There is only one minor problem: large parts of it are missing or, let me say, temporarily stored some 50 metres below on the bed of the river. Not necessary to mention that there is no warning of this. Why should they warn you? They did put a sign on 'no bikes'. It is not their fault if bloody tourists do not care and try to cross! I switch back to the main road. One or two more kilometres of hell and I am on the other side of this river. I can understand all those drivers who made not very friendly signs towards me. What a stupid idea to cross the bridge on a bike. I should have flagged down a bus or a truck for a lift!
Surprising enough, the road is now of quite good quality - and heaven knows what happened to the cars and the trucks. I am almost the only one to use it. The land is totally flat, farmland and forests, mostly pines, sometimes birch trees. Again it is hot and sunny, a strong crosswind accompanies my route.
The drinking of the night before still causes me some problems, and in the early afternoon I do need a nap - and take one in a field just off the road. But it is not only the drinking. Having changed from a comfortable office chair to long hours on a rough bike seat without proper preparation has slightly affected my ability to sit. I am forced into a constant out-of-the-saddle position, what makes cycling a bit awkward, but it could be worse, couldn't it?
The road also passes through villages with pretty wooden houses. Many look very much deserted what is not so surprising for an area with practically no jobs outside agriculture.
Later the day I come to Semjenov, city of about 10 000 souls. The view is typical: the picturesque centre is situated around a circle with a particularly ugly soviet style monument, concrete buildings and rotten industry further more out. Once more I am surprised: there are many people in the streets and I am pretty sure that not many cycling tourists pass that region, but people do not care about me. Nobody gives me a wave, not even a surprised, friendly, suspicious, hostile or what-so-ever look. Do they really not care, or are they frightened? Are they all poker players? Luckily there is one exception: children seem to be curious, but only if their mothers are close enough. If not, they tend to run and to seek shelter somewhere. Since I consider myself an everything but frightening person and even try to give myself an open and peaceful look, for instance by carrying very visibly a Bavarian flag and by never approaching people without greeting them, I am slightly irritated by this behaviour. On the other had, once you start talking to people like asking for the way, buying food etc., everybody is always very friendly.
Well, for me Semjenov is a place to get some supplies for the days to come. It marks also the point where I turn really into the backcountry. Again there are no road signs to guide the traveller, but I am lucky enough to pick the right road on the first attempt. This small road is on the first 30 km one of the best I have seen in Russia (except for the made-in-Finland ones close to the border). Only in the villages it is in a somewhat poor shape. I do not know why, but apparently it was the same in Germany after the war when they started paving roads: within the villages they were always paved and upgraded last. Out here, the motorised traffic has almost completely died, the best means of transportation between the villages seems to be - yes! - the bicycle. These Russian type bikes are unfortunately no longer available in western countries. They are certainly a bit heavy but there is nothing that could destroy a massive steel frame - certainly not the rubber bumper of a modern fancy car or a heavy load on a rough road. Russians transport everything on a bike, be it their kids, potatoes or huge amounts of firewood, nothing is impossible. Intermediate distances are covered by busses, running almost everywhere for a symbolic price at least twice a day. Many of the busses you would not expect to be still on duty but there are also some fairly new ones and some very obviously have already served for public transport in western cities: they still have the original advertisements on them. Out here, east of Nishny Novgorod, I even spot a bus that can be easily identified as former part of Munich's public transport. If you miss the bus, do not worry: Russians are more than ready to take hitch-hikers. This is a big difference to America: there I sometimes could have done with a lift, but nobody had ever given me one...
Why the roads in the villages are so ridiculously bad in shape is completely unknown to me. Even now, on a hot and dry day, they are sometimes difficult to use, in rain it must be impossible. Sand is a common feature everywhere, but nobody ever cleans up. Very often there is so much on the road that I have no choice but to walk the bike - as do the locals. The difference is only: they seem not to care about it. Pushing instead of riding adds only a factor four or five in time necessary to cover a certain distance, so why bother?
The streets in the villages are almost always very much populated, both on two and on four legs. Cows, dogs, goats, sheep, pig, hens, always and everywhere crowing cocks, cats, in one word: all living creatures you can think of on a farm. Everything is very idyllic except for two buildings: The 'dom kulturi', in soviet times probably the social centre, replacing bar, pub, restaurant, cinema, theatre and so on all in one, and second the local shop. Its massive concrete walls could resist armies. Only barbed wire and perhaps one or two automatic guns are missing to complete the impression of a heavily defended fortress. Sorry for exaggerating here, but this is what it looks like to me if I compare it to the typical open western style shop (sorry again, some liquor stores in the US look very much like that as well ...).
I loose my way in one of the villages and ask successfully to find it again. Not much later I loose it completely but find it again when, as unexpected as can be, a sign points back to the right road. When I fill my waterbottles on a well, a man warns me of the water and guides me to a different one. If I understand him correctly this second water is safe to drink without having to boil it. These wells, by the way, remind me very much of those you associate with the Hungarian Puszta. Unfortunately the water very often is not drinkable (the locals will tell you). I blame more the swamps and the lack of sewage treatment than industry on that. Luckily bottled water and a wide selection of excellent juices and sodas, usually western, but sometimes also Russian make, are readily available in all shops.
What a shame, the wind has dropped completely when I pitch up my tent in the evening so that the mosquitoes find excellent flight conditions. Nothing stops them from profiting of my presence. There is no choice: I do have to switch to jeans and long sleeves, but they still sometimes manage to bite through. Anyway, at least they are no longer able to eat me alive.
The next day in the evening I take a crucial decision. I never had to take such a step on a bike trip before: I decide to cycle back to Nishny Novgorod and to take bus and train to come closer to my final destination Helsinki. Why? Because I realise that I cannot make more that 20 km a day 'as the crow flies', while zigzagging 150 km to 200 km of unexpected detours. The only alternative is to cycle on big roads, but this - I mentioned already - comes close to committing suicide. You won't believe it if you have not seen it with your own very eyes, but maps and reality have almost nothing in common. Certainly the bigger agglomerations and main roads you can find on a map, but seldom the small villages and almost never the small roads. You do find small roads on the map, plenty, but they do not exist or can be everything from a swamplike footpath to an excellent brand new motorway. Missing bridges, ferries out of service or ending of the road in the middle of nowhere are common features. It is especially a wrong assumption that, when in doubt, the paved road is the main road. No way! It cost me some sweat to find out about that. Also, if Russians talk, say, about a wide bridge, it can be everything from one meter wide (presumably then wider than the old bridge they have torn down a few weeks ago or at least wider than the next bridge a few kilometres upstream which is only accessible going sidewise) to a three lane highway. You just do not know in advance and if your Russian is not perfect it is very hard to find out! On small roads the bridge can be missing altogether - good fun in hot weather - or consist of a few tree trunks in the water. No problem to walk a bike across, but certainly only very high clearance 4x4's can cross it (I would not recommend it on a motorbike unless you are a v e r y experienced motocross rider). But again, whenever I happen to meet people and try to speak to them, they are friendly and talkative. The latter is a bit of a pain if you do not know the language; they never answer yes/no, left/right, but they tell a story. If you cannot follow it the answer is of course totally useless and you might even seem arrogant if you do not follow their advise in the end.
In an almost entirely deserted village three old women start talking to me when I have a wash at this village's well.
A young man confirms again and again that I am on the right way and that it will be wider and better soon while I think I am in the middle of a field on the tracks of a tractor far off from everything like a road.
Finally I come to the village of Sokolskoje and I am deeply impressed: the river Volga is here about 10 km wide! The owner of an ice-cream pavilion invites me to spend the night at his place, but I am too much afraid of the drinking to accept (and I want to carry on anyway).
According to my map there should be a ferry across the Volga about 20 km upstream. When I come to the place the ferry is out of service since a long time. Okay, let's continue. There is also a bridge, only another 100 km of a detour ... In fact, I never make it to that bridge (if it exists which is everything but clear). I get completely lost. All the villages I come through from now on never exist on my map so I cannot even check with the locals which way to take and they cannot show me where we are. At least I see a few Orthodox churches, once impressive, now only a shadow of former pride and beauty. Those churches that have served as stables in Soviet times are in considerably better shape than the only closed ones. Only very recently it seems that people could start to remember their heritage. Slowly some reconstruction work begins like the fresh leaves of springtime on old honourable trees.
When the road is finally a dead end, I have to ask, but do not understand much of the answers. My third attempt to find out where I could be turns into the only situation on this trip where I feel slightly uneasy. I ask a women on the street, she starts talking to me without stopping and I do not understand a word. No problem so far, but then a man joins us who obviously does not like the Germans. He starts pulling stuff out of my backpack, brabbling something in a loud and unfriendly voice. It seems that the woman tries to calm him down but I decide that this conversation certainly will not get me anywhere and that, in fact, I might pretty soon loose parts of my equipment or worse. So I start to track back. Only a few kilometres later on, night is already dawning, I find a perfect place to tent: a clearing in the forest on a seemingly deserted byway, only frequented every now and then by some deer and a river nearby. Well, this path is not as quiet as I had thought, it turns out to be a 'through road'. Later in the evening a few people pass walking by. They look kind of bewildered at me. I wonder what they might think if they see my tent, my bike and myself having dinner.
It is raining a bit this evening but the next morning starts calm and dry. When routinely checking my bike I observe a lot of play in the front hub, in fact it is the brake pads that hold the wheel in its place. |
