Yekaterinburg, Russia

So we are now back in Russia and we had our first night of camping in Russia – the weather wasn’t as cooperative as we would have wished – as previously stated, I woke up in the wee hours of the morning with frozen feet, legs, back, etc. In the morning, when we were having breakfast, Nick put his newly acquired skills to use and made a fire. What new skills, do I hear you ask? This fire was made using Mongolian Wood. “What’s Mongolian Wood?”, is that the question you’re now puzzling over? Mongolian Wood is dried cow manure! It has to be very old and very dry but it certainly pumps out some heat and it’s free! You just send grandma (or the kids) out into the Steppes to collect and bring home. Admittedly, it burns better in a stove as the smoke is funnelled out of the way and you don’t get any interesting aromas!

We decided to head to Novosibirsk for a few nights of R&R, but we didn’t feel any need to rush the drive there so we decided to head to a small city called Biysk. So we were tootling along the road on a sunny Wednesday morning (yes, it had finally started to warm up), enjoying the glorious scenery (in the Altay Region), the great winding roads (No, Nick – I am NOT coming back to do this road again on a motorbike – because it was snowing again!) and commenting on how good the Russian roads were, when we noticed that there was a lot of traffic around. Strange, we thought… maybe there’s more traffic movement on this side of Russia (we are now about in the middle of Russia), but then we realised – today was May Day, which is one of the two big May Holidays that Russia celebrates. And, we had been told that between May Day and Victory Day (9/May), most people take time off work and go away for a few days. OMG! Panic stations, would we be able to get into a hotel?

But I’m getting ahead of myself – as we drove around some sweeping corners, we came across a group of 4WDs and they all looked at our car as we drove past. Travellers! Great, so we pulled over and with many photos and use of the map, we had a nice chance-meet with some Russians from Siberia who were taking advantage of time off work and were on their way to Mongolia for a camping/4WD trek.

We made it to Biysk, found a room, had a nice meal, a hot shower and felt very decadent. And then it was onwards to Novosibirsk. Now a lot of travel books say that Novosibirsk isn’t worth going to and that it is pretty boring. In our opinion, they are 50% right – Novosibirsk is pretty boring but it is well worth a visit. We had managed to score a room for 3 nights with breakfasts, WiFi, secure parking and laundry at a reasonable price. Yes, it was more expensive that a motel in a country town but it was a very comfortable room, in a hotel right across the road from the main train station. We treated ourselves to a massage (Nick) and a manicure/pedicure (MJ), got all our washing done and generally had a relaxing few days.

On Sunday, when we were ready to leave, the car wouldn’t start! Remember those panic stations? Well, we visited them again. The battery was D-E-D. Before we left home, we had downloaded a document from RACQ with all the affiliated Automobile associations in different countries and Russia was mentioned. So, back into the hotel we went. Explained the problem to the receptionist, whose understanding of English did not extend to mechanical issues but she understood that we needed some help. She contacted the Russian Automobile Group who sent out a technician to charge the battery. We were amazed at their bureaucratic hiccups – they would not supply a new battery but if we had one, they would install it for us. Anyway, the Technician (or Mechanic as we call them in Oz) arrived and proceeded to charge up our battery. It seems that someone had left the lights in the car for the entire 3 days that we were in the hotel – in Russia, you are required to have your headlights turned on when driving. So, he got the car going and we headed westwards.

Another chilly afternoon meant that we stayed at a truckies road-side stop and got a room in another Gostnitsye (dreadful mattress – we could feel every single spring as they poked into us) and continued on our way to Omsk.

On arrival in Omsk, the GPS let us down as she took us to a part of town (dodgy looking) that didn’t look like it would have a Doss House, let alone a hotel! By comparing the maps on Nick’s iPad and the Apple Maps on my iPhone, we managed to locate our Hotel (in a nicer part of town) which was run by a lovely Kazakh couple. We did a bit of exploring of the local markets and decided that no, we wouldn’t bedeck the car in fluoro-coloured fake flowers, even though it was “spring”. The couple who ran the Hotel were lovely – Rozalia and Eszhan – they wanted to cook breakfast for us, anything we wanted. But, when we went out to the car, that’s when we found how helpful they were. Yes, the battery was flat again and Eszhan flagged down a car to give us a jump start. As that was taking a while to happen, Nick decided that the battery had to be replaced. So then Eszhan got on the phone and talked to a mate of his who runs a business that specialised as a battery warehouse and we got a GREAT price (saved 3000 Rubles) on a new American battery. Brmm, Brmm – yep, the car ran perfectly and so it was back on the road and we were heading towards Tyumen.

We were actually aiming for Ekaterinburg but were taking it in easy stages, so we were looking for a campsite halfway between Omsk and Tyumen and found a small city called Ishim. We decided that we would give camping a try (again) and stopped at a village and found a flattish patch of ground where we set up camp. Once again it was gloriously sunny afternoon, but as we sat down to dinner, the wind blew up and it became quite cold. Don’t worry, we were using our Winter sleeping bags tonight. We had an early night – well, the battery went flat on the laptop with only 10 minutes left of our movie! We woke in the early hours to the sound of rain. Great! It continued to rain whilst we packed up, ate breakfast (sitting in the tent) and the last thing we did was to shove the wet tent into a bag and hope that we would be able to dry it once we reached Tyumen.

Here is where we discovered just how treacherous Russian dirt/mud is. Last night, the dirt was just that, dirt but this morning, after all the rain it was slimy mud! We managed to pack up, staying fairly clean and got into the car after locking the front hubs (4WD talk). It was only a short drive, at most a kilometre of mud but it was probably the scariest kilometre we had driven all trip! The car slipped and slided (?), if we tried to turn left, it slid right. We couldn’t accelerate because that would just put the car into a slide. That 1 kilometre took us about 10 minutes to negotiate. I hung onto the Grab bar in front of me, closed my eyes and tried not to breathe. Poor Nick, I just left him to sort it all out! I was never so happy that he is so experienced as a 4WD driver.

We just want to talk about a wonderful purchase that we made before we left home. Last year, when we were on our shake-down trips in FNQ and Victoria/NSW, we would often have to clean out the fridge in the car, to deal with smells, usually caused by meat. I said to Nick that I thought that I would like a vacuum-sealer unit to take on the trip. After much internet searching, he found a unit and Santa brought it to me for Christmas. Anyway, when we were in Ulan Baatar, I cooked a batch of Chicken Cacciatore and divided it into two serves for 2 people and sealed it into two separate bags. After 8 days, we ate the first meal on our first night back in Russia and we had the second meal near Ishim. So, 15 days after being cooked, cooled and vacuum sealed, the meal was delicious. There was no taint or odd flavour, neither of us suffered any queasiness or tummy problems, and it was also easy to reheat – just put the sealed bag into a pot of water and bring to the boil and simmer for about 10 minutes.

OK, ad break over. We were approaching Tyumen and getting ready for our first adventure as Couchsurfers. Now if you don’t know what Couchsurfing is – you register on a website (www.couchsurfing.org), and go looking for somewhere to stay. But you aren’t staying in a hotel or hostel, you are staying with a local person in their home. You have to provide some information about yourself, your travel plans and nominate a place where you want accommodation. You can look at who lives in an area, and send a request for a bed for 1 or a few nights. You can also have your request distributed to other Couchsurfing members in the same town. So, in Tyumen, we were going to be staying with a young Uni student (Margarita) for one night. When we arrived at her flat, we asked if we could stay for two nights as tomorrow (Thursday) was Victory Day and we wanted to experience how ordinary Russians celebrated this special day. Not a problem, according to Margarita – we were staying in the flat on our own as she still lived at home with her parents. Mega-score!

That afternoon, Margarita and her boyfriend took us exploring along the river that runs through Tyumen (Tura River) and we had dinner together at an Uzbeki restaurant. On Thursday, we met Margarita and walked into town (about 10 minutes away) so that we could watch the parade. It was a joyous parade to celebrate the German surrender to Russia at the end of the Second World War (or the Great Patriotic War as it is known in Russia). There were veterans, family members carrying photos of those who died either during the war or since then, regulars & cadet groups all marching. No bands marched but they had good patriotic military music blasting out of loudspeakers. One thing that was very different to the Australian Anzac Day – there were a lot of employer groups with their staff who marched (walked) as well as all the Universities had groups of students marching. After the march was over, we went to look at a display of Russian military stuff (guns, tanks, and other stuff), we went to an open-air concert with the Russian equivalent of an Andrew Sisters tribute band, and generally observed the Russians at play. One aspect that was really amusing was that young Russian men would bedeck their cars with slogans such as “Go to Berlin” (in Russian, of course) and they would drive up and down the streets with full-size flags flying from their car (USSR flag, Victory flag, Russian flag) and some cars even had fake tank turrets with pretend guns mounted on the roof. These cars would drive one way with horns blaring and then 10 minutes later, they would come back the other way. If they say someone driving their car in uniform, then would honk even more! It was so funny to watch!

I can thoroughly recommend the Couchsurfing experience – it’s a great chance to meet locals and experience things with them. Ok, so sometimes your bed might be the couch in the lounge-room but all this information is up-front. A big tick for Couchsurfing!

And now Ekaterinburg is only a day away, so we’re back on the road again.