Surprisingly it really was no problem to pick up my mongolian visa at the consolate at tuesday noon so everything was fine for my further way to Lake Baikal and Mongolia. I started in the late afternoon at the same day via marshrutka bus which costs 100Roubles for the 70km between Irkutsk and Listvyanka, which is the closest city at the Lake Baikal shore to Irkutsk. It was not very comfortable in this mini bus because 13 people, all with a lot of luggage, and the driver have space in this car and the temperature in Irkutsk topped the 30°C mark already the third day in a row. The 1,5 hour ride was a sweaty issue
Once arrived in Lisvyanka I went to the rocky beach to get some sun for a couple of hours and just relaxed there. Listvyanka at all probably is not the best place to visit the Lake Baikal, it’s the closest place to Irkutsk what brings a lot of tourists and the sibirian “nouveau riche” celebrates itself there, too. I usually wanted to camp somewhere around the village but decided later to book in to a hostel because my stomach made some problems the whole day and I preferred it to have a real toilet somewhere close to the place I sleep. The “Green House Hostel” for 500Roubles was a nice choice for one night, especially because I had the 4 bed dorm for myself this night, what guaranteed a recreative night.
At the next morning I was supposed to meet with Lena and her friend Misha at 10am but they were a little bit late and arrived there just at 11.30. We wanted in the day to a village called Bolshie Koty, 16km north of Listvyanka. After the arrival of my two hiking partners we had a nice breakfast in sun at the beach at first before we slowly started
going north. The track to Bolshie Koty is claimed to be a “dangerous path” and maybe shouldn’t be done in bad weather conditions because you have to pass a couple of slippery cliffs and do some climbing as well. One inattentive step or just a simply slip could end every journey or probably your life there. But the weather was good (just a little bit windy) when we started so there was no real problem. The landscape at and around the lake really is just beautiful. I somehow never expected the Lake Baikal being circled by so high and fantistic mountains around. The shiny, very clean and blue-green water really makes the rest. I loved it! Lake Baikal by the way is a very special Lake as well. It holds unimaginable 1/5 of the worlds fresh water ressources (more than all the five great lakes in North America together!) and is up to 1637 meters deep and more than 25 million years old, that makes it to the deepest and oldest lake in the world, too. The UNESCO declared it in 1996 as a World Nature Heritage Site and in my opinion it really earned that. Ok, we started the hike at roundabout 12:30 and after half an hour we were more or less alone in nature and on the trek. Just a couple of times we met some people who were doing the way like us or just camped somewhere along at one on the much very cool and nice (and free!) camping spots. If someone ever plans to visit the Lake Baikal I just can recommend to take a tent and just pitch it somewhere close to the lakeshore and make a fire at the fireplace, which you can find everywhere. Very nice. At a nice beach we even jumped into the water for some time. That maybe sounds not very special for you but the water temperature of the lake hardly exceeds 7°C, it doesn’t matter who warm it’s outside. Extremely freezing! The only thing what was not so nice that day was the weather. As longer we walked as worser the weather became. A
thunderstorm was following and catching up to us which made us hurrying up a little bit. It was good luck that after maybe a little bit more than the half way the way track leaded to a part of the Great Baikal Trail which is already developed and easy to walk (with stairs and other fancy stuff). So even if the thunderstorm would have hit us it wouldn’t have been very dangerous, just unpleasant. But we made it, anyway, we reached the Hostel “Listnaya 7″ in Bolshie Koty 20 minutes before the big rain started after walking for maybe 8 hours at 20.30. The hostel we stayed us was for free for us because the owner, Alexej, is a friend from Lena and he didn’t charge us. He really is a great guy who runs a very nice (probably the most cosy hostel I’ve ever seen) hostel with the spirit every hostel owner should have. Alexej sais, he runs the hostel not for money reasons, it’s a hobby for him.
After the long and exhausting walk we all were just happy to be at the hostel, to have a tea, a shower, watching the thunderstorm above the lake and just go to bed. One of the best days of my trip so far, just my stomach really started to make some trouble.
In the village, Bolshie Koty, which is an old mining village without any streets or cars or roads out of the village (you can just get there by boat or feet) it was very hard to find some stuff for breakfast. There is no supermarket where you can buy something, just two or three kiosks which mainly sell cigarettes and alcohol, sell some stuff, but not even bread. The woman who delivers the village with fresh, handmade bread, had no bread this day so we returned at the hostel with just some milk, cereals and cookis. But it was alright. The scheduled boat at 14.00 was not going that day, maybe because of the rain and storm which still was going outside. The only boat this day left at 18.00, which usually was a little bit late for me because I usually wanted to start to hitchhike to Mongolia already on this day (thursday) but I just cancelled that for health reasons. Hitchhiking with a flu is not so cool, once again I preferred to be close to a toilet, so I decided to take the overnight train from Ikrutsk to Ulan-Ude the next friday and on saturday morning (the expiration day of my visa) to take the bus to the mongolian capital Ulaan-Baatar. All that way costs around 37€, for about 1000km and a border crossing quite alright, I think. And some advantages came with that, too. I now had an extra day in Irkutsk again and I would see how it looks like on the famous trans-siberian railway. The friday in Irkutsk was a relaxed one, I walked around with Misha to buy the catering for the next day and ingredients for the
tomato soup I prepared that evening (it was good!). Lena, Natalie and Misha came with me to the train station to say goodbye and take a last picture. Hey Lena, Natalie, Misha and Dima, too. THANKS FOR ALL!!!
The train left at 21.50 and should arrive Ulan-Ude, the capital of the buryat population in Russia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buryats). I booked a “Platskartny” which is the 3rd out of four classes on russian trains. In this class you still have a bed (175cm long, much too short for me). In your waggon 54 beds are situated divided into nine departsments which are open to each other so you should bring some earplugs to get some sleep
I had good luck with my compartment where a guy was who spoke some good english so he could translate the plenty questions the three other elder woman asked me all the time. I was something like an attraction for them and they called me something like “hero” when they heard how I got to Irkutsk. No, I’m not, hitching in Russia is easy
One thing to mention happened, too. One of the elder woman indicated to me, that I have something at my mouth. I thought it maybe rest of the soup or something and started to clean it with my fingers and saliva but it didn’t go away and I did it a wrong place as she indicated. So after some time she just did it by herself at me and pulled like hell at my lip-piercing!!! What the fuck! She almost ripped it out! Ok, nothing happened it was even funny because she was so sorry afterwards. She just thought the piercing isn’t supposed to be there, probably she never saw a male having a piercing in the lip.
The train arrived 40minutes later then expected in Ulan-Ude at 06:45 in the morning, so I had to hurry up to get to the place where the bus to Ulaan-Baator leaves but I made it in time, the problem now just was that there was no space in bus anymore but using the old slavic tradition of corruption helped a lot and the bus driver was able to find a seat for me. On the bus there were three other Germans, Max, Iannis and David. That made the exhausting 14 hour-ride inlcusive the 4 hour taking border crossing a little bit more bearable. At all it was ok, the bus was quite modern and at the border there were no big problems and we arrived Ulaan-Baator at 20.30 after passing through a stunning almost uninhabited landscape (you almost just see some nomads on horses and nomad tents and the to them belonging herds of sheeps, cows or horses! And we made the first unpleasent experiences with mongolian food. Almost everything is mixed up with meat, even the salads. So you maybe have to pick it out (but for me that makes the food not really more enjoyable) or give it to one of the begging children who sourrond you. In our case a young, maybe 8 or 9 year old street kid (who asked us mainly for a cigarette) was happy because he got a big meal.
In Ulaan-Baator we checked in at the “Golden Gobi Hostel” for 5$ a night. That really is the gathering place of the backpackers scene in Mongolia. It’s some kind of a party hostel with a lot different people from all kind of countries. But actually the hostel has very good facilities and is very comfortable, too. I think I won’t get bored here for the next week when I have to wait for my chinese visa I have to apply for on monday. They have a free wifi access here, too, so I think I will be online regularly during the next week!
Archiv für die Kategorie ‘Russia’
Beautiful Lake Baikal and an energy-sapping way to Mongolia
Sonntag, 16. August 2009Иркутck!
Mittwoch, 12. August 2009It really was an awesome time in and around this city! It began with some difficulties with my couchsurfing host because on the day I arrived he was out of town but the problem was solved pretty quickly. When I asked people to host me three different persons accepted my request so I just send some messages around and spent the night at Natalie’s place. The guys who gave me the last 400km lift dropped me out directly at the meeting point (the Lenin memorial) with Natalie ten minutes before the appointment. Beside Natalie there were Ghislain, Magda and Toff already waiting for me. Ghislain is from France, Magda and Michael were from Poland and we all should be hosted by Natalie for this night. So I didn’t really had to look out for entertainment, the company was very nice and funny! One of the first things I did at Natalies apartment was taking a shower which felt like the biggest pleasure on earth, especially in this shower (which was HUGE!). Natalie left us after some time because she volunteered in some kind of a city rally this night but anyway, as I said before, it was a nice and interesting evening. In the morning of the next day it was still raining, like the day before but that didn’t stop Natalie and a friend of Natalie, Ghislain and me from exploring the city inclusive funny photoshootings in a kind of a “Power Rangers” style. In the afternoon I had an
appointment with a somehow strange guy but I didn’t know that he’s strange at that time. I was pretty much in a hurry and anyway already much too late so it was not a big surprise that the guy was already gone when I arrived at the Lenin monument. Additional to that I forgot my mobile phone in Natalies apartment when I left there and the way back to the apartment (it was extremely hidden and really not easy to find) was just like a big labyrinth of houses which all looked like the same for me. To shorten it: I didn’t find the apartment again. But I had an idea, how to get my mobile back so I looked for an Internet Cafe and send a SMS to Natalie via Skype (I had her number in my e-Mails) and asked her to meet at the front of the Lenin monument at 19.30. Yeah, so I waited for her and waited for her and waited for her… but she didn’t show up. She didn’t get my message, that was the problem as we found out later. But another girl came to rescue me.She (let’s call her Lena) was waiting at the memorial for someone, too. After some time she came to me and just asked what’s up, we started to talk a little and found out, what a great luck, that she has the telephone number of Natalie and was able to call her (I had almost no money left and my credit card was in my bag at the train station where I brought it in the morning). Unbelievable good luck. Imagine: You’re sitting in a city in Eastern Sibiria, you forget your mobile at a place you don’t find anymore, you send a text message to the person who lives at that place but the person doesn’t receive it and when you’re waiting for the person (probably forever) someone comes to you, starts to talk to you and has the mobile number of the person you’re waiting for! And that all in a city with more than 500000 inhabitants! Really unbelievable for me, the life’s on my side. Lena was actually a very nice person to meet and it came that we hung out almost the whole time together for the next week. So, I went with Lena to Natalies place and got my mobile back, than we met up with the strange guy I usually wanted to meet in the afternoon for some minutes (and to be honest, I was happy when the meeting was done) and later, after I got my bag back from the railway station we met up with Dima, my host for tonight, which also was a friend of Lena. The world is damn small. The evening continued with some alcoholic drinks in a good company at first at a Kafe and later at the riverbanks of nice Angara river before I went home with Dima in a taxi, quite squiff. Strange day, but cool!
The next day was more quiet, I had a small hangover, like everyone else around me and an appointment with Lena and roundabout 20 other people for a dinner party in the evening. I was planning to prepare a vegan Pasta but unfortunately there was no space in the kitchen because some other people already were very busy there. But it was no problem at all, we just went to another hostel (were Lena works) and cooked and ate there. Alongside us a french couple named Claire and Julien, we were hanging out the whole day with already (but the day started quite late), joined us for the food. When we
finished we went back to the dinner party and brought the rests of our food with us. The party was big fun, with probably persons from six different nationalities and a big diversity of selfmade music on very strange instruments. A very nice evening, I really enjoyed it! But I had to get up early the next day to organise my mongolian visa (finally!) so we went home (which was Dimas apartment), more or less early, again with a taxi.
Organising this mongolian visa really is a pain in the ass even if it was quite easy this time. The biggest annoyance this time was that I had
US Dollars with me to pay the visa as they say on the homepage of their embassy. But somehow they don’t want US Dollars anymore and just accept Roubles now. Before I had something like 75 US Dollars with me and changed almost all me Roubles I had left to Dollars to have 100$, the amount the visa should cost. So I arrived there with my 100$, get an advice to change it back to Roubles and to come back. Ok, I did so but when changing money you always loose something to the original exchange rate so after changing this 100$ back to Roubles I had 200Roubles (less than 4€) too little to pay the visa. My credit card once again was at a safe place at Dimas home so I just went to the hostel were Lena works, borrowed 250Roubles from her, went back to the embassy and paid for my visa application. I was told to pick up my passport inclusive the visa the next day at noon… the endless story seemed to have an end.
A looong way east… Part 2
Samstag, 08. August 2009I came to Omsk at roundabout 5pm and my situation was the following: I had about 40 roubles left in my pocket, my mobile credit was just 8roubles, it was raining (now since more than 26 hours and over a distance of 450km without a stop – Omsk was almost near to drowning, I never saw something like that (and I was in the Chernivzi area in Ukraine at the days of the century highwater 2008 where 22 people died). With my last money I went by marschrutka to the trainstation where I was supposed to meet another Yuri from the Siberian Association of Work, an anarchosyndicalist union in Siberia. That all worked out very well even with a credit for just two SMS on my
mobile and no money in my pocket. I can say that having a good place to stay for that night really saved me. I got soaked through anyway (all things in my backpack where wet as well, including all books etc.) but was able to dry the stuff again at the dacha in the outskirts of the city where we went to. Here Vasili and Magda lived, to older anarchists from the same union than Yuri. I was expected with a good potato-based meal and new clothes and a nice conversation afterwards but I was somehow to tired to stay up a long time. Some stuff about the dacha where I stayed. That was pretty old school, what I really liked. There was no running water in house, the toilet was about 50m from the house away and just a small hut with a heart in the door (like you imagine it in “Heidi”-movies) and with a big garden where they grew almost everything they need for living. Very very nice, I relly could imagine to live in a way like that too when I’m a little bit older.
The next day the weather calmed down a little bit and it was not raining all the time anymore, just 4-5 times during the day for half an hour. I got up not before noon and took some time for myself for breakfast and going back to the city center with Yuri and some short time to check e-mails and post the first “sign of life” post for this blog. I finally got out of the city at 5pm and once again I have to say a big THANK YOU to Yuri, Vassili and Magda. The hospitality in Russia really is unbelievable great.
Hitchhing the 650km was not a big deal and I made it still on the same day (with starting at 5pm really not bad). On the way I met my first hitchhike colleagues, who were standing at the road a couple of kilometers behind me and my driver stopped for them as well. Nice couple, they were on the way to the Altai mountains which must be a very impressive area in Russia, too. But my destination was another one… Lake Baikal and Irkutsk. The next and finally the fourth lift this day then took me directly the last 400km to Novosibirsk where I found me at another big truck stop. I decided to use my tent the first time during the trip, a remote place to pitch it was easily found.
So, you’re waiting for the first big down on the way from Moscow to Irkutsk, right? So, here we are: The whole next day was a single down.
It started when I woke up in my tent and recognised, that the outer layer of my tent was opened and in the inner tent there was a 15cm long cut. That means that during the night someone must have been at my tent and wanted something from me. I didn’t wake up and after a check of all my belongings I was certain that nothing was stolen but it still leaves a very dodgy feeling. In the night when I placed the tent I usually was sure that nobody would be even able to see my tent but it was obviously not the case and now I know that I have to be a little bit more carefully when it comes to the choice of my camping site. Anyway, I had to go on with hitchhiking what was more than difficult around Novosibirsk. It took more than 5 hours just to pass the ring and to get east of the city. Really not nice. I finally got a truck to Kemerovo a little bit later but I shouldn’t reach this ugly city with that truck because suddenly the drivers cabin was filled with smoke and my driver stopped immediately. At the beginning he said something like “niema problem”, a little bit later the “no problem” got to a “malinka problem”, a small problem and finally it became a “bolshe problem” what meant that he was not able to continue. Truck breakdown number 2. I hitchhiked on and three guys stopped for me and wanted to bring me to Kemerovo, and they really did. Even more into Kemerovo than I ever wanted to be. When we passed the city on the ring they drove out into the direction of the city center, what made me immediately protesting and telling them that I would like to get out because I prefer to stay on the ring. But the told me that they will bring me to a Kafe where I can ask people if they go on to Krasnoyarsk what will be better for me. I agreed to that and that was the biggest mistake of the whole day. I thought that they maybe bring me to a Kafe one or two kilometers from the ring but they drove directly into the city center. I was close to a heart attack when one of the guys called a friend there and asked where a good Kafe to bring me would be. So they had no idea about a Kafe where to bring me at all. They drove out of the city center again and instead of bringing me back to the ringroad the went to the other direction and finally dropped my out at a Kafe close to the airport 11km out of the city. They said that the street where the Kafe was situated would lead to Mariinsk and Krasnoyarsk but I had a reasonable doubt to believe that. I asked a truck driver and yes, he confirmed me that I’m totally wrong and should go back. Damn shit, so I started to walk back in the direction of the Ring (which actually was just a half ring and not completely around the city) where I had to pass the city center again. Then it started to rain… I really can’t describe how angry I was with the guys in this moment. After two hours walking through the rain I decided to give up and to take a bus to the the central train station. But not to take a train to Krasnoyarsk, no, to sleep
In the russian train station they really often have the so called “rest rooms” which come along with beds in dorms. These are very often the cheapest possibilities to stay over night in a bigger city and they usually are clean and well kept. I paid 350Roubles for 12 hours and was just lucky to take a shower (the first one after 6 days) and to put myself into a horizontal position. This day holds some negative records, so I spent most the money of the whole trip on this day (almost 16Euro!) and made the least kilometers in one day (just 350km). Shit happens…
The next day was more successfully again. In the morning I checked out of the restrooms and took a bus to a town named Berezinsky for 28roubles. On the way to there the bus must take the M53 road whichleads to Mariinsk and Krasnoyarsk as I assumed after a watch in my map. It really was like that and I got out before the town of Berezinski and was back on the track again. Unfortunately it was still raining
pretty much during so morning so I had to hitch through the rain what was not really comfortable but I had no other choice. To protect my stuff in my backpack from the rain I put my bag into a bus stop and myself in front of the bus stop at the street. It was not really easy to
get lifts (wet people are not very welcome in the most cars) but after 8-9 hours (with 5 short lifts in between) I was was finally picked up by a driver who went to Krasnoyarsk. The man, in a very fancy Chevrolet, was driving together with his son and even spoke some good english (except the persons in Omsk the first person since Moscow!!!) and drove fast, what I really appreciated after too much too slow truck
rides. In Krasnoyarsk I arrived at 9pm so continuing hitching made no much sense and I decided to put up my tent again to get some sleep, this time in place where I was absolutely sure that nobody can see it.
Krasnoyarsk is the last big city before Irkutsk but still 1070km away from it. Distances really are unbelievable big here. It’s not really possible to tell you about that, I think nobody can really imagine that who was not going that way by himself. You maybe can take a look at a map and see that it’s really far away but get the real size and get the real feeling how wide everything is away from everything else you definitely have to go by yourself. Btw: The landscape was a little bit disappointing for me, nothing really spectacular. The Ural mountains weren’t that impressive, too and after the mountains for maybe 2500 kilometers thick birch tree forests alternate with just a vast steppe. Every 20-50 kilometer you have a small village and and every 600-1000km a big town you usually don’t see a lot of because of the ringroad around the town. But at all it’s still a very special area on planet earth I think. It’s not really the landscape which makes it so impressive it really is the feeling that here everything is just extreme. Beginning with the weather (ranges between -50degrees celsius and +40degrees celsius a year) and the distances and going on to the people and animals who live there (I saw at least 15 Golden Eagles!). The street quality is ranging probably as much as the temperature. From a new, perfect highway to the most muddiest, bumpiest and dustiest dirt road you find everything. Especially the next couple of hundred kilometers after Krasnoyarsk the roads are very bad and your
average speed is very often not more than 10km/h. So, that was area I had to pass this day and except the bad roads I had no real problems to get through. It took it’s time but until the evening I just had 600km left to Irkutsk and camped with good hope that I will be in Irkutsk the next day in a forest close to street.
Yes, it was the last day of my 5500km way between Moscow and Irkutsk. And this day should turn out to be something special again. So all three rides I got this day were somehow extreme. It started with a russian truck driver who brought me to his working place (a building site on the M53 road were he had to load sand) where I spent a breakfast brake with my driver and two colleagues in my drivers cabin. For breakfast they had beside bread and coffee something else, too.
Marijuana. Yeah, I’m sure their day will be better after a morning joint at 9.00h but anyway I thankfully declined. The 2nd lift was in truck which was concipated for 2 two people and we were three. The usual co-driver went to bed and I got his seat. It took more than 3 hours in this truck for less than 100km what was the default of the streets and the first foothills of the south-siberian mountains. Then the truck breakdown number 3 followed. I was kind of glad (of course not for them, but for me) when the truck broke down in a very small but nice and interesting small village (something was up with the steering) and
I got the next, and my final lift to Irkutsk after one hour waiting (in this one hour 4 cars passed me, the fifth stopped). This ride was fast. Very fast. Probably the fastest of the whole trip and they offered me 14% beer which tasted unexpected good (I think I earned that). That the guys went 150 kilometer in the wrong direction (what I recognized and told them) didn’t really mattered then…
At 8.20pm, after 9 days and 20 hours of hitchhiking I finally arrived Irkutsk!
It really was an unforgettable and unique experience!
A looong way east… Part 1
Samstag, 08. August 2009From Moscow I left pretty late and I had to wake up at 7 am. But I left not before 2 pm. At that time my laundry was just almost dry. So there was no sense to wake up at 7 am anyway
. It took some time to get out of Moscow, because I was a little bit confused with the buses, and stayed at the bus too long. I got dropped out at the place where was nothing around except Russian style apartment buildings. So I had to walk back a couple kilometers, which was actually not funny, but Russia wouldn’t be Russia if there is no solution near by. On the street I asked a guy if that is the right direction to Vladimir, and he said: “Yes”. His English was pretty good and after we talked for some minutes, he offered me a lift to the real outskirts of the city in his fancy jeep. It was a nice trip, he brought me around one hour and after that I didn’t have to wait a long time to get my first lift to Vladimir.
When I arrived to Vladimir it was already night, but I decided to hitchhike through the night. I got a couple of lifts around the ring, and after waiting for more than one hour at a petrol station I decided to put up my tent. On the way to put up my tent, a truck driver shouted something to me. He was a very funny guy, he was from Ukraine and he didn’t believe that I was German before he saw my documents and finally he invited me to his truck for a breakfast. For a breakfast there was coffee and hard bread and a lift to Nizhniy Novgorod. Great! The guy was a little bit exhausting for me, because he tried to teach me russian for every single word he said, for example now I know the words for stiring, spoon and morning (the last one was actually useful). He dropped me out a couple of kilometers from Nizhny at the time the sun was just rising. Spasibo!!!
The next lifts were not really spectacular. Sometimes it was pretty hard to hitchhike and I had to wait for hours for the next ride (the areas of the “Republic of Tatarstan”, the “Republic of Baschkortostan“ and the Oblast Cheljabinsk were pretty hard… they are probably the Bavaria of Russia… not for nothing they’ve got a russian TV comedy show here about the first gay steel worker in Russia from Cheljabinsk
) . Kazan’ was the next big city on my map. And there I met Igor, a russian-kazakh truck driver who told me that he will bring me to Ufa. He was pretty alright and a very good guy. Especially after he offered me to go to the backspace of his truck to sleep a while. I accepted his offer with a big pleasure, but unfortunately the russian country roads turned my well earned sleep more into a roller-coaster journey. But sometime later the trucked stopped and I fell asleep. When I woke up the next time, it was close to 8 pm. I didn’t recognized that we stayed for 1,5 hours, because the truck had a breakdown. Some important thing to get wheels moving was broken. Truck breakdown number 1. When I heard that, I tried to hitchhike further on, but there was no possibility ’cause it was already too late. So I decided to accept Igor’s offer to sleep in his trucks cabin and to go on with him the next day.
The next day I traveled with Igor for another couple of hundred kilometers and the problem with his truck occurred again. Now Igor was more ore less hopeless and I decided to hitchhike on. Igor promised me that he would pick me up later if his problem would have been fixed early enough, but he hadn’t to… It were only 20 minutes until I was picked up from two younger guys who drove me to
Zlatoust. They didn’t talk a lot, but it was a fast ride and nice company. Almost at the end of my lift the thing happened that I was really afraid of. They stopped at a cafe at the side of the street and asked me if I want to eat or drink. After declining the first request I pointed to some vegetarian ‘pirozhki’ which was fine with them. We sat down at the table and I was a little bit frightened when the waitress brought us
three soups. It was just probably (but usually I don’t think so because of the bouillon) a vegetarian soup. The step after that was the main dish. I don’t know what you would have done, but I wasn’t in the situation that I told them before that I’m vegan/vegetarian and the already prepared dish was served already. It was a dish of pork and porridge and somehow it seemed too rude for me to decline it. So it was the first time I ate meat since years. But believe me I swallowed it down without almost no chewing and all the meatarians can keep their food for themselves. An hour later the guys dropped me out at a petrol station and Kafe near the town Zlatoust, where I should stay overnight. To find a place to sleep was not so easy, camping was not very cool in this area due to too high grass and plants. But in the forest beside the station I found a big wooden panel which was just perfect to place my camping mat. I got out my sleeping bag, earplugs in my ear and said goodbye to the world… for a couple of hours. What I didn’t expect after a very sunny and nice day was the rain which started in the middle of the night. I had no protection against that so I had no other choice then just packing my stuff together (fast!) and leave to the covered petrol station. I waited there sometime until the
rain stopped again and found a very cool and nice driver to my direction. His name was Yuri and he was somehow different then the other truck drivers I went with before. That means, that he was not swearing all the time and was pretty quiet all the way. But he really was kind, for example it was not possible to pay anything for me the whole time I went with him, even if I wanted to buy something he insists to pay. He went with his truck all the way to Krasnojarsk (from Kaliningrad, the russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania!) so I stayed in his truck all day even if he was painfully slow (and we still were in the Ural mountains). I was very happy to find a long single ride that day because it started to rain every hour for half an hour and
hitching in the rain is not big fun. In the evening I we reached the small town Chastozere where he went to sleep. In his truck there was just one bed so I had to find another place to sleep which was once again no big problem. A bus stop had the honour to protect me from the rain this night
I know, usually it’s not the best idea to sleep very visible in a bus stop in Russia but it really was a very small town and
it was raining all the time, so nobody really was on the streets and I had a quiet and restful night.
The next day it shouldn’t stop raining for the whole day. Not even for one minute. It was absolutely bucketing down all the time which pissed me off not just a little bit. But good luck again, Yuri was still at his parking spot and was happy to bring me to Omsk, the city with more than one million inhabitants number four (out of seven on the way to Irkutsk) I had to pass. Just to make you understand how it looked like when Yuri and me stopped for breakfast, lunch or
whatever, here’s what he ordered for breakfast for me: one soup, one garlic-red cabbage salat, 3 pancakes, a coffee, a tee, porridge and finally a fish. He know that I’m a vegan (or at this time already just vegetarian – I decided to stop my diet at least on the street when I found nothing to eat (not even a banana or apple) for 26 hours two days before!) and usually cared for it very good but fish doesn’t count like meat in Russia (but in Germany this legend that vegetarians eat fish is widely spread, too). I finished everything before the fish and pretended to be totally full when I came to it, so Yuri made a doggy bag for me. In the evening I found a thankful acceptor for the fish in Omsk
Just a small sign of life
Montag, 03. August 2009I’m in Omsk now, that’s more than 5000km from Hamburg, already asia and 5 hours ahead
Everythings fine with me even if I’m a little bit out of my time schedule (drenching rain for 26 hours without a break stopped me a little bit). I’ve to hurry up now but until the weekend I’ll be in Irkutsk.
The report will follow then
I’ve got a lot to tell you!
Moscow, Moscow, throwing glasses at the wall…
Dienstag, 28. Juli 2009The birthday was a nice mixture of drinking on the streets, sightseeing and getting totally drunk at Cechmans place. The beer here tastes really good but definitely is something what we would call “headache brew” in Germany. On sunday I was totally destroyed, with an headache so worse I haven’t had since a couple of years. But Russians are friendly and know a receipt against that: more beer. In the evening we met with a journalist who’s doing a tv documentary about the countercultural scene in Russia for what he needed an interview with Ukrop, too. The beer we had during this was on his bill so I felt already a little bit better when we came to the flat of Ukrops friends where a nice party with a couple of people was going on. The guys in
the Apartment were a great, funny and interesting company so we stayed there for two days
I got a lot of practical tips about hitchhiking in Siberia and some useful telephone numbers even if my mobile is not working at the moment (somehow in a very sleepy condition I dropped it accidentially in a glass of water which was standing beside my bed on the ground) but I’ll get a new one this evening from Ukrops Dad.
Yeah, so my days in Moscow are almost numbered. Tomorrow in the morning I will start to hitchhike to Irkutsk. People told me here that it will probably take 8 to 10 days and I don’t know if I will have the possibility for internet access along the way so it might take some time until you will read the next post. But I’m pretty sure that you will be able to read some very interesting anecdotes from a 5000km journey on russian countryroads
I still don’t have a mongolian visa. I will apply for it in Irkutsk. But I found a way to get a free invitation to Mongolia so that really shouldn’t be a problem anymore.
Liebesgrüße aus Moskau
Sonntag, 26. Juli 2009(that’s the german title for the James Bond movie “From Russia in Love”)
The 2nd try to get up at 8am was more successfull than the first try. I had to cross whole St.Petersburg by metro before I got to the M10, the road to Moscow. I was there at 11am and got a lift with Vladimir (who’s name was not just Vladimir, he drove to the city of Vladimir, too) for roundabout 600km. He was a nice guy and stopped several times during the ride at some spots worth to see along the road, like a
memorial for thousands and thousands soldiers fallen in the 2nd world war (really impressive, so many names…) and nice churches, for example. When he turned left to go to Vladimir I had a little bit more than 100km to Moscow left, which I made in a small tiny Lada. Ukrop, my host for the next days lives in a small town named Troitsk in the outskirts of Moscow which takes some time to get there. From the 2nd last metro stop I had to take another bus for an half an hour to get to his place. I’m not the only visitor at his place at the moment, with Ukrop there were Muri from Greece/Spain/Poland (it’s not so clear where he’s actually from, he lived in a lot of countries) and Tina from Leipzig, the girlfriend of Ukrop, so theres always something up in his flat at the moment, what I like.
The next to days I mostly spend with organising my mongolian visa. It’s not so easy as I read everywhere before. Everywhere it was written that it’s no problem to obtain for a visa without an invitation from a travel agency or a mongolian private person if you stay in Mongolia less than 30 days but the people in the mongolian embassy want to see an official invitation. The next day I tried it again at the mongolian consulate but they told me that I have to apply in the morning (the office is open from 9am to 12.30pm and 4pm to 5.30pm but in the afternoon they just give out the ready visas), so I have to go to the consulate at monday morning again, what a pain in the ass. If they refuse to give me a visa, too I will start to hitchhike to Irkutsk immediatly on tuesday to apply for a visa there. It should be much easier in Irkutsk as I read in a couple of internet forums.
Beside all that hassles I’m really fine. Moscow is an impressive city, in a kind of strange way. The traffic is enormous and it’s really hard to cross any major road. Traffic lights are seldom and the roads have at least 3 lanes in every direction with a lot of car. In the rush hour it looks like the same with the people. I somehow understand why Moscow has the reputation of the most expensive and the rudest city in the world. What disturbs me a little bit, too, is the thing that in the
city centre it’s almost impossible to find a normal shop for normal people. You can walk for kilometres and you pass just shitty bourgoise food-, coffee- or designer shops. It’s almost impossible to find a normal supermarket. It’s a very exclusive city as I’ve got the impression yet and I have to say that I probably liked St.Petersburg more. On the other hand, you can find some very nice and remote spots for example in parks here and the sights are very nice, too. Even if I expected the Red Square a little bit bigger.
Today it’s Tinas 20th birthday (congratulations!) and we will celebrate this in the city centre with a lot of Vodka for the others and beer for me, I think ![]()
From sunday on there’s a one week anarchy congress in the City of Ufa, 1500km east of Moscow. If it works out with my visa I will go there for my next destination. If I will have some trouble with the visa I will try to get to Irkutsk as fast as possible… it’s just 5000km to there, so that should be done quickly ![]()

You’re from St.Petersburg if…
Dienstag, 21. Juli 2009…you plan your summer holidays accordant to the cold water schedule.
I’m obviously not from St.Petersburg. Here they have just cold water for two weeks every summer, the state says it’s because water pipelines maintenance. The cold water period started today (tuesday), the day I usually wanted to leave to Moscow. But I totally overslept this morning and now will go tomorrow. So I had the pleasure to take a very cold shower this noon.
But today I managed it to get new passport pictures and to learn a little bit more russian (which is still very very poor). So here’s the ultimate russian hitchhiking sentence guide for people who speak german (in german phonetics):
Iswinitze -> Sorry/Excuse me
Ja odschin plocha gawaru pa russkie, iswinitze. -> My russian is very bad, I’m sorry.
Wui jeditzie wö …? -> Do you go to … ?
Moschizie w(u)siat minja bisplatne? -> Would you give me a lift for free?
Moschna dajechat ßwami do … ? -> Can I come with you until … ?
Baschalsta -> Please
So, have fun learning that and start to hitchhike to Vladivostok!
RUSSIA!!!
Montag, 20. Juli 2009It’s not so easy to compose an article after so much pasta I just had but I will give it a try.
This time hitchhiking was not so cool, it still was no problem but the same stupid thing happened to me two times. The first time a driver dropped me out 3km before the estonian town “Jöhvi” and I had to walk into the city, through the city and out of city to the street A1 which is the street from Tallinn to St.Petersburg. The same happened to me 20km before the arrival in St.Petersburg again, the driver dropped me out at the town “Krasnoe Selo” from where I took a train to “Piter” for 56Roubles (1€ = 44Roubles). Continueing hitchhiking made no sense because the traffic was already like in the middle of the city. But except these two annoyances it was quite easy. The border crossing took me not more then 15minutes (the 3rd border I passed on feet on this journey) and getting lifts was neither a problem in Estonia than Russia. So I arrived at the “Baltiyskaya vokzal” (one of the main stations in St.P.) at 8.30pm. Polina, my dear host for the next four nights already waited for me, thanks!
I liked Russia from the first minutes I was there, perhaps it had something to do with the prices of cigarettes I saw at the first shop after the border. 24Roubles a pack, that’s what I call decent. The other price some people could be interested in, is the price for one liter of petrol. It’s even cheaper than a pack of cigarettes. Saint Petersburg is a city I liked from the very first minute as well. It’s somehow not like I expected a russian city to be like, it’s more a european city but it has some style. It was founded by Peter the Great in 1703 in the middle of a simp or nothing. He was crazy about Amsterdam and wanted a city
with channels and Cannabis, no, sorry, not the last stuff, here in front of his home (Moscow), too. So nowadays Piter comes along with a lot channels and a lot of water in the city. It was the russian capital from 1703 to 1920 and so has a lot of historical buildings, churches (funny
colourful), a forstress and many bridges which open at night. I think St.Petersburg is one of the cities you can spend days just on sightseeing and you still can’t see everything. Our group (Francesco from Italy but now living in Moscow, Anastasia, Polina, Rinat and me) was a funny composition. That we had no common language didn’t really matter (especially not after a couple of beers) so the night from saturday to sunday was very rich of different events. After spending the day with sightseeing and searching roofs to see the city from a
bird’ eye view (that was not succesful but we met interesting persons who live a hard life under the roofs of this otherwise very “clean” city) we had a fantastic vegan pasta made by Francesco. We were a little bit to slow with the food so we had to run with full stomachs and beer and cigarettes in our hand to the metro station to get the last metro back into the city center but we made it. The night went on with these unbelievable great 1l beer bottles, climbing on monuments and watching the bridges open while peeing in the Neva river. Just great!
Even if I don’t remember so much about “later” pictures and some videos of us say that we went to a club, sat in something white on the streets (people laughed at us) and somehow ended up in a hospital. Rinat felt an ache in his breast but it turned out that it was nothing serious. Anyway, that took us one or two hours so we were at home not before 8am in the morning. The next day is easy summarized: We slept until 6.30pm and went swimming at a local lake out of the city. That’s it. Today it was again some mixture of sightseeing, eating pasta and buying train tickets for a friend of mine, that’s how a really great weekend ended.
Thanks a lot to Polina for all the help and the great hospitality! Have fun in the Balkans and Poland!
