ (Provisional member of IOF, no website, but a mailing address).

One area in Kazakhstan, Karkaralinsk, is known to be particularly interesting. It was the venue of 1986 USSR Champs. I can’t find online the maps, just a short report of a recent visit there, in Russian, which contains small fragments of the map(s) and a few photos of terrain.

Yay for google tranlsate, that's v cool!