Monday, June 25, 2012

day 21-24, Kazan - Ust Katav

Day 21, 100 km and a lift another100 km

Next day I started early and passed some more beautiful tributes to the Kama river.
When i stopped for lunch break I already had ridden almost 100 km. 
At the same time a mobile crane stopped at the same place. 
The driver, a small man in my age (he also was tartar) had got a flat tire. I asked if I could help him and he let me do some things although he was very skilled and certainly could have done everything by himself. A wheel is very heavy but he had tools for everything. Amongst other a big home meda slag hammer which he called "a Russian key".
Afterwards he shared his food with me (dry bread with sausage) 
and then he asked me if wanted to get a ride to the next town.  I felt saver inside a truck than on the road, so I agreed. He told me that his vehicle already was 25 years old and that he had been working with it for 20 years, but now he had some problems with the cooling system. He could only drive about 30-50 km/h. Sometimes he had to stop to let the engine cool down. It took a long time to go that 100 km but it was twice as fast than my bicycle.
In the evening we came to Elabuga  and he dropped me off. I decided to take the southern way (not to Perm and Ekatrineburg) and rode to a city called Neberzhnye Chelny. It was beginning to rain when I passed a Motel. I thought since it was Midsummer Eve in Sweden I could celebrate it by sleeping inside a house.
I checked in, washed all my clothes, took a shower and slept heavily.

Day 22, 120 km and a lift for 180 km

It was a good day. Although the northern wind was stronger than before I made many kilometres (because I had slept properly?). The road M-5 counts every kilometre from Moscow. Here I take a short brake at km 1111.

At noon I stopped at a café and ate some lunch. There are cafés at every gas station and there are gas stations about every 20th kilometre along the main-road. At all gas stations there work many people and have a lot of time to chat. 
As many times before the crew asked me curiously where I came from and where I was going to. 
A young guy called Tartari (even he was a Tartar)and his colleague really wanted to know why I was doing this trip. Tartari understood my intentions but looked at my laughing and said "crazy man!" Afterwords he fixed some free pirogues for me!

I the afternoon at half passed 3 pm I had ridden 120 km and stopped again at a gas station. There I found clean toilets! (In Russia almost all toilets only have a hole in the floor)
When I was leaving the station, a truck driver called Sascha heard that I told some curious crew that I wanted to come to Ufa next evening. Sascha said if I joined him I already could come there tonight. I accepted because the road was very narrow and the traffic very intense.
 We arrived there late at night and it was really difficult for me to find a good place for my tent in the dark.
Finally I found a very bad place close to the road. Can you see my tent under the big pipe?
I did not sleep very much because every time a truck passed the ground was shaking. In the morning even trams and trains passed some metres away.

Day 23, 100 km

Next morning I was very tired. Again the northern wind was strong which made it difficult in the turbulences after all big trucks. The road was not only narrow, there were also big "bubbles" in the asphalt where I was supposed to ride. 


 Now you could find many people selling honey along the roadside. I bought the smallest glass (on top of the pile), formed like a bear.
 They sold honey in different colours and consistences.
 Finally I saw the first mountains of the Urals
 I bought a a small bucket with small, very sweet strawberries of a sort I never had tasted before. They called them wood-strawberries and they were sweet although some of them still were green.

I came to a new time zone and I had to set my watches two hours ahead. I decided to make the day shorter (because I had slept so badly) and found a good sleeping place when it still was light. Before I went to bed I fixed a puncture. Unfortunately I could not mend the tube because the hole was between the tube and the valve, so I had to take my spare tube. Then I slept very well.

Day 24, 60 km

The landscape changed.
 It reminded me of Austria
 After some hills I had great views
 This town is called Сим. Sim-city?
 The rocks are very porous and the material is much better to put under the roads than the fine sand that had covered all western Russia. 
So now there are not so many bubbles any more in the asphalt. 
There were street markets everywhere. Actually I found about five shops that even sold bicycles. 
I remembered that I did not have any more spare tubes and asked everywhere if I could buy some. Only one shop had tubes and they were not the right size.

In the afternoon I actually got a flat again on the newly replaced tube I stopped at a café and discovered that this hole was at the same place as the one the day before but this one was definitively was irreparable. I asked where I could buy a new one. They told me that there was a town  called Ust Katav, only seven kilometres away. I tried to mend the old tube once again, but it seemed quite impossible. As soon as I inflated it the patch loosened, because it was so close to the valve. Finally I decided to just inflate very little and walk and led the bicycle. It was a nice walk. Downhill I even rode carefully. The town was bigger than I thought next to a river which also made a lake.
Everywhere were happy people, taking a bath in the lake or the river or just walking through the parks. 

 
Finally I found the sport shop, it looked very closed (and it also was).
If they will have the right size of tube I will find out tomorrow. If not I have to continue with the old tube. Right now it actually seems to be tight!


Near an old suspension bridge I found a nice and cheap hostel, where I am now. 

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Day 17-20, Nizhniy Novgorod - Kazan

Day 17, 130 km

When I left Nizhniy Novgorod in the evening i saw that the landscape in the east was changing. Now I could see some hills at the horizon. 

 I also passed a typical russianamusement park where Lenin had got competition of a giant swing.
It was loaded with people who screamed loudly while it swinged them upside-down
 
Next day I soon came to the hills. Downhill I could ride at almost 60 km/h but uphill it was not so fast...
Actually there were no hills but a high-plane with valleys in between. Small rivers had cut them into the sandy soil. I was going the same direction as Volga but the big river often was 10 or twenty kilometres north of the road so I seldom could see it.

At noon it was quite warm and I was worried about if my bicycle computer had got fever. After I had it in the shadow of a café for an hour it recovered. Still it showed about 28 degrees. (The following days it even showed 42 degrees when it was exposed to the sun!)
 When I found a brook I washed and cooled myself. I took this picture with self.timer. Half an hour later I discovered that I had forgotten the camera on that place so I had to go back to get it again...

In the afternoon I found a fish market
Inside there were thousands of fishes in different sizes and shapes. I dont know so much about their names but I bought one smoked, which I ate for dinner. It was delicious!

Day 18, 110 km

The fish was so big that I even ate it for breakfast next morning. Now it was sunny and warm which made that there were not so many mosquitoes any more and I was not in a hurry in the morning.

 Near a bus stop I found the first public toilet. It was newly painted and renovated so I looked inside
 When I saw the mess I decided to use the forest instead
This day I could not ride so fast because the wind was disadvantageous and it was quite hot. In the evening I decided to leave the main-road to see a town called Cheboksary. It was close to the Volga and I really wanted to see it (her?) again,
The city was about 15 km north of the mainroad and there I found the fist bicycle path ever in Russia! After I had passed about 15 bicycles on this path (which was about the same amount as I had seen in whole Russia), I came to the conclusion that the reason why there were so few bikers in Russia was only because there were so few bicycle paths. If you want people to use their bikes you firstly have to build bicycle paths!
In the city anyway the path ended and I had to crowd amongst trucks, buses and cars. Suddenly I was caught in a trap and almost made a somersault. I had crossed grids like that and was convinced that my tires were broad enough. I was happy nothing serious happened!

The owner of a gas station at the mainroad had told me that in the bay of Volga there were beautiful fountains I should not miss. But unfortunately they were turned off that day because it was too windy.
 There I found another amusement park. On the other side of the Volga bay you can see an old Russian church.

There were many new shopping gallerias (malls) in the centre of the city and when I asked a guy if there were any old buildings I should not miss he said most of them were pulled down some years ago. Still I found some timbered wooden houses in the middle of the town.
The yellow pipes are gas-pipes. You can find them everywhere in Russia. They are not under the earth but visible above the earth, through woods and outside facades.
On the northern side of the city I found the Mega Mall, I had seen much advertisements about. It was really huge. I rode further north to the big bridge over the Volga. Under it there was a great power station (you can see it on the right sida of the next picture). From this bridge I saw a sand beach on the other side of the Volga. I decided to go there and stay over the night. Firstly I took a bath. It was quite warm!
Then I met five young guys who asked where I came from and where I was going. They wanted to take a picture of us. 
Then I found some other guys who were setting up a tent. I asked if it was legal to sleep in a tent and they said it was not forbidden in whole Russia. So I found a nice place for my tent too and took another bath. I felt happy and free at this place jogged a little and took a swim again. I washed my whole body with soap but the stripes on my feet would not disappear. 
I spent the evening drinking tea with my new friends but at 10 pm I wanted to go to sleep. What I did not know was that that was when the beach-party began. More and more young guys came. Some of them came by car and played loud music all night long. They really had fun together, laughed loudly and screamed many times. Of course I could have moved my tent but I did not know they should keep on all night long.  In the morning finally it was quite but I could not sleep anyway.
Instead I enjoyed nature and asked myself why should I go anywhere else? I had enough food with me for another day. But then  more and more people came to the beach. S group of youngsters (boy-scouts?) came and gathered arond me and asked about everything, played and screamed so I finally decided to leave that place anyway.
 I continued on the old road to Kazan, which was going on the northern side of the Volga river. Again it was a hot day but I found a good river to cool myself.
 This evening I looked for a beautiful place, not a well hidden as all other days. I found one behind a birch grove. In Russia these are even more common than in Sweden
Next day there were only 50 km left to Kazan which I rode before noon.
Even Kazan has a Kremlin, but here the brick-wall is painted in white. You can see it behind the cars.
Many things in Kazan really need to be renovated ( like the concrete of this bridge railing) but at the same time many things are being built in the centre of the city.


This pyramide in concrete and glass is a huge, modern restaurant. Behind it you see the Kremlin. 

 This is the Entrance to the Kremlin.

 inside there are many museums,

churches,

and the "white house" of the Respublic of Tartarstan. The President works there and this part is closed for public.

 Even here you hare a wonderful view over the river Volga and its tributary.

 The most famous building is the Kul Sharif Mosque:
If you want to go inside all females have to borrow headscarves and if there istoo much bare skin on their arms and legs they even have to hide this under borrowed cloths. My bicycleshorts were not good enough - even I had to borrow a skirt. We also had to buy overboots. But this was understandable, it was the reason why it could be so clean inside the building. Everything was shiny and bright, very beautiful!

There was much Islamic art everywhere but downstairs there even was a museum of Islamic history. 
When I was on the beach the day before, two of the girls said with pride in their voices that they were Tartars, which had made me curious to learn more about it. I found out that they spoke their own language which is spoken also in Ukraina and Bulgaria. they also use different letters, which I have seen on several signposts around Kazan. 
In the museum nothing was written in English, but it seems as if Kazan is the centre of  everything in Tartarstan and the place of the origin of all Tartars. 

On the way out I came to the conclusion that I think that Kazan had the cleanest and most notable Kremlins of the three I had seen.