From Europe to Asia

After just a few days of travelling we stayed for a while in the heart of Ukraine. While visiting local libraries for internet facilities we were invited to speak about our trip. About 30 citizens of Cherkasy and a local journalist listened to us posed many questions and started to dream. By train we went to a very small village called Mehedovka were Carina's father grew up to work in the garden, eat peaches and abricots and visited relatives. A real into the field experience. Since we left Cherkasy we left showers and 'normal' toilets behind us. We drove old but very good Soviet bicycles, enjoyed the river and fresh local traditional food. I started to speak my first Russian words.
Leaving a village is a different thing than leaving a city (also not always easy), we walked for four hours with only a few cars, going to the next crossing or field, passing us. Carina's father and aunt were with us and the bikes also helped to carry our backpacks (about 40 kilo all together). Finally we jumped unto and old bus to Zolotonozho and still made it to the big road by the evening. Those days in Ukraine were really lovely. Our last long ride was a Polish man who drove us through the city of Kharkiv, the former capital of Ukraine, a mix of 80 percent lost glory and 20 percent typical modern big city (like all similar shops). The trams and busses I saw there are so old and broken, I even had not seen such things in a tram museum!
On the 17th of July we crossed the Russian border. A Russian family made a big trip through Russia not going straight to their destination Tula by dropping us off in Voronezh. Faces and surroundings kind off touched me. Not the most nice place. But also tiredness grapped me. That morning a dog woke us up in our tent in the fields. After he left we packed our stuff, afraid he would go and get the other dogs of the nearby houses. WE walked towards the road with a beautiful sun. Only for this you would get up even when feeling tired. We were just finishing our breakfast when two people were discussing the weather at the busstop. Carina translated to me that they were wondering if that white cloud would give rain today. I did not understood, I saw only dark grey when I looked behind. Five minutes later a terrible rainstorm embraced us, we luckily timely reached the busstation were we realised it was only 6.15 in the morning. Thank you for waking us dog! Everything would have been really wet and full of mud ...
From then onwards we are fully on the road. We spent the night at the trainstation in Voronezh after encountering a typical Russian thing, many hotels do not take foreigners and it was too late to get out of the city again. No good trains to take us so a minibus brings us early morning out of the city. Ahead of us a huge space ...Russia ...Siberia ...having no idea were we would get that day. With a great 'wash' stop at a river and catching a couple of rides we do get a ride with our first Camaz, Russian truck. A truck we will get to know quite well. The road to Saratov is not the best one ... but Russia becomes more and more beautiful. Thinking about the road to Samara we consider the idea of a taking a train. Our kind driver finds out there is a night train at 22.46 ... Saratov is still far ahead of us at 19.30. With the experience of the previous night we would not like to get again to spend the night at the train station. But nothing is sure on the road. With a short brokedown of the truck we reach Saratov with a smile and portion of adrenaline at 22.15 ...I told Carina before if we do not reach city at 22.15 we should stay before the city to camp. But we got there, it is to say at the border of the city. We jump from the truck into a taxi who understandsa our situation and drives us as quick as possible. Nothiong sure yet! Long ques at the ticket offices ... if there was not a kind lady at the administration desk and we would not have ran through the station we would have missed it ... You can imagine what a joy we felt sitting in our own coupe of a Russian train ... we have beds and would arrive at 8.00 in the morning.
In Samara we use the same technique, taking a bus out of city that would bring us to the road to Ufa which we reach by 18th evening. We passed through the muslim republic Tatarstan which has its own alphabet and ethnic traditions. The driver of our third Camaz is really very kind, going to a far away place in northern Siberia. He had for example been driving in minus 45 degrees, tolds us a lot about his different life experiences and stories of the road. We slowly get into the tough but interesting life of truck drivers. He is almost a hero when helping to pull out a new bus that went off the road and caused a hilarious view on two rows of cars crossing the field instead of waiting. We camp next to his truck and wake up early to drive with him a full day to Kurgan. We cross the Ural mountains, the statue that marks the border between Europe and Asia to end up near the first Siberian city. Here we met for the first time two other travellers coming from the student city Tomsk, we camp with them in the fields accross a large truck stop called the Siberian gate. All the places we stop for coffee or to eat are kind of similar, we definitely are a rarity among the truck drivers audience. Also toilets become, let's say more and more 'Russian'. Stopping for food or a drink starts to depend on the drivers, we start to live like them ...which for example also means to live according to their time. Some continue to live at Moscow time others adjust to local time. And we? I don't know, time became an uncertainty and something that does not really matters. We crossed some time zones without knowing, others that are on the map seem not to exist in reality.
I am writing now from Novosibirsk but have to go, how I get here will be for later ... so many thoughts ... and only more new experiences will come on top ...

... truly on the road?

I am slowly becoming aware of my actions and while my feelings and thoughts have travelled already many thousands of different roads ...physically I made it from Tallinn (Estonia) to Cherkasy (Ukraine)!

13 rides, all kinds of kind drivers and from a rainy night in our tent in Lithuania to appartments from babouchkas and aunts ... the road, the road ... on the 10th of July we travelled more then 800 kilometers in 12 hours ... drivers would stop before raising our hands; coffee, ice cream and lunch were given to us ... No need to reach at any point, no given time to be present ... I feel I recieved a most precious gift ... TIME.

We spent a truly nice day in Minsk with Alex (a Belarusian student in Tallinn). The last dicatorship in Europe, felt by its people in many ways, no competition, slightly changed soviet symbols are on every corner, the 'for Belarus', 'for Lukashenko' propaganda is big and colourful according to advertisement strategies ... To much attention for a Lenin statue in front of an unpowerful parliament provokes distrust by the guard ... last protests in March 2006 were brutally repressed, internet is not an easily accessible freedom ...and while prices rise, with an average salary of 300 dollar, vodka gets cheaper ...
We left this 'socialist country' but its enormously beautiful open spaces continued after the Ukrainian border and many warm memories came when I crossed the river Desna. I travelled for several days on rafts on that river when I was the first time in Ukraine in September 2004 and still have very good friends from that time! Coming from Gomel (Berlarus) we passed close to the Tsjernobil area, so not a good place to stay ... the contamination is still very present, people are still suffering from the disaster ... Small villages, colourful houses, waterwells and goose ... how could those people who sell fruit and vegetables from gardens and forests along the road be helped with foreign aid? Would I be able to stand alone along a road for a full day without anything to read? ... Russian language becomes familiar, I slowly start to master the new alphabet, the cyrillic and try hard to pronounce the new sounds. I accept the fact that when travelling the world I am not able to communicate everywhere in many words, I am present in silence and observations but I often do think and would like to shout ... learn languages and teach languages ... knowing that a child learns them best before it is nine.

Even my own experience is yet not enough to make me fully aware of what is happening ... I made it to Ukraine in three days with 26 euro and 2 dollar (21 euro for the Belarusian visa), We escaped from tourist areas, lived with local people, tasted local food like borsht, pure pig fat and home made cakes ... and I saw, I saw a lot ... millions of sunflowers smiling, faces of young and old, churches from the in- and outside ...

We currently live at the lake, or Cherkasy Sea, and await Carina's father who is arriving tomorrow to go to a small village ... on 15th of July we have entrance tickets to Russia ...