Gu Genju sees the movie in his mind: "Aoluguya - the last reindeer hunters ...". A budget of four million Euros. That should be enough for the project. The village has long been ready. "Scandinavian style”, as it wanted the makers. Something out of the ordinary for extraordinary people. His appearance: Slight supine position, clumsy steps, angular hands. He's got the Jack Sparrow step, at least here nothing can go wrong. The medium-length hair is slicked back tightly, bear claw and leather jacket, Indians eye. He's never been to Scandinavia, but he likes the asymmetrical gable roofs.

Shortly after the houses were completed, the reindeer were brought here, two hundred of them. But they all died a few months after their arrival. The climate and the environment probably hadn't fit. Reindeer can't been kept in cages. Instead of reindeer are now waiting a dozen of deer in the woods outside the village. Most wouldn't notice it anyway - and if they do... it doesn't matter. In front of one house ignites one of the "natives" a smoking fire. Reindeer meat is dangling from a wooden frame. She sits down next to it, begins with the walking of a fur. Gu Genju registers a low hiss. It must come from the entrance near the barrier, where the dramatic reindeer sculpture stands next to the sign "to the primitive tribe". The hiss of an airbrush. The sculpture gets its finishing touch. Everything always happens at the last minute. At least he's ready. Slight supine position, clumsy steps, perfect outfit. That's what the audience loves. A group of Chineses scurries past. A camera is installed on a tripod. And then - Action! A 4x4 jeep rushes through the middle of the image, stops, spits out another batch of Chinese tourists. Gu Genju stumbles, the camera is keeping on it. Today isn't his day, it's probably better to go home and drink one more beer. The Chineses scurry over to the information boards. There, everything is written down. Everything about his life. His life as it was before. The breeding of reindeer, the hunting of bears in the woods of the Hinggan Mountains. Eleven years have passed since that he was forced to give his gun to the Chinese government. In the course of relocation. It was a symbolic act, the end of an era.

The first time we've met Gu Genju yesterday. It was noon, the sun burned the dust into the barren streets of Aoluguya, a row house settlement on the outskirts of Genhe, in the extreme north-east of China. We had nothing but a name. And the pictures. Sled in the swirling snow, the oilcloth tent with the smoky chimney pipe, the reindeer in the snow-covered taiga. Pictures of the reindeer nomads, we've encountered last winter in Siberia, which should help us now to come in contact with the remaining reindeer herders here in China. We knew that it will be difficult. The language barrier, the fact that the sixty Evenki families were forced to settle out of the Hinggan Mountains along with 700,000 other nomads in China over the last eleven years and that there aren't existing virtually no longer nomadic Chinese Evenki. But we've read that some have moved back into the forest after the resettlement disaster, together with the remaining reindeer. There should be four nomadic camps in the Sino-Russian border zone again. And we want to find them.

Our first stop was Aoluguya. The retort village, which the Chinese government had mashed out of the ground two hundred kilometers south of the ancestral habitat "to protect the forest, for the modernization and development aid". For four million Euros. Gu Genju was the first who stumbled across our path, a bit tipsy, what didn't ruin his movie star appearance. When he came here, he was responsible for the care of the reindeer in the tourist park. That is also the first thing he shows us, but there's not much left of it. A couple of deer bob up and down in a grid cage, a single reindeer in a crate, a tethered camel. The concept of reindeer resettlement backfired. And what's about the resettlement of people? The answer probably lies in the perspective. For the Chinese government, the bill should be paid off.

He Xie's friend has a racy style of driving. With 120km we spin along the narrow asphalt road to the north. Brakes swarms crash into the car, leaving greasy streaks on the windshield. He Xie's friend cleans them away indifferently with the windshield wipers. He's one of those who have made the leap between the life in the forest and Aoluguya. His wife runs a souvenir shop where she sells carved reindeer pendant, fur from fur farms and dried horn chips. The Evenki in the Hinggan Mountains didn't use the meat of reindeer. Unlike the reindeer herders in Scandinavia, Alaska or Canada, they have raised small herds, saw themselves primarily as hunters and used the reindeer as pack animals. Additionally they have milked the mares and traded with antler products.

In early summer, when the antlers are still in the growth phase, soft and covered with velvet, they are sawn. The natural shedding is virtually brought forward. The antlers are then processed into dried chips, a traditional Chinese aphrodisiac. With the income from the store, the family of He Xie's friend was able to finance over the years a car. The first requirement to achieve the balance between the northern taiga, where the reindeer find enough lichens for grazing, and the Aoluguya settlement. But that alone is not enough to cope successfully with the trauma of resettlement. For many in Aoluguya alcohol is the only way out.

We've followed the scene with tension. Now the vet explains: "He Xie cuts the antlers once a year. Then he brings them back to Aoluguya and there they are picked up by someone to be processed in the factory. The packaged, dried chips then come back to the village where the people are trying to sell them in the gift shops. Unfortunately, the state retains a portion of the products for itself, in order then to market them professionally in Beijing or over the Internet. And everyone in Aoluguya determines its own price. This makes selling difficult." Meanwhile, He Xie's friend has a reindeer in the pliers. He makes it cleaner, binds the arteries before he starts to saw. Maybe He Xie is simply grew even more with the traditions of the Evenki, because the blood of the growing reindeer antlers has been attributed to a sexual stimulation as well. And so at the end he taps a pint of blood from one of the animals, mixes it with hard liquor and presents it proudly to the vet. Cheers!

Later in the afternoon, two reindeer are loaded onto a pickup truck to take them to the camp of He Xie's friend. The inbreeding issue is being tackled actively. To load two reindeer is hard work, because you can never completely tame reindeer. Despite regular contact with the people they remain semi-wild, so it's no coincidence that the two behave semi-wild. One full hour takes the struggle. He Xie lands repeatedly on the bottom and is soon covered with bruises. Luckily, he has sawed the two's antlers previously.

The second camp is smaller. Instead of tents there is a fixed hut here. Remnants of the first Chinese settlement attempts. In front of the hut a dog is tethered. It has the dimensions of a bear, shaggy, huge and sharp. Another proof of how masterfully He Xie's friend handles the Chinese restrictions. In defense of a bear attack on the flock this dog will be at least as effective as a gun. A young deaf-mute Evenki is looking after the camp of He Xie's friend. He has a good handling with the animals, we like how he deals with them. The two wild devil from the pickup follow him like little lambs. Here, the relationship between the Evenki and their animals still seems to work.

The Evenki have viewed themselves never as the owner of the reindeer, but as their guardian. They have given them salt, have protect them from the Siberian insect pests and their natural enemies and moved with them to places where they found plenty of lichens. In return, the reindeer were looking to be close to the people. The Evenki, which have migrated into the Hinggan Mountains from the territory of Lena river in Russia 300 years ago, haven't only geographically lived in the border region, but also in the relationship with their animals. In the border land between domestication and wildness, between nature and civilization and, increasingly, between tradition and modernity. With the resettlement this balancing act has been disturbed, the border torn apart - for most insurmountable.

It's a long drive back to Aoluguya. The hiss of He Xie's beer cans mixes with the noise of the jeep. His friend drives silently and concentrated. Outside fog rises from the swamps, a narrow crescent moon hangs over the taiga. It's increasing. Perhaps others Evenki make the leap yet. If creative young people achieve to snatch out of the lethargy of the relocation shock and to network themself with reindeer herders in Russia, Europe and North America in search for identity. But there is little hope, because they probably wouldn't find any support in the prosperous China. China has other goals.

From Genhe, we continue in direction of Russia, along the Chinese border fence. Still some lone firs, then we've left behind us the taiga and open pasture land extends to the horizon. Our journey seems to approach the old motto more and more. Instead of a trip "around" we are, after a year of travel, again drifted into an odyssey through border land, with fissures and cracks along the route, more often following the edges of our maps, the political lines in which we find fascinating culture stories and dramatic landscape's changes. We leave China at Manzhouli. 500 feet high fortified border separate the modern Chinese city from a small Siberian village in Russia.

From one hour to the other, we leave Asia. The faces are European again, we can talk with people, understand their body language, know that the glass with the words "tomato sauce" really is tomato sauce and not perhaps chili paste. And then, three days later, we are back to the barbed wire fence. The asphalt road ends at a stroke, changes into a typical Mongolian dirt road. Instead of fair skin, big wide eyes and a long nose our counterpart has high cheekbones, slanted eyes and flat nose again. Such a culture change we've seldom seen before on the bicycle. It is as if we had taken the plane.