Some impressions on Russia

Russia was for me a place I never even tried to have an image of, Siberia was big and cold. Russians were related to the Antwerp based mafia and its politics which gave an uncomfortable feeling. Halfway the road, while washing myself in one of the beautiful lakes with soft wind from the steppes blowing I said to Carina “I love Siberia”. Though often not being able to understand or to find any logic in what I saw, Russia’s simplicity touched me.

Colourful life?
From Ukraine throughout Russia the wooden village houses are painted in the most beautiful colours. Shaped like art and brightly coloured windows reflect maybe a view on life. If you would take away the colours of the many flowers, fruits, vegetables and houses this land would be very dark and hard. Several times I tried to imagine life in winter here, but I belief I have to come back for that. Though the villages are clearly dying and literally falling apart you see smiling faces and people living their life, making the best of it. My respect for all those millions of Russians living in such hard conditions and keeping their heart warm. One third of Russians is living below poverty line, there is hardly any middle class and the difference between surprisingly new and fancy cities like for example Novosibirsk and deserted village is enormous. Of course everything is very relative, I would not say Russian cities are beautiful, marks of the glory from the past are more visible then any effort for renovation or reconstruction. My conclusion for the life in Russia would be grey. This in vast contrast with my feeling about its nature!

3000 horizons
I can’t count the beautiful views I have seen throughout our journey through Russia. The space was the first thing that caught my eye. I felt I was healing my eyes from the years of working behind the computer. The most beautiful, unfortunately indescribable, places were the road from Kurgan to Omsk where we went around Kazachstan and Tuva Republic which you reach after passing amazingly beautiful mountain road. At that moment I was very thankful we were driving a slow Camaz, giving us the time to see every flower of the ‘botanical garden’. Driving through this huge country which is so diverse felt really right. And especially after taking two trains I appreciate a lot the almost 360 degrees view cars and trucks give you. Sometimes it was like seeing an enormous bouquet of field flowers. The land and not to forget the sky, being different in every other window of the car, sometimes really gave me this feeling that my heart stopped beating. We saw rain kilometers away, like seeing it is raining in Antwerp from our garden in Hove, we saw lightening, rainbows and sunbeams.

On roads, cars and drivers
I was warned about the quality of the roads in Russia but that knowledge was nothing compared to the experience and not to forget the jokes about it. Often a driver would say with some proud that this is the worst road in Russia. And indeed jumping to all sides in the cabin of a Camaz became a very common thing to us. We go to Mongolia before the hardest part from Chita to Vladivostok but drove enough off the road through fields and mud to show our respect to Russian drivers. Ideas for ngo work for improving conditions and facilities for truck drivers crossed my mind. There are certain phenomena which are ‘not seen in Europe’. For example thousands of people buy cars in Japan to earn roughly 5000 dollars in ten days. For the trip through Russia they tape the cars with all possible means, build shields and staple cars one on another. The quality of those cars, which are to be sold as ‘new’ cars, is a question. It did survive but for what invisible cost? We also saw several cars or trucks which missed the road or cars seemingly completely broken from an accident without windows still driving. Next to this misfortune I was often confronted with the enormous skills of Russians to fix cars. We would encounter many bridges to put your car on to repair it, something I believe in Belgium you have to visit a repair center for (and pay). In Russia most of the people know how to repair a car. They help father or the first car or motorcycle they get is like ‘a one way ticket to dacha (summerhouse). Learning by doing and out of necessecity. The stories of truck drivers about driving by minus 50 and cars breaking down also showed the need for helping one another. And the roads which are federal responsibility, well as the saying goes ‘Russians don’t build roads, they build cars that can go everywhere’. We learned a lot about Waz jeeps, Camaz Nefas (a truck for bringing groups into forests through rivers) and my still favourite Lada. Also one advice: don’t trust the signs along the road. We frequently encountered signs that after five minutes drive showed an extra 40 km, or signs about bumps would remain for the road builders know the bumps even though repaired would come back. Russian roads also are a daily venue for many ‘merchands’: children, elderly people, forest people selling all kinds of goods. Carina once told me to start making a list of the things you can buy like fish and kites but shortly after she said so everything became on sale from floating water toys to guns and bicycles. You can also buy checks from men seemingly doing exercises along the road. The road market has a copy-logic, cars close to each other dispose their similar goods often in exact the same way and how it makes a living I don’t know, I hardly saw anyone buying there.
After so many kilometers of Russian road I can only say it did not bore me.

Traveling in time
Something new or different from air-travel is the experience of different time zones. Russia has eleven time zones, we passed several of them. As such time became an uncertainty, confused by differences between maps and realities, drivers using their own time, trains using Moscow time we became travelers through time. In the beginning we felt the loss of time by going to the East. From my observations of the sun some questions arose. Maybe those with mathematical brains are interested to find some answers. When for example ( in more abstract terms) we drove per day 600 km towards the east, let’s say on 50 degrees North, how much hours of sun did we loose along the way? The sun was moving in exact opposite direction then us. Was it maybe that of every hour of sun we only saw half an hour? Time became also visible in the evening when we could see light and sunset in the mirror while the front window would give darkness. We saw sun and moon together.

Stories of the road
Some of our experiences became stories like how I found something I forgot in Belgium. Months ago Carina discovered my Scarabee in Tallinn (a typical blue bug jewel from Egypt), back then she mentioned to take it along as we both got it as gift from our mothers. I forgot mine at home but when I walked into the river Yenisey at the mark of the center of Asia in Kyzyl I found one at my feet. Interesting sign? Or the time we hitched a truck saying we are traveling around the world, the old man behind the wheel would answer “I did the same but in a submarine in 1967 at times of the Cuban crisis”. Was it again a coincidence we were singing Yellow Submarine just before he stopped?