Two Weeks in Bashkiria

I left Kazan and made my way towards Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan where I met up with my host Irina. My intention was to spend one night, little did I know my stay would be more than two weeks! I met Irina in the center of Ufa, she lived well outside the city and suggested we leave the motorcycle and go on a walking tour of the city before returning to her home. I was tired after a long day's ride, but wanted to have a chance to check out the city so I agreed. I left the bike outside a cafe and fatefully put the disc lock on the front wheel. Can't say why as I haven't used the lock since Lithuania! When we returned it was quite late, and completely forgetting the disc lock in the dark I attempted to ride off into the night. Unfortunately I had removed the batteries from the lock weeks ago because the motion alarm that would have warned me wouldn't stop going off. A horrible metallic screeching quickly alerted me that I had done something seriously stupid. A quick investigation revealed that the front brake disc was badly bent.

I left the bike inside a cafe that night, returning early Friday morning. The cafe owner had offered to help me find a mechanic, but he showed less interest the next day and I was pretty much left to my own devices. I had researched some shop numbers here in Russia to see if they had anything in stock or could order a disc, but the problem was finding someone to translate for me. As always someone turned up just when I needed them, while looking at the bike a girl approached me and said her friend who spoke English was a journalist and was interested in interviewing me. I spoke to Alsou, the journalist, over the phone and we arranged to meet up. When she arrived I pressed her into service as an interpreter and had her call the motorcycle stores for me. It soon became apparent I had no chance of finding a replacement disc in Russia and to order one would take until September. That was definitely not an option. Alsou and the other girls working in the newspaper office set to work trying to find a mechanic and discovered a motorcycle touring club in Ufa. One of the girl's husbands had a truck and he offered to transport the motorcycle to the club's garage. The mechanic at the club, David, attempted to straighten the disc while I continued exploring different options for shipping to Russia.

Alsou (an amazing help my entire stay in Ufa!) and I:

The friendly girls at the newspaper office:

The outlook wasn't good – DHL wanted $350 from the UK to Ufa for 4lb package. I would also be obligated to pay import taxes, anything valued over $150 (item value and shipping cost combined) is taxed. And I had to find a registered business to ship it to, because of mailing restrictions DHL won't allow delivery to private individuals. There was also the issue of customs clearance, DHL quoted 4 days to Ufa, but I knew another rider had waited over 30 days in Siberia for a part sent from Amsterdam via DHL earlier this summer. Even so I was willing to take a risk and order the part – I called DHL to arrange the pickup, only to find another roadblock. They wouldn't take non-UK cards over the phone, I would have to arrange the shipping online, but in that case it wouldn't be picked up until Monday. Eventually decided to call it quits for the night and explore my options over the weekend.

Ivan, a friend of the guy with the truck, had offered to host me in his apartment. Ivan is 23, he served in the Russian army for several years, and now works as a construction supervisor. He turned out to be a great host (and cook, his family has a farm outside the city) and I spent nearly 10 days with him and his wife in his small apartment some 30 minutes from the center of Ufa. He doesn't speak much English, but with the help of Google Translate we were able to communicate surprisingly well.

Sunday Ivan suggested we take the bike to a mechanic his friend Losha knew. For the price of not much more than a taxi we hired a truck to take it from the motorcycle club to Andrei's garage mechanic. Andrei had a small, but well organized shop. He said he knew someone who worked in an factory making parts for the Russian air force that did work on the side and could easily manufacture a new disc. I explained that I wasn't interested in using the old disc, fearing that it would have tension from being bent multiple times, but was willing to give making a new disc a shot, especially when they said it could be ready in a few days.

Ivan, Andrei, and Losha:

I decided I would go to an English club Wednesday night that I had been invited to by someone on CouchSurfing. Had a great time at the club and it was a welcome opportunity to speak English after a few days of not uttering much more than some simple words to Ivan.

The date the disc was supposed to be ready kept getting pushed back, but finally Friday evening I was told the disc was ready. The “new” disc was my old disc, somewhat straightened and machined. But even that wasn't properly done, there were variations in the metal thickness of 2/10mm and the brakes pulsated like crazy when trying to brake. Apparently they couldn't find the metal to make a new disc, it seems clear that the workers at the factory knew this, but didn't inform Andrei or myself. This was extremely frustrating because I had been very explicit that if they couldn't make a new disc I wasn't interested in trying to repair the new one, but would order one from Europe or even fly there to pick one up. By the time they showed me the disc Friday it was already too late to make any phone calls to Europe and I would have to spend another weekend in Ufa.

Life in Ufa wasn't so bad though:

Alsou had told a local TV station, UTV, about my trip and they decided to interview me alongside Alsou and Andrei for a travel show they produce:

At this point I determined that I couldn't afford to wait any longer if I wanted to continue the trip largely as planned. I decided I would fly back to Germany Monday, pick up the part myself, and return to Ufa later in the week. Fortunately there were daily flights to Frankfurt via Moscow, and the price, although expensive, wasn't much more than the cost of shipping/import taxes/and the cost of staying in Ufa.

Saturday I joined some people from the English club for a picnic outside the city and Sunday we checked out some live music at a rock bar:

The Mighty Volga

From Vladimir I made my way to Nizhny Novgorod where I would pick up the M-7, the main road east to the Urals. Nizhny is the third largest city in Russia and is located at the confluence of two large rivers, the Volga and the Oka. Arriving in Nizhny wet and tired I met up with my host Vassily. Vassily started working in the early 90s as a graphic designer, before moving on to programming. He and two partners have a tech company in Israel, and he is now becoming involved in the art scene again. I met him in the basement of a building inside the Nizhny kremlin where he is organizing a street art exhibition. Two young Russian street artists were spray painting large scenes on the walls of the basement, this would be the first time anything like this had been done inside the kremlin – much of it is still used by the local administration. Vassily is a tea afficianado and he had just received a new green tea from Indonesia. This was a relevatory experience – simply the best tea I've ever had in my life. A teaspoon of buds lasted us an hour of sipping many small cups of tea. Later that night we went on a nocturnal tour of street art and graffiti in Nizhny, there were even some things done by an American artist from NYC.

I left Nizhny under cloudy skies again and it rained off and on the entire way to Kazan, some 250 miles east. Kazan also lies on the banks of the Volga and is the capital of the republic of Tatarstan and has a significant Muslim population. The Tatars are the second largest ethnic group in Russia and many people speak both Tatar and Russian. I found Kazan to be a very nice city, clean and modern with a beautiful kremlin containing both Orthodox churches and mosques side by side.

I stayed in Kazan for two nights with my host Nadi and her roommate Dasha. Nadi had just started learning English 7 or 8 months ago, but she had already made a lot of progress. Dasha didn't speak any English, but she was really friendly and the language barrier didn't hold us back. Dasha was fasting for Ramadan and I asked her to take me somewhere for the evening meal, we ended up at a place specializing in food from Central Asia and the Caucasus:

Updates

Okay - I've almost caught up with the blog after some difficulties finding a good internet connection and some busy days. If you scroll down to the post entitled "Tartu" and read up the page it will be in chronological order. I am currently in Kazan, the capital of the republic of Tatarstan in Russia.

The ride is starting to get more interesting as I head east, but I've realized I need to do a better job photographing my mishaps and the people I meet instead of buildings.

I've had some requests for a map of the route - still trying to figure out the best way but hope to have something up soon.

Back on the Road

Saturday Jenya and I went in search of the tires, the shipping company was located in a pretty run down part of down and it felt like we were in some bad mafia movie, but eventually they were located. Denis had sent them through a private company, the Russian post office by all accounts is awful. Jenya was telling me items coming from Europe regularly spend weeks in customs and to send something even a few hundred miles could take a week or two if it even arrived at all.

I took a taxi to Andrei's shop, he was already hard at work and had welded a much more substantial bracket in place. I've been really impressed with the ingenuity of Russian mechanics, they don't necessarily have the newest technology by any means, but it seems they're able to fix just about anything. With me mostly looking on Andrei fitted the exhaust back on after a bit of struggling and replaced the tire, then he took the Scrambler for a short spin. A really generous guy, he did everything for free for his “American friend” as he called me, and obviously a pretty good motocross rider:

Saturday night Jenya and I went to check out a funk party and in the morning he cooked me a traditional Russian breakfast as a farewell:

I would be heading to Vladimir, the ancient capital of Russia about 280 miles southeast of Vologda. Vologda is a nice town and Vera and Jenya were amazing hosts, but after four nights in Vologda I was itching to start heading east again. It started off as a nice ride along the excellent Moscow-Vologda road, but an afternoon thunderstorm left me soaked, I did have the consolation of seeing the biggest rainbow I have ever seen:

Yana, the girl who translated for me when I had the problem with the bike, was unable to host me because someone was staying with her, but she found a place for me with her friend Ira. Yana and Ira study foreign languages at university and both of them spoke excellent English, I had trouble finding Ira's apartment but with some help from Yana eventually managed reaching it around 8pm. Once again I was spoiled by Russian hospitality, Ira had dinner waiting for me, and later Yana and her guest came over and I had a second dinner followed by some beer and interesting conversation.

After catching up on some much needed sleep I went on a lightning tour of Vladimir with Ira. Ira works occassionally as a tour guide and knew quite a bit about the city. She is also an excellent portrait photographer and uses a Zenith (a Soviet film SLR camera) to take her photos. Vera had the same camera, and I was really impressed with the quality of the photos. Vladimir seemed like a very interesting place, unfortunately because of the delay in Vologda and some long riding days I was falling quite a bit behind schedule and was anxious to reach Nizhny Novgorod, about 150 miles away, so I didn't get to explore the city as much as I would have liked.

Russian Generoristy

My temporary set of wheels until the bike was repaired:


In Vologda I would be staying with Vera and her boyfriend Jenya. Vera is an architect, she had just returned from a three week trip to California and New York, and Jenya works at cafe and makes the best coffee I've had since New York. Vera is trying to apply to study in the United States, she explained that Russia is not the easiest place to be an architect because there are very strict regulations about style and not many opportunities for creativity. I had no trouble believing this – I haven't seen a unique or attractive modern building yet in Russia, fortunately some remnants of Russia's past survive to break up the monotony. Either way Vera and Jenya were amazing hosts and fascinating people. Last year the two of them rafted Lake Ladoga in the north of Russia and this year they will raft 500km down the Don River towards the Black Sea. They build the rafts by hand from trees using instructions from an old book Jenya found about 19th century rafting in Russia, Jenya even hand stitched the sail:



As I was unloading the bike a neighbor of Vera's called her 12 year old daughter over and commanded her to start speaking English with me! The girl was very shy, but she already knew more English than most Russians! Another neighbor of Vera's helped us to find secure parking for the bike, once again I got lucky - he knew some motocross riders in Vologda who he thought could help with repairing the bike. A jazz orchestra from Moscow was visiting Vologda and giving a concert in the kremlin so Vera and I went to meet up with some friends of hers and check it out:

Vologda is a very nice city, with many beautiful churches:

In the morning we called Andrei, the motocross rider. He offered to help and gave me his address. I rode around for two hours trying to find it, eventually ending up in a hardware store where a worker called Andrei and explained where I was. Andrei would come find me. Andrei took a look at the bike and said he would be able to weld a new bracket and do a better job attaching the exhaust on Saturday.

Vera and I took a bus across the river to the 14^th century Spaso-Prilutsky monastery where we met up with two friends of Vera's, Sveta and Nadia, and had a picnic along the river. The monastery is built in several different architectural styles and the towers are painted in circus-tent stripes. I really love the architecture of the different churches I've seen so far:

Friday I went with Misha, a friend of Vera's from architecture school, and we took a bus to Semyonovka , a Russian model 19^th century village outside of Vologda. The wooden buildings are original structures from different villages that they recently moved to create an open air museum. Misha is working as web developer, from my conversations with my hosts and other people I've met along the way it seems that many well educated people in Russia struggle to find a decent job in their field. Russia is a strange place – some people are obviously very wealthy, but most people struggle to get by and a lot of the infrastructure and housing doesn't seem to have changed too much since Soviet times. The build quality of some of the apartments I've seen is pretty appalling – exposed pipes, wiring. Vera's apartment complex doesn't have hot water for over a month for some reason, apparently this happens every year and is very common throughout Russia. To take a shower you first have to heat water on the stove and pour it into buckets in the bath tub.

Friday afternoon Vera had to leave for a monastery north of Vologda where she would spend a few days doing restoration work. I was invited, but was anxious to get the bike fixed and back on the road so I stayed in Vologda with Jenya. Jenya only speaks a few words of English, but he is a great guy and we share a lot of the same interests so the language barrier was easily overcome (sometimes with the help of Google translator!).

Good Samaritans on the Road to Vologda

I left Novgorod around 6:30pm with the goal of making it a couple of hundred kilometers closer to Vologda, my next destination. In this part of Russia it still doesn't get dark until after 11:00pm. The beginning of the route was on the main road from Novgorod to St. Petersburg, I then turned off on to a smaller road that was to link up with the St. Petersburg-Vologda road. It soon turned to hard packed dirt, which was actually nicer to ride on than many of the poorly paved roads in Poland and Russia:

Unfortunately this didn't last long and the road very quickly turned into a nightmare. Dirt with massive potholes and the remnants of pavement reduced my speed to a crawl, even so the bike took some serious hits as I couldn't avoid all the potholes. Even more treacherous were the areas of loose sand over 6 inches deep and couple of times I very nearly lost control of the bike. The bike is equipped with a set of mostly street tires right now,.I didn't think I would need proper off road tires until Mongolia so I have a set waiting for me in Siberia, but I could have used them on this road! This lasted for around 50km or so, strangely enough I didn't see any other cars or vehicles except a logging truck. The road was very clearly marked on the GPS and map, however, so I pressed on. Eventually it turned into a rather good paved road and intersected another major paved road. I thought I was clear, but my troubles were just about to begin. A few kilometers past the intersection the bike erupted in noise and violent vibrations. I immediately pulled over and saw that the exhaust had fallen off! The support bracket attaching it to the frame had snapped and it had been wrenched free from the header pipes and was hanging between the rear wheel and the side bag. I took off all the bags and noticed that the rear tire was ruined – the bracket of the exhaust had cut into the sidewall of the tire all the way around:

My first thought was to find a truck to take the bike to a town where I could find some help, upon closer inspection the damage was not as bad as it had first seemed. The exhaust had come off with a clean break and could be reattached to the header pipes. I attempted to do this myself thinking I could maybe zip tie or bungy cord it in place until I found a welder, but it was hard work and already almost 10:00pm. Not wanting to be on the side of the road in the middle of a forest at night, I decided to strap the exhaust on top of the bike and slowly backtrack to the intersection. There I saw a sign for a hotel 3km away, I headed for it. Fortunately I had broken down near one of the few villages in the hundred of kilometers between major towns! I asked the hotel staff if anyone spoke English, but they showed no interest whatsoever, so in desperation I went up to a table of people drinking and asked. One of the guys there didn't speak a word, but he came over to the bike to see what the problem was. I tried to give Anastasia a call to translate, but couldn't get through so I called Yana, a Russian girl who had offered to host me but who I hadn't met yet, and explained that I needed either a welder or a truck. The guy knew a welder 1km away in the village, he called him up and explained the situation and set off in his car with me following on the bike, leaving his kids behind to guard my bags in the parking lot!

The mechanic was a giant dude, 6'4” over 300lbs with a massive belly. He starts welding the bracket back together, no shirt or mask on, sparks flying everywhere into his chest, face, back, hair! He managed to get the bracket back together, it wasn't the cleanest job, but it would probably hold up until I could find a better solution. Reattaching the exhaust to the pipes was more difficult, but we were able to improvise and get it back on. The consensus seemed to be that the tire, although it definitely needed to be replaced, was safe to ride on. The mechanic refused all my offers of payment, and with the other Russian guy I returned to the hotel to spend the night, it was nearly midnight at this point!

In the morning I called Denis, he runs a motorcycle tire distributorship out of Moscow and had already sent a new set of tires to Krasnoyarsk in Siberia for me. Fortunately Denis speaks perfect English, and even more fortunately he had a rear, half used tire in my bike's size that he would give me for free! He would mail it to Vologda and it would arrive Friday or Saturday.

I repacked the bike, putting the heaviest items in the top bag to keep weight off the exhaust (normally I have my heaviest items low in the side bags for better handling) and started off towards Vologda. It was over 500km away, a long day even under normal conditions, I was careful to keep the speed down at first until I saw how the rear tire was reacting. It didn't seem to get any worse, however, so I continued on at normal speeds on a more or less decent road passing through vast, seemingly endless pine forests and arriving in Vologda around 6:30pm. Legend has it that Ivan the Terrible thought about choosing Vologda as the capital of Russia, but when inspecting the building of the kremlin he was struck on the head by a falling brick and thinking it a bad omen chose Moscow instead.

Ancient Rus

My next destination would be Novgorod, an ancient economic and cultural center of Russia and a city over 300 years older than Moscow. Rather than listen to Jill (the voice of my GPS) I decided I would take a smaller road to and link up with the main route later on. This proved interesting as it soon turned into gravel and quickly devolved into a pothole strewn sandy road passing through many small villages and pretty countryside:

I managed to meet up with the main road and continue on to Novgorod without any mishap. In Novgorod I met up with my host Anastasia. Anastasia lived in Chicago for a year and later spent time in Brazil working for a fair trade fashion company, now she is trying to start a business selling boots made with traditional Russian handicraft techniques. She explained to me that it is difficult to find workers with the knowledge to perform this type of work. Eventually she managed to find a small center in the countryside that was still using the traditional methods, but the owners passed away and there have since been problems with the workers drinking, fighting, missing work, and production has basically stopped. After devouring the lunch of pancakes, potatoes, and sausage that Anastasia had waiting for me we explored the ancient, massive kremlin and the beautiful St. Sophia cathedral from the 11^th century, one of the oldest buildings in Russia.

Anastasia then took me to a cafeteria that has been around since Soviet times, locals say the babushka who runs it is a million years old because the joint has been around forever. Unfortunately they were out of most food, so at Anastasia's urging I tried shuba, a traditional Russian salad made of herring, beets, and some other vegetables:

I must say this was not for me and I only managed a forkful or two! The epic tour of Novgorod continued until the wee hours of the morning and we took a terrifying taxi ride back in a Lada. These are not the most well built cars, in an accident you'd be better off jumping out the window! Most Russians look down on these cars and vastly prefer foreign owned brands, for good reason I think:

The next day Anastasia, her sister Dasha, and Dasha's boyfriend took me to visit the 12^th century Yurev monastery outside of Novgorod. It still functions as a working Orthodox monastery and I picked up a icon of Saint Nikolai, patron saint of travelers.