Deeper into Russia: Out of my way bitch

September 11, 2013

Early the next morning I took another detour off the main road through a village called Klyuchevoye. It was just a rough dirt road through a series of houses, some of them well-built, some of them shacks. Outside one of them a black dog was sat and I got off and walked past to avoid being barked at and chased and the dog never even stirred. It looked on my map like I would be able to rejoin the main road further south, but I actually couldn't, this track just dead-ended at the sea, where there was a beach with broken volleyball nets. There was no one around and I tried to go for a swim, but the water was too shallow, and too unbelievably cold to walk out to where it was deeper (I guess thats why they call it Baltic).

So I had to backtrack a few kilometres through the village to get to the main road. As I started back I saw a small stray dog running ahead of me along the road. It was the kind of small dog that loves to chase bikes, and so I decided it would be wise not to attract its attention and I cycled cautiously behind it until we came to the house with the black dog outside. Here the small dog ran up to the bigger dog and started, you know, sniffing its butt and stuff. I got off and started walking nonchalantly past the two dogs. Unfortunately the little butt sniffer noticed me and came running over yapping his stupid little head off. I climbed back on the bike and cycled as fast as I could to outrun the annoying mutt. The original black dog never moved a muscle.

The scene of the chase, photo taken after I had originally walked past the black dog (left of road) but before annoying yappy butt sniffer entered my life. I believe they may have satellite television in this house, but I can't be sure

The little dog gave up quite quickly probably because it wanted to go back and have another good sniff of the black dog, but literally half a second after it turned around a big stray alsatian jumped out into the road in front of me. By now you may be beginning to get the picture that there are a lot of dogs wandering around in Russia, and you would be right. Luckily for me the alsatian was also facing the other way and had not seen me. I was trying to come up with a plan to get around it when it wandered into a yard. Not half a second later the dog came bounding back out into the road, being chased by another three very ferocious dogs. They all went a little way down the road, then veered off through another yard and far away from me, clearing my route back towards the safety of the main road. I offered my thanks to the alsatian, he certainly had taken one for the team there.

A little known fact - Birds are not permitted to carry firearms in Russia

I carried on south on the main road, then tried again to pass through a village (Pribylovo). Once more my map showed that I could go into the village and out the other side to rejoin the main road, but again the reality was quite different and I had to backtrack. The village had a variety of houses, from wood to breeze block, all colours and shapes and sizes. It was really interesting, although the main advantage that this village had over the last was that I wasn't chased by any dogs.

One of the yards by the houses in the village - the flag and the Lada are obviously very Russian and I thought made a great picture. The goat was just the finishing touch.

The main road cut inland to shorten the distance but I took the road out through Primorsk. It was another tower block town, but it also had big green spaces and some nice beaches too. No one was on any of these beaches so I took a break here, but resisted the urge to try swimming again.

After Primorsk I rather lost track of where I was. This wasn't as dramatic as it might seem because there was really only one road to follow and the coast was always on my right. The only problem was that I now had gone beyond the limit of the map I had been using (which was in fact the edge of the Finland map Karin had bought) and now had to rely on a few google map print-outs. None of the towns I was going through matched up with the map and I was further from Saint Petersburg than I thought. The previous evening I had seen a sign saying that it was 100km away, and now I came to one saying it was 120km away. Things were made worse by an intermittent shoulder and traffic which considered overtaking as something of a national pastime. At one point a bus came hurtling towards me on the wrong side of the road, overtaking some slightly slower vehicle and I moved out of the way just in time. It was extremely stressful cycling when there was no shoulder.

The road became terrible, but this was a good thing because it meant the traffic had to slow down at least a little bit. Then the road improved and luckily a half-decent shoulder appeared as the road grew busier.

When the road got really bad at least the cars had to slow down

As if the traffic alone was not enough stress for me, at some point in the afternoon I came across another two dogs ahead of me at the side of the road. These dogs were in the shoulder and were barking at traffic. If they were barking at traffic on a main road, just imagine what they might do to me! I had to come up with a clever plan here and I soon did. The road going past them was slightly downhill so I approached them quickly and as I came to them I stopped pedalling and started making a loud "brrrmmmm brrrrhhhhmmm brrrrrhhhmmmm" noise which, in case you can't tell, was me pretending to be a motor vehicle. I figured if dogs like chasing bicycles but only bark at motor vehicles, why not pretend to be a motor vehicle?! This brilliant plan naturally did not work at all and I was soon pedalling as fast as I could to get away again.

By the time it was getting dark I still had no idea where I was. I hadn't arrived at any of the towns on my map (google map printout) and the road was getting pretty busy. I did pass a sign saying Saint Petersburg right at the end of the day (the picture below also gives an idea of the sort of shoulder that I had) but everywhere was still forest and I was sure it must mean the district of, not the actual city of. So I just set up my tent in the woods again. I had a hostel booked in the city the next night so I hoped it wasn't too far and that the road into it would be cycle-able. With the heavy traffic and the narrow shoulder, I was certainly preparing mentally for a bit of a nightmare ride the next day.

That sign does say Saint Petersburg, doesn't it?!

Today's ride: 99 km (61 miles)
Total: 5,389 km (3,347 miles)

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