Colebatch- could you pls check spelling of the towns you mention above? only 1 comes up in google earth
:confused1:=me! loadsa head scratching going on!

GE doesn't always have the spelling correctly...as spelling is not as relevant for the locals...

My guess is that this crossing is in the East...orver by Khaborovsk...
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia to Irkutsk, Province of Irkutsk, Russian Federation - Google Maps

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edde
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There is no "correct" spelling in the latin alphabet as used by the English language. Mongolia does not use the latin alphabet, therefore there is no correct or official spelling in the latin alphabet. There is only correct spelling in the Mongolian variant of the cyrillic alphabet or in Mongol script. So I cannot help you. How google decides to transliterate names is not necessarily more or less accurate than my transliterations.

But to make it easier to locate Ereentsav / Solovyovsk (often very badly transliterated as Solovevsk), here is my track map for around that period.

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If it helps, I just had a look at google earth, and it seems to depict Ereentsav as "Ereentsay" ... which strikes me as quite a poor transliteration. I suspect whoever marked it on the Google maps misread another map and put a Y at the end where there should be a V.

Again, it reinforces the comments of myself and Edde above that because google has it one way does not mean that is the correct or even the best spelling / transliteration. To me that is just a silly error by Google.

As for what I called Solovyovsk, google earth has "Solov'evsk" with an apostrophy in the name. Whether or not you subscribe to the idea of transliterating cyrillic with the apostrophy or not, the "e" is definately a "yo" in this towns name. To illustrate my point that spelling can only be correct in any native alphabets, the only correct spelling of the town I have referred to as Solovyovsk is "Соловьёвск". Anything else is just someones interpretation of how it might be written in another alphabet. As I pointed out on another forum not long ago ... what is the correct spelling in our alphabet of Чайковский ... The Russian classical composer we often refer to as Chaikovsky. But the Germans have a tendency to transliterate his name as Tschaikowski ... a completely different spelling in the latin alphabet. The French use a different transliteration again. No-one is correct and no-one is wrong. It simply is not possible to define the correct spelling of a Cyrillic name in the latin alphabet.

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cool- got it- I tried a few spellings in the hope GE would recognise some-
thanks for explaining this Colebatch

Damn, we could have possible met. I was planning on crossing on the 16th, but was detained by police for 5 days in southern Sukhbaatar Aimag for travelling (unaware) during the ban. I got an escort to Barun Urt, then permits to go to UB and up to Altanbulag border. Very annoying. I was told there was no way to go to Choibalsan and on to this border. I am now in ULan Ude with a new visa, waiting to go to Chita and on to Solovyevsk.

How did you manage to get travel permits??

Cheers

Daniel

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When I was detained by quarantine officials / police in Ereentsav, I simply asked .... "so what are we going to do now?. I am not going back across the border to Russia"

I dont think they thought detaining me indefinately was an option, so the police in Ereentsav wrote me a piece of paper (the said "permit") which allowed me to travel on to Choibalsan - subject to me agreeing to an hour long fumigation of myself, my clothes and the bike - it was pretty thorough. There is a fair bit more detail on the Sibirsky Extreme website blog.

The question now is whether the Mongolians will even let anyone cross this Ereentsav border (and enter) while they have this quarantine issue. If they let a foreigner cross the border, then really they have to let them travel onwards.

The Russians have no problem with any of this.

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