Russia
Geogia is indeed another surprise of this trip: never had we thought that we would ever take a route through Georgia !
Our entrance to Europe was much easier than expected and it only took us one day to sort out our Russian Visa at the Trabzon's Consulate. By the same token, after realising that the ferry to Sochi was going to cost us an arm and a leg ($35 p/p + $400 p/landie + $100 p/bike!!!) and that, according to other travellers met along the way, Georgia was safe enough to cross, we organised our visas to Georgia within the same day, in less than half an hour.
We left Rize after a storming rainy night. The road took us along the coast, with the black sea on our left and tea plantations on our right. The last 50 km before the border are being rebuilt so it should be a very nice road ...in a couple of months but right now, it's fairly bumpy and muddy (which of course delighted 2 guys I know...)
Borders formalities were quite easy on both sides. The turks were relaxed and did not bother much about anything. The Georgians on the other hand, looked far more serious and rigourous about their duties. They were very impressed by our vehicules and were certainely wondering what the hell we 3 were doing around here !
Our first kilometers were certainely a good proof that we were entering another territory. If the countryside is very much like a French one, buildings, houses, cars are still from the mid 60's - early 70's and lots of factories are totally run down and abandonned. A few km after the border we saw what probably was a military site and now looked like a...golf field ?!? We get our first dangerous encounter with the country and driving was indeed a terrible mission for our 2 males: we have left the muslim countries behind and the girls here are showing quite well that they are girls: it's quite a difficult (to say the least) for them to keep their eyes on the road... the countryside is too beautifull! Just after Batumi, the ex-soviet Riviera, we stop on the beach for a lovely lunch break. It doesn't take long to taste the Georgian friendliness and hospitality...and for the guys, to taste the National drink: Vodka please ! A group of young guys from Abkazhia, the north-west side of the country still in civil war, claiming independance, are staying in a hotel, like so many of them throughout the country, and are quite happy to talk to foreigners. After a few shots of Vodka, they invite us to their homes for the night. Unfortunately, with our 3 days visas, we must hit the road and carry on for a few hours. We stop at the entrance of Kutaisi and find a nice restaurant. Although no one speaks English nor German the staff is very friendly: after introducing us to "Sonia", a "cute" 300kg brown teddy bear, they explain to us where we can plant our tent. The camping place is in fact a Trucks stop, neither clean or nice. We ask around if there is a camping place around and ...get invited for the night a the place of a Turkish man, splitting his life and business between Germany and Georgia. We go back to the restaurant to pick up Patrick who has already by language mistake ordered food and wine and leave to half Turkish, half Georgian double married man.
Russia
Two days with Russian soldiers 10-11/08 (Gaël)
Rostov-on-Don is a bit too far to reach within a day so we decide to have a short driving day and to stop in Pyatigorsk, a thermal city. The atmosphere here is, like in Georgia, extremely calm and relaxing. The streets and avenues are very pretty and the remaining of the soviet architecture quite impressive. Our first mission is to buy some roubles. In the first bank we go to, it is impossible to change travellers cheques because, from what we gathered, they do not have any forms lefts. In the second one, what seems to be the bank manager explained to us, with a big smile, that they could not get us roubles from Visa credit card because the person responsible for that was on leave: " This is Russian system you know ". Things promise to be interesting around here !
Unlike the "westernised" cities, it is quite difficult to find a shop as such: most look like normal building with no windows and nothing shown outside and of course, Russian is quite a mission to translate for us with a different alphabet. To find out what shop it is, you must just get in ! Once inside, the shelves are not very full and everything is behind counters so one must ask for the product. To make it easy, each counter has its own till so, although it is the same shop, to buy your goods you must queue, wait to be served, pay, go to the next counter 2 meters away, queue... How does a working woman has the time to go shopping here ???
Wandering around, we stop by what seems to be a restaurant or "PECTOPAH" and Igor, speaking fluent French with no accent leads us in. He is very happy to speak French and tries to find anything to help us. After an ice-cream and a coffee ( 32 Roubles = +/- 32 FRF, 'back to normal prices !) we mention that we would like to see the springs and after obtaining authorisation form his boss, Igor joins us. Igor is a middle-aged Russian from Dagestan, one of the Russian troubled provinces, situated north of Chechenia. Igor has left it only a few weeks ago because of security reasons. Although he is waitressing in a restaurant, Igor has studied both French and German at university but can not find employment as a teacher. It was quite impressive for us to meet someone who learned a foreign language & culture and is able to speak is with NO accent, knowing from the start that he will never be able to travel there as it is too expensive...
After a long day driving on one of the most boring road we had so far, we realise that it is time to stop and that we wont make it to Rostov. We will camp. Well, this was the intention. We find our way into a small village and ask for permission to camp by the school amongst the trees. Within minutes all the village's kids are looking at the foreign weirdos pulling out duvets, tables and chairs, pealing vegetables... A kid offers us melon and tell us that Schwarzeneger is Russian... we reply that he has German origins until a massive strong guy with a grass cutting tool comes towards us ! A woman comes and chases the kids away. A few minutes later, another one tells us, in German, that we would be much better off in her house and invites us for supper and for the night. She's very happy to speak German, her mother tongue that she had not spoken for years. In between, a lady had dropped a few veggies and melons. What a welcome in Russia ! Ekaterina is a warm "natural" lady who fills our stomach with TLC, tomatoes and cream, a warm soup (Borsh) and some Plof (rice pilaw). We cut her from her work as she was finishing her stock of tomato reserves for winter. Ekaterina had from what we gathered a tough life: she was born in Kazakhstan from German parents and moved here with a girlfriend. She married an alcoholic and had 3 kids: one is now serving in the army for 2 years in Dagestan for his military duties, one 15 year-old girl and one 11 year-old boy. The husband has been gone for quite some time now and she's taking care of the family on her own as she says the kids are too young to help. Up at 4 am, she works in a farm and performs artificial insemination on cows till about 8. She then looks after the kids and works on her land till the middle of the afternoon when she goes back to the farm. The family is more or less self sufficient as she also has a pig, some ducks and chicken. That is all for the better since the farm has not paid her salary regularly for quite some time now...
Ekaterina accomodated us in her little wooden house in comfortable real bed with warm blankets and we really slept well. We wake up with the nice smell of blinis or ..... as she calls them, served with coffee, tea, fresh cream, honey that "wir mussen alles essen !". If we had starved for 2 weeks it might have been possible but no, really, this wonderful breakfast was too much ! Many thanks to Ekaterina, our "Ruski Mum" for taking such a good care of us.
The road from Rostov to Moscow is...long...boring...straight...2 lanes...with the wind blowing in the wrong direction... in other words: A PAIN IN THE NECK ! So, after 3 days of boring driving, we finally approach Moscow and its "big rings". It was about time: as we are trying to find our way in the southern suburb of the Russia's biggest city, a funny noise comes from the gearbox. This time the clutch seems to be on strike... Patrick and Vero take the bike to find the guest house, fortunately located nearby. The street names are all in Cyrillic alphabet and it is quite difficult to read anything quickly, so when you drive... it becomes a mission. But anyway, we found the Prakash Guest House in the middle of suburbian building: we could be in the ugly parts of Paris! After so many months spent outside westernised cities, it's a quite funny feeling to get back to what is supposed to be civilisation!!!
The next day, we have 2 missions: to identify the problem on the clutch and to get money. After 2 hours, solutions are found. The Clutch has "imploded" (see the 'genieers for details) and we are rich for a couple of days as money flies here. The part will be ordered directly from England as we can't wait 3 weeks for it, we should have it in a few days. The rest of the day is spent doing our duties in the big cities: shopping and site writing...
Today is our big day: we are going to visit the Kremlin and the Red square ! Unlike the Parisian or Londonian version, the moscow's METRO is clean, quite extensively covered with marble and with a really nice chandeliers (and we haven't seen the nicest station yet !) and cheap: for 2 roubles -or FRF- you can go anywhere.
The Red Square is huge, the Kremlin and the GUM gallery (shopping gallery), the St Basil Cathedrals … are really charming. It is not at all the Russian Stalinist style we expected a bit. The architecture is indeed colourful, sober but at the same time very fine. We were really delighted by the atmosphere around. It is a place to walk around, stop by and enjoy the views of the different masterpieces all over. Of course, it is packed with tourists but it was OK, not overcrowded. We visited the Lenin's museum but all the signs were in Russian, what a pity ! You can as well take a glance at Lenin's body. What a feeling it must be to look at the dead body of a man who killed more than 6 millions people due to his politics. It is funny as well to see that in the museum, it is not really mentioned that Staline killed 8 millions people in the goulags and 6 millions people died of hunger due to his stupid agricultural plans.
One word about GUM. GUM used to be the symbol of the soviet system. It was a huge shop with nothing on the shelves. Now it is still a huge shop but organised as a gallery with plenty of little one. It is fully restored and walking in is really a pleasure for the eyes. BUT, we look for typical Russian shops or products but to find one was a mission. There are too many Sony, Philips, L'Oreal, Dior, Cardin, Benetton, Chanel to find something really typical. It is the Champs Elysées of Moskow and there is nothing but imports.
What we really like in Moscow is the ALL RUSSIA EXHIBITION CENTER. It is a huge exhibition centre which has originally been built to the success of communism. The buildings are all different but in a typical soviet with a lot of statues, columns… Each building was dedicated to a specific domain of the economy :transport, agriculture, industry, space research, commerce… It was supposed to show how good the soviet system was for everything but with the fall of the wall, this centre (about 1 kilometer long with parcs, statues…) had to be converted. After the fall, it was apparently the place where you could find everything cheap. By now, nice shops appeared, restaurants are all over, pubs, discos, games for children… It is a bit more upmarket. You can see here that Russia becomes over-westernised : over the nice sculptures of the buildings, huge banners and posters describe how good are the products from occident (Coca-cola, Nike, Reebok, Levis, L'Oreal…). What you hear in this centre, dispensed through huge powerful amplifiers are only charts in English from the States or Europe !
We sit at one of the terrasse there, looking at all the kids on roller blades parading in front of us. Chris Rea is played full tune by a band in the restaurant. In the background, we can have a look at the reproduction of the Russian space ship, and an old MIG while we enjoy our shashliks.
ULITSA ARBAT is new and old. To be more precise there is a new one and an old one. The new one looks like a European street but the old one is definitely more charming. It is a walk-only street packed of artists: painters, caricaturists, singers, bands… It is very alive with a lot of young people (the presence of a lot of pubs and discos can explain the latest statement !). There is even a French bakery, expensive as hell but offering all the delicacies that French people are so proud of ! There, you can buy as well typical Russian hats, the classical sets of Russian dolls, some pins of Lenine and Staline and lots of Tee-shirts "I love Moscow".
Have you noticed that wherever we go, something happens. We went to Tanzania, they blew up the US embassy, we went to India and Pakistan while they were playing with atomic bombs and we arrive to Russia just in the middle of a big financial crisis ! We are not over sad because of this since our purchasing power increases by at least 30% in one week !
At the same time, we see people queuing in front of banks to get their money out but they are not allowed. Banks refused to give them their money. Concerning the change of roubles into dollars, you can just forget it. People who have dollars keep them jealously, who could blame them.
In some shops, you can't buy anymore in roubles ! When we ask for the price of films in a photo shop, the guy explains to us he can only accept dollars in cash !
Whatever happens to the economy, we have the feeling that it is mainly going to make the basic people poorer than before. The other one, the new rich as they called them in Russia, won't mind too much because the are the one having accounts in dollars and driving BMW stolen in Europe !
Once again, Patrick got a good tip from some Swedish colleagues: the Hungry Duck was the place to go in Moskow, the place where all the youth and expatriates meet to party. We thought we were going to a normal disco, as we know them in Europe: big, loud and most of the time boring. We in fact did not know the definition of a disco in Moskow !
The price to enter is European (11 US$). What the hell, tonight is a night to party. We enter and first get stuck by the entrance behind blond good looking monsters coming straight from the beach volley world tour happening just at this time in Moskow. Patrick and me look like ridiculous next to them, and we first think that tonight was not the night to come. Vero only was happy to have so many nice good looking guys at her disposal.
It takes us about five minutes to adapt when we enter the main room. It is packed, hot and loud. In the middle there is a big counter but instead of beers filling the top, it is only girls dancing. Of course, all the men have their eyes focused on them. They are all young and here to party, there is no limit to the fun anymore…We eventually manage to get a beer and start to speak to everybody and anybody since the contact is quite easy. We are all standing next to eachother. After a while, I just turn back to see what's going back in one of the corner of the room. I first can't believe what I see. A girl lies on a table with someone else between her legs! First nobody dares to look too much at it and then, after a while everybody comes to watch and even to take pictures. It is in fact two young lesbians stripping and simulating whatever you can think of. It is a big private show that everybody is laughing at! On the counter, girls dare now to strip a bit more and the atmosphere inside the disco becomes really wild.
We can think of this at the total opposite of the Pakistanese atmosphere ! Well, we enjoyed it, had fun and came home very late! That is all the not censured things we can speak about.
You already know that our clutch desintegrated just before Moskow. We ordered one from England to be sent via DHL. The problem is that DHL is not as well organised in Moskow as in Europe. We have been told that the Mafia is the only thing organised in Russia but we really start to believe it by now! After spending two hours on the phone indeed, speaking to almost everybody in the company even the managing director on holydays, we don't manage to know when we can get our parcel. We then go physically to the company and after two hours, a "nice" custom tax (50% of the value of the imported item), we eventually get the clutch, 5 days after it left England. For a fast mail delivery service, we have seen better!
The next day Patrick and Gael fix the part. It is long because to change a clutch you have to remove the gearbox. Fortunately or unfortunately, we have experience (3 times already) in removing it so the job the job is done quite quickly. We can then leave Moskow in the afternoon.
We had planned to spend 4 days in Moskow but we spent 7 days due t the delays in the delivery of the clutch. What the hell, cruising around Moskow was not too bad. The only disadvantage was the price of the hotel 15US$ per person and per night. But we stayed at an hotel run by very nice Indian guys. First, they helped us a lot with the ordering of the part and they were trusting us a lot. We indeed did not pay themm fully the hotel nights but just have to organise a transfer when we come home ! Nice to meet people who trust us especially in Russia!
Will come soon...
Finland
The excitation started long before North Cape.
Elin, sometimes thinks we are mad to scream in the car like this but we can't help it, every couple of hours we get excited.
On the 6th September, there is at least three very happy people on earth.
Despite the fact that it is freezing cold and half raining, we are smiling, enjoying this moment. There is nothing in North Cape but this means so much to us that it does not matter, we are happy. Reaching North Cape was a little challenge to us, an aim we sometimes doubt about but now that we are here, WAOUH it feels good !
The North Cape is on a little island. The tunnel is not finished yet so we then have to use the usual mean of transport much more romantic in a way :the ferry. Once on the island, it is a drive of about one hour in a desertic landscape. Strange enough, the North Cape is very similar to the Cape of Good Hope : there is no trees, it is just bush and dry white rocks, kind of harsh nature. The light is magic, the sun just going through the clouds and creating ligth rays, over the fjords and lakes. The landie is expressing her joy through her exhaust which broke again, two days earlier.
At North Cape, stands a metal framed globe, symbol of the Northest peace of land in Europe ! We drive trough the parking to park the car and the bike just under the globe for a serie of pictures. It is of course forbidden and we just have time to get a few pictures before a guy from the museum runs towards us to express his disappointment about us driving in a reserved area... There is indeed a touristic museum to rip off the tourists (kind of logical for a touristic museum...) in charge of managing the site. For a fortune 175 Norwegian Kourons, you can visit the museum and take a coffee. Of course, we are too broke to offer it so we skip it. Nothing apparently is anyway to be seen inside ! But we get lucky and we get an authorisation from the manager to go again with the car to the North Cape spot with the car for a new picture session. We just have to wait that the buses full of European and American tourists go away.
The cold weather eventualy persuades us to go back to the main city to embark on the most well-known cruise of Northern Europe the Hutigruta. This cruise goes from Bergen to Kirkenes all along the Norvegian coast. We will just make a part of it, to go to the next harbour but it is a way for us to celebrate this day. Inside, everything is luxury. OK, it is packed with retired people but still, we enjoy the view and the comfort! In the evening, after we get off the boat, we find a nice wooden guest house in a small harbour. It is a typical fishermen house. The food as well is good this night, we have to go to a restaurant to make this day special : that is the opportunity for us to taste whale and reeinder.
What can we say more except that it will definitely be tough for us to forget a day like this...
Updated 10th October 1998 in Paris