Items tagged with Russia

2008-06-29 00:00:00
Written By: Claudine du Plessis

Cycling Day: 21
Distance: 130km

Vladimir left early because he had to go to work (yes, he doesn’t mind cycling a quick 70km in 2 hours before work).  He told us about a longer, but more scenic and quiet route we could take to St Petersburg along the coastline.  It was raining in the morning and we quickly unpitched the tent, got attacked by the swarm of mosquitoes and left.  Very close to our campsite is a big castle and when we arrived there it started raining in full force so we decided to hang around until the rain calmed down. There was some concert or show at the castle and they were selling kebabs so we stayed for brunch.

Not too far from the castle, Billy’s pannier fell off and Lance had a puncture.  Our bikes really had enough, it was as if they knew the trip was almost over. Both Lance and Billy only had one working brake left and my rear wheel was so buckled by then, I wobbled the whole way, and because of that my rear brakes also didn’t work.

We cycled through a special military zone along the north coast, where Russia apparantly has a nuclear power station.  It rained about 80% of the time we cycled, but at least the roads were in a bit of a better condition.  There was a lot of open space with forests and coastline before we reached the outskirts of St Petersburg.  If you look at a map with St Petersburg, you will see that it stretches along the northern coastline, with lots of bays and islands connected with bridges. It is a huge city and with a population of about 5 million, it is the norhternmost city with a population of over 1 million people.

From when we entered the outskirts of St Petersburg, it took us another couple of hours to reach Vladimir's place, which is on one of the big islands.  Vladmir had gone diving and we chatted with his flatmate Vaddim, who took us to the 24 hour McDonalds for a quick dinner.  Vladimir arrived later and we celebrated the end of our trip with some beer and Russian vodka which I unfortunately missed because I fell asleep and nobody or nothing could wake me.

2008-07-03 00:00:00
Written By: Billy van Graan

Rushing to the train station in St Petersburg was very close and we almost didn't make the train. Thanks again to Vladimir and his brother for all the help. Without them it would have been a disaster. Having the bike boxes on the train was a nightmare because Claudine and I ended up having to share a bed which even for me alone is too small.

When we arrived at the station in Moscow after a sleepless night, Maria, our host was waiting for us and when the train arrived she got us on our cart. Lucky for us she was there because she helped us carry the bike boxes to the stations exit. Those boxes where a pain to carry around. When we reached the exit of the train station the reality of trying to get these boxes to Maria's house started to set in. Taking these boxes on the subway just wasn’t going to happen. And finding a taxi to put all these boxes into was going to be hard. Not just that the cost of taking a taxi would have been enormous.

Luckily Maria made a plan and contacted her ex boyfriend which happened to be a good friend of Vladimir in St Petersburg. They both are actually Maria was the one that introduced us to Vladimir in the first place. He came with his car and somehow managed to fit all three bike boxes into it. What an awesome guy he turned out to be, very friendly and interesting. We then went to his house instead of Maria’s. Once there we met up with some polish travelers who were also going to stay over. We then went around sightseeing Moscow with the one polish guy being kind of a guide since he knew so much about Moscow.

After all the sightseeing we returned to Maria’s ex boyfriends house (I’m not good with name at all) and had a party. There were quite a few people and the beer and vodka went quickly. We all got pretty drunk and had a great time. The next morning we woke up with the usual party hangover and just lay around until it was time to go to the airport. Maria’s ex said he would take us to the train station from where we could take a train to the airport. Lucky for us on the way he decided the traffic wasn’t too bad and that he would take us all the way to the airport with his car. We were so relieved that we didn’t have to struggle with the boxes again.

And that was the end of it.

2008-06-28 00:00:00
Written By: Claudine du Plessis

Cycling Day: 20
Distance: 105km

This morning our host prepared a breakfast for us of bread, cheese and cold meats. We crossed the bridge which is the border between Estonia and Russia and had to go through the border post. It went smoother than expected, because the woman checking our forms could speak a little English and she didn’t ask any strange questions.

5 km over the border, we reached our total of 3000 kilometers and had a beer we bought at the Estonian supermarket. Lance snapped a spoke, unfortunately we didn’t bring any spares so had to continue with one spoke missing. The main road we followed had a wide enough shoulder, but had so many potholes and bumps, most of the time it felt like cycling on the moon. Billy’s front brakes also didn’t want to work anymore, but we decided rear breaks must do for now.

Our host in St Petersburg, Vladimir, said he will meet us at the small town of Begunitsv (halfway between Narva and St Petersburg) and camp with us for the night. We reached Begunitsv at half past 7 and saw Vladimir (or Vovick as his friends call him) waiting at the Begunitsv sign. This Vovick is a legend among hitchhikers and travellers and has so many interesting stories to tell. He hitchhiked from Russia to Cape Town, cycled off road for 3000 kilometers around Mongolia, climbed Kilimanjaro without a permit and almost went to jail for it, hitched rides on boats, a helicopter and military airplanes and also hitchhiked through Afghanistan while they were at war with America.

We followed Vladimir for about 20 kilometers looking for a campsite and found a spot in the forest where we put up our tents. Before our trip, we’ve heard the mosquitoes near St Petersburg are hectic, but now we know what they meant by it. Mosquito spray didn’t help, they were everywhere, like a black cloud surrounding you. Also millions of small little bugs that got into your hair, ears, nose and mouth. We quickly broke apart a dead tree and made a fire, so the smoke could at least keep the worst away. Then we cooked dinner (pasta of course) and listened to all Vladimir's amazing tales.

2008-07-06 00:00:00
Written By: Billy van Graan

Click on an image to enlarge it and then browse the larger images with the Next and Previous buttons at the bottom right. This contains all the photos from the updates we did. Just makes it easier than to go to every single article to check the photos.

Flying and Netherlands

Germany

Poland

Lithuania

Latvia

Estonia

Russia

2008-05-08 00:00:00
Written By: Claudine du Plessis

There are 7 items tagged with Russia. You can view all our tags in the Tag Cloud