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.