Monument to the drivers of the Chuya Highway in Altay

The monument to the drivers of the Chuya Highway is installed in a picturesque place of the Chuya river Valley near the village of White Bom (744 km). Here you can see a small section of the Chuya Highway of the 1930s, which connects Siberia with Mongolia. 

The Chuya Highway from Novosibirsk to Tashanta (the border with Mongolia) began to be built in the 1930s, and officially, this name was fixed in 1961. Then the road had a dirt surface. In the first years, the road was dangerous for drivers. Many bridges and turns at the foot of the cliffs did not have reliable structures; as a result, accidents often happened here. 

In those years, a song about the desperate Nicholay Snegirev, who was an AMO truck driver, was very popular among truck drivers on the Chuya Highway. The motive of the song "There is a road along the Chuya Valley" is quite tragic. It sings how Nicholay Snegirev traveled a lot along the Chuya Highway and once saw a girl Raya on the road. She was the driver of a Ford SUV. He fell in love with her. Once he overtook her at a turn, but his lorry fell off a cliff into the Chuya River. 

The folk monument to the drivers of the Chuya Highway was installed in this place back in the 70s, but then it was a steering wheel from a truck and parts of the car welded together. On the stone was written a dedication to Nicholay Snegirev, who was the collective image of all drivers of the Chuya Highway. 

In 2012, a new monument to the Drivers of the Chuya Highway was erected here. On the pedestal you can see two cars: a lorry AMO, which Nicholay Snegirev draw, and a Ford car, on which Raya worked. The area around the monument is very picteresque. The observation deck offers beautiful views of the Chuya River Valley. After visiting the monument, you have to climb the mountain slope, where a small section of the Chuya Highway of the 1930s is preserved.