Russian Adventures
Russian Adventures
Unsupported, rained-on, no language and disintegrating tyres (but could be worse, we’re still alive!)
Russian Adventures (Memoirs of G Ganesh)
DISCLAIMER: VERY IN-DEPTH ACCOUNT BY A TIRED & EMOTIONAL TANDEMER!
Approaching the border of Russia, Finland had just one last throw of the dice. The final day was the day of thunderstorms and lightening. Rain was one thing but lightning was a whole new problem. Fork lightning, as we had never seen before, struck just in the trees next to us and was a good sign we needed to take cover as we rode our metal frame through the rain! Luckily it was lunch time and Susannah the van was around for us to take refuge in. The storm passed and we had to push to get the last 80km or so to the border done, ready to wake up early and make the crossing. We pushed hard but everything was against us. We once again had to shelter under a bridge but for at least an hour whilst another storm passed. Then the only route to the border was a busy motorway and, like most Finnish roads which were too busy to cycle on, a cycle path was conveniently built. However, the road works in progress caused the cycle path to be no more. We tried re-routing to no avail and as the day dragged on it got colder and wetter. It was late now and progress backwards and had to call it a day. Very disappointed and soaked through with no sense of achievement, the likelihood of reaching Russia the next day was minimal.
Our plan for the next day was to complete our admin needed for Russia and full kit packing (as would be unsupported) in the morning and crack on to complete the border distance in the afternoon. A German couple that morning though changed everything and saved us a day, and maybe more. Marge (thank you so much for coming) had now arrived to help out Mum Soph with the drive over to Estonia via the Helsinki ferry and as we sat for breakfast with this couple it turned out they had cycled half our Russian route! They were extremely helpful, pointing out places to stay, dismissing worries of police problems, identifying good roads on their map. This was the difficulty with Russia, the complete unknown. With little or no information on the internet, we did not know any of the above and our maps were sketchy at the best, in a place where little English was spoken and help nowhere to be seen. It was going to be a real adventure.
Gathering our things together at pace in the morning we pulled it together and set off on the bike at 2pm to Nuijaama, the border town. The rain still persisted to dampen our spirits but there was no choice anymore – we had to reach Vyborg in Russia by tonight or we were sleeping in a forest with no tent. We packed the absolute minimum with only enough things in one rear pannier between us. We reached the border at around 6pm and what a sight. Vehicles queued up for about 5km back but luckily we just skipped past on Trinny the tandem right to the front. We had Russian visas but felt like no guarantee of entry and were ready for lots of problems. Surprisingly, it was plain sailing! Straight in, nothing to declare but a bike and we were in Russia.
The initial hilly pass was painful after such a long, busy day. We didn’t even know accurately how far Vyborg was going to be – the maps ranged from 30 to 50km from the border. We hoped nearer the former. Luckily it was and we reached the town outskirts around 9pm. Then we realised how difficult this was going to be. The signs were completely intelligible to us, if there were any. We didn’t have a proper map of the town and looking for a hotel in the middle of it was a needle in a haystack moment. It took over an hour to do the last few km but made it to the hotel, safe and sound. We were really doing this.
A mosquito infested room lead to an extremely poor night’s sleep we really had to drag ourselves out of bed. We had to get some Roubles, find some food for the day and then navigate out of the city in the morning. There was an A road marked on our map cutting diagonally to the coast where Zelengorst was located. A known coastal resort town was a good bet for accommodation so chose that as our next way point. The journey was tedious and eventful. Classed as an A road but was in complete disrepair with foot deep pot holes meant progress was difficult. The weather was grey, grey as far as the eye can see into the surrounding forests. We were doing it though and slow and steady was the aim of the game. The only sights were the stereotypical soviet apartment blocks – completely dilapidated, lacked any colour and stretched for hundreds of metres. The only other sight was a huge Russian military base town. Approaching the coast and within sight of our destination and the hope that today was going to be the first day that went exactly to plan, bang. We both assumed it was the overtaking car on the highway but a second later we knew it was us. The handling went and straight onto the deck we went. We thankfully got straight up and off the busy road. Slightly in shock at what had just happened we pieced together a probable series of events, CSI style. We had full inner tube and tyre blow out on the front probably secondary to the high pressures and bumpy roads and was not able to be cycled further. We severely missed Susannah now. In a way we were very lucky, with so many what ifs running through our head it did not really bear thinking about. We were unharmed and only 8km away from town, so a long walk it was. We were extremely lucky to find a hotel with an English speaking receptionist who was most helpful and even escorted us an hour on the bus to near St. Petersburg to find yet another bike shop in a tent. They had all the gear we needed and somehow we had recovered the day, and kept on schedule, amazingly.
After a great night’s rest at a brilliant hotel we had a plan of getting past St Petersburg the next day. The coastal road was great and we made good time but then we hit the big smoke. Supposedly Europe’s fourth largest city, it proved another huge challenge. For the first time it felt like we had got somewhere, all the way from an Arctic North Cape and was nice to feel the buzz of a city again. We only had a large scale map with the main roads marked which we thought would be adequate. Not quite. An absolute nightmare with few signs and then only in Cyrillic did not help us and spent hours going round circles. In the end, compass out and head blindly proved the best. After many frustrating hours we were out of the city and thought we were home and dry. However, even on a motorway the signposts disappeared and we were thrashing ourselves to get to a hotel, the wrong way; heart sink. It actually turned out in our favour - we ended up in place which actually had hotels – as we found out the next day we would have found none on our intended route!
Having not made the full distance the previous day we had an extended route on our final day to make it out of Russia. To ensure we did make it an early 0545 start was needed, but we didn’t care as long as we made the border. Again the lack of signposts did not help us but also running low pressures in the tyres meant heavy work. Getting onto the M11 meant we had 120km to go, straight down this road – felt like we were well on our way to the security of the support van, waiting for us on the Estonian border! The rain poured, the wind was against us and the traffic tried to kill us but we were determined to get out. We only stopped every 20km and we edged closer to the EU. Exhausted but feeling relieved that we were almost out before our visas expired, Russia threw one last hurdle at us. 25km from the border, our rear tyre blew. Again a full tyre and inner tube puncture. Having never had such bike failures, two in three days showed how hard we were pushing the bike. This time we had no option of buying new kit – it was 100km back to the nearest town. We had to somehow nurse Trinny over the border. We patched up the tyre with parts found on the road – some tape and cut sections of ripped lorry tyre. We fixed the tube properly and nervously tried to cycle her again. She seemed steady and we just viewed each km a km less to walk. Ivanograd was the border town and we could see far in the distance the castle we knew stood there at the border. Keeping low speed and avoiding all bumps we could not risk anything. As we were realising that we had somehow pulled this off, just prior to the immigration we had our celebratory country beer in the petrol station. How sweet it tasted. Leaving Russia proved more difficult than getting in and after only a little interrogation we were out. Walking over the river to Estonia we could see the EU stars replacing the Soviet stars. Absolutely shattered but our smiles beamed like the sun which greeted us in Estonia as we were reunited with Mum Soph and Susannah. That’s enough adventure for now.
Sunday, 19 June 2011