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Tyumen to Omsk

Tyumen. Enter Oks, an interior designer and a friend of Boris and Masha's from Yekaterinburg but originally from Nizhny Tagil, a former closed city in the Urals and now a bit of a rough spot with a large ex-prison population. She lives with Anja, who works as an accountant and is also from Nizhny.

Oks loves travelling, cycling, snowboarding and immersing herself in the sweet mist of a waterpipe while day dreaming, recollecting past experiences, reading a book or enjoying the company of friends. Oks likes Nabokov, a master wordsmith and dislikes Tolstoy, because he preaches the reader. One evening Anja, Oks and I go to a lake near Tyumen. We catch sight of a swimming nutria, we drink sweet wine and tea and the girls smoke. A tattooed drunkard in swimming trunks invites me to see arctic bears and to ride on his watercraft. As darkness sets in, the mosquitoes and the drunks disappear, the moon looks at herself on the water and we improvise haikus. Suddenly a car pulls in by the shore and 3 beautiful and wild girls jump into the cold water, they jiggle, they dance and leave as suddenly as they have arrived.

Tyumen is a very pleasant and clean city, with many tree-lined streets, well preserved historical buildings and well arranged flowers on the pavement. Oks shows me great examples of classic wooden architecture, derelict dachas by the river, an amusement park, the refurbished riverside esplanade and the best ice cream stalls.

The day I leave Tyumen is very hot. Having read accounts of earlier intrepid cyclists in these lands, I'm dreading the attacks of the vicious horse flies and the infamous Siberian mosquitoes but I'm lucky and I don't have any significant problems to report. In fact, insects have been worse in European Russia in June and July. Perhaps the season is now over as nights are getting nippy.

After Tyumen the landscape presents a mixture of fields, forests, meadows with cows and stacks of hay. As I get closer to Omsk, the marshes increase and you can see many interesting birds here. The day I arrive in Osmk is cold and wet and after the rain, I make the acquaintance of some rather large mosquitoes.

I sleep in my tent every night from Tyumen to Omsk. With (often dreadful) hotels a long distance apart, stunning scenery, mosquitoes not being a big problem and many cozy spots to choose from, camping seems to be the sensible thing to do. 

On the fourth day after Tyumen I bump into Hans, a Dutch biker returning from Mongolia. He tells me about a French woman cycling to Mongolia, but he doesn't know where she might be. Later, I meet some Turkish lorry drivers going from Samsun to Krasnoyarsk. One of them, Achmed, speaks Italian and has seen the French cyclist some 10 kms back, near Ishim. I decide to wait for a couple of hours to salute this courageous tourist but no one comes and decide to move on.

Traffic gets quite heavy 100 kms or so before reaching Omsk, the former capital of Siberia and of White Russia.

Beavis and Butthead

Lots of new photos here. In the centre of Yekaterinburg there is a statue that local teenagers doing stunts on their BMX bikes and skateboards call Beavis and Butthead. They represent Tatischiev and de Gennin, who founded the city in 1723. Yekaterinburg is situated in Asia and is the capital of the Urals.

My hosts are waiting for me by the Ford dealership. Boris and Masha are a couple in their mid twenties. Boris owns an on-line shop selling home appliances and Masha is a secretary at a software development company. They're both outdoor pursuit enthusiasts and love snow-boarding and cycling-touring (but have only done it abroad). Last year they went on a bike tour in Turkey and they're planning a month long adventure in China in september.

President Mevdeyev of Russia and Angela Merkel of Germany are in town, which means I am able to take hot showers. In the summer time the local government often switches off the water to carry out repairs.

Boris and Masha finally shed some light on the mystery of the evenly spaced cracks on the Russian roads. In the old days, some roads were made using concrete slabs. When it's too expensive to rebuild the road from scratch, the concrete is covered with asphalt while the gaps between the slabs remain.

The day after I arrive, Boris and I go for a walk by the river, we talk about extreme sports teenagers, snowboarding, Lenin, cars as status symbols, oligarchs and economics. When I mention to Boris that I found Kungur to be beautiful yet rundown, he concludes that in Kungur they still l believe to live in Soviet times and don't understand that: 'something does not come from nothing'. It's hot and we want a beer, we spot a cafe but two guys napping under the canopy tells us the bar is out of order.  Masha joins us after work. First we eat exquisite homemade pirogi, followed by a couple of pints and Beatles music at an underground bar suitably called Yellow Submarine. We end the night at a fancy cocktail bar to bid farewell to Cyril, a friend of Boris and Masha's who's moving to Moscow. There I meet other friends, including a young woman who has just returned from cruising in the French Riviera and Maxim, an extrovert and witty engineer and entrepreneur, who sells porous aluminum and LED lamps for industrial uses and has traveled extensively in Europe. Maxim gives us a lift home on his car and takes a scenic route via the most outstanding architecture of Yekaterinburg. Amidst charming old wooden building, a new city is emerging. Construction is everywhere, flashy skyscrapers and luxury shops are popping up on every corner. But for Masha, modern architecture has no soul.

The following day Masha and I are heading for a jazz concert in the park but end up sidetracked by a crowd at the Church on the Blood. This church was built recently on the site were the Czar Nicholas II and his family were kept captive before they were executed by the Bolsheviks on the 17 of July of 1918. Nicholas and his family have been canonized by the Orthodox church and many believers are here to pay their respects, mourn and pray on the anniversary of their deaths. A choir sings lovely tunes and the mass ends with moving and delicately beautiful bell music. There are some cossacks from the Ukraine but most of the attendees hail from villages from around Russia and beyond and eat pirogi (stuffed buns) and drink kvaz (fermented bread drink).

On the way to Tyumen I gradually loose the mountains as I approach the flatlands of Siberia. Swamps and marshes become more numerous and so do the insects. Clouds of tiny black flies flash mob around my face when I make a stop. The forest is merrily brimming with flowers. It's berry season and punters sell wild berries by the road. One night, I find what seems to be a perfect spot for wild camping, the grass trimmed, hidden by the trees, close to a cafe and a banya... but close to a swamp also. My tent is visited by frogs and a critical mass of mosquitoes.

On a hot and sweaty day I arrive in Tyumen.

Opera at the former Gulag prison

 Shortly before Perm the clock jumps two hours forward. Perm is an industrial city of around one million inhabitants in the heart of the Urals. My host is Albina, a Tatar woman of 26. She works as a project manager for an international venture carrying out an urban regeneration project on the former grounds of the derelict Porm Pert on the river Kama. 

Albina is having a few days off and shows me around Perm. We visit the excellent Art Gallery, which houses a remarkable collection of predominantly, but not only, Russian art, including icons and religious wooden sculptures. Outside of the museum, elderly people dance merrily to the tunes of an energetic blonde singer. It's Friendship and Love day and is hot. We go on a cruise on the Kama river. The boat is packed with celebrating Russians having picnics, drinking and dancing. Later in the evening, we join Albina's colleagues at a 'banya' next to the Kama river. Marek, Albina's boss from the Czech republic, tells me about the history of the country and extolls the virtues of Russian women.

Next day we go to see Fidelio, Beethoven's only opera performed within the former Gulag prison for political prisoners, Perm 36. After the perforamce we meet for dinner with Anastasia, who works at the Perm Opera and a group of German holidaymakers. They are Fabian, a lawyer at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, Dorothea and Anna, both working in Georgia for GTZ, a German International cooperation organisation and a fourth person whose name I can't remember and is an engineer working on a project to turn C02 into petrol. 

Next day I continue to Kungur, a beautiful yet somehow rundown city sandwiched betwen the Iren and Sylva rivers. My host Roman is away for work and I'm welcome by his charming and hospitable girlfriend Mariana. While I visit the ice caves, it starts raining cats and dogs and decide to stay another day. Mariana shows me all the landmarks and architecture of note, including an art déco wooden house out of a fairy tale. Crowds of teenagers hang out in the parks. 

The following day is cold, my stomach is upset and I don't feel like wild camping. In Acit, they tell me the next hotel is 40 kms away but I've already cycled 110 kms and it's 10 in the evening. I inquire about accommodation alternatives and Igor, a paramedic of the Catastrophic Medicine unit, offers me a bunk bed in a trailer. Igor looks like a Lenin who's realised that communism is not worthwhile after all, has shaved and decided to go pleasure sailing. The next morning, Igor shows me a brown bear in a cage next to the café. The bear was caught as a cub in the forest. Igor tells me that he earns $200 per month, that politics are boring, that his real profession is pilot and wants to buy a second-hand autogiro.

Two days later I arrive in Yekaterinburg. 10 kms or so before Yekaterinburg there's a monument and a café that mark the border Europe and Asia. Asia is represented by a dragon, and the European side by a rooster.

More photos

See more photos here.

The ferry

 More drawings here and photos here. From Kazan I continue to Perm in the Urals. For the first 100kms, still in Tatarstan, traffic is light, roads are in good condition and the landscape is made up of rolling hills, farmed land, small forests, Tatar villages and wooden mosques. In the town of Baltazy I meet Nuriya's brother Bulat, his wife and five children. Bulat shows me around the collective farm, where he's the general manager. Bulat's father Baki gives me a tour of the museum in the village of Karadovan, of which he is the director. The museum is dedicated to the victims of the Great Patriotic War (2nd World War), the history of the Sibirsky Tract (the ancient way connecting Russia with Siberia and China) and Musa Jalil, Tatar poet and and Soviet resistance fighter who died in a Nazi prison in 1944.

Shortly after Baltazy, Tatarstan ends and the road worsens. Firstly the potholes multiply, then the asphalt becomes gravel and in Gonba I see a warning sign showing a car falling into the water. The road ends and I must wait for the ferry. While waiting, I strike a friendship with Artur, a Tatar man of 21 who is a student of Pedagogy and an amateur actor. Artur is headed for the village of Constantinovka, where he will spend the summer holidays helping his family in the farm and invites me to spend the night there. After about three hours the ferry takes us to the other side. It's already 10 in the evening, the mosquitos are bad and pushing the bicycle along the sand road is difficult. Eventually, Artur's father picks us up on his Lada 1600 and we arrive at the village after midnight. There we are greeted by Artur's mother and sister and we eat a delicious potato soup with dill before going to sleep. The next day we have a 'banya' and Artur shows me the farm before we say our goodbyes. Artur's mother gives me a bag with cucumbers, boiled eggs and bread.

From here the road continues to be sand for a few more kilometres and runs through a very deep forest where insects are so annoying that I must wear a headnet. In Kilmez I require a small repair for the bicycle and I wild camp outside of the village of Vikharevo. The following night I find a room in a private apartment next to car body shop in the town of Selty. I'm looking forward to a hot shower but the water heater doesn't work. While I'm walking around naked, a stranger walks in, collects three bottles of vodka and leaves. Ten minutes later he returns and invites me to a 'banya'. I tell him that I would like to rest a bit and that I will join later but he's just standing there, not moving and waiting for me. I give up resisting his invitation and I follow him to a wooden house 150 meters away. Naked men are eating dried fish and roasted meat and drinking beer and vodka. They're celebrating the birthday of a man they call Alexeyevich, who's turning 53, is drunk and commands me to drink one shot of vodka after another. This banya is different to the others I've experienced so far in that when it gets unbearably hot we run out and jump from a platform into an outdoor pool. I didn't expect to be running and jumping in the company of naked strangers but this is a lot of fun.

The next day my head hurts. I continue my journey and I wild camp for the night. The following day, while I'm having a cup of tea on the road, a shabby old beggar with one arm emerges out of the forest, does a begging round in the cafe and returns to the forest with a bottle of beer. Later I see a baby driving a car, a dead cat, a youngster singing on the road and two men playing cards on a steam roller.

In Bol Sosnova, I meet a hitchhiker who insists on asking me for money and a Ukrainian cyclist who is riding a bicycle from Kharkov in the Ukraine to Yekaterinburg in the Urals, to meet his girlfriend there. His one speed bike is old and rusty and is missing one pedal. In Ocher, I find a motel and a 'banya'. When I return from the 'banya', I find a smily bare-chested moustachioed man in my room watching an old Soviet-era action film. He coughs constantly and looks like a heavy snorer. I'm dreading the night.

Next stop: Perm: 115 kms.