Russia to China

This is the route of Wilk on his journey east from Russia to China in 1919 (in the novel titled, appropriately enough, ‘Wilk’). Both the Russian and Chinese names have shifted some from what I used (and varied, for that matter, at the time the story is set) but one should be able to follow this route on a map.

We first see Wilk at a flight school somewhere in central Russia. He heads east by rail, in Spring, to a base and depot fairly near the front, then further east, nearer to Sarapul. He then flies south to Ufa, then further to Orenburg on the Ural River.

He then travels easterly by train toward the Aral Sea with his companions. They have to abandon broken tracks shortly after the Aral, at Kazalinsk, and fly on to Tashkent. They take train north through Aris and Alma Ata, and across the ‘high bridge’ (Ili River?), unloading in the vicinity of Lake Balkash, and joining a caravan east in the truck, through the Dzungarian Gate into China.

From Dzharkent on the Russian side, they cross the border to Wusu, and travel to Tihwa (capital of the province) in China, then to Hami, leaving the caravan there, and continuing south to Ansi, and then a little east to Yumen: “One travels through the Jade Pass and beyond it lies Yanguan Pass and the corridor into China’s heartland”.

Wilk and companions reassemble their airplanes and fly from Yumen to Suchow, then Kanchow and the Great Wall, through the high pass (Wushao) to Liangchow, and on to Lanchow on the Hwang Ho. They fly on South and East to Sian (after faking a course toward Chunking), across the highlands, and south along the Han Kiang, to Yunyang. They move along toward the Tungting Lake area, passing Wuchang and Kanchow, and finally south to Canton by Autumn.

WILK (and, of course, all my books) is available in print or as free ebooks at arachispress.com