September 9, 2013
Russia part one: Who's driver?
So I wasn't really sure what to expect from Russia. I did once live for two months in Coventry with a Russian man named Stan. He was very, very weird. That constituted pretty much my lifelong contact with Russians. My other knowledge of the country was from watching youtube videos of Russian driving captured because almost every car that can afford to has a dashboard camera. These are installed to avoid insurance scams, where the scammers either reverse into you or drive without brake lights, so that you collide and as the car behind are automatically liable. The dashboard cameras, as a side effect, also catch on film the awful driving that takes place, the dangerous overtakes, the incredible near misses and so on. All of which was quite entertaining to watch from the safety of a laptop two thousand kilometres away, but now seemed a little worrying as I was about to join this traffic chaos protected by little more than a hi viz vest and my wits. The third and final thing that I knew about Russia, much more positive than the last, was that the country produces some of the most beautiful female tennis players in the world. So it wasn't going to be all bad.
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Three kilometres of no-mans land seperate the Finnish and Russian border points. Halfway across I came to the above sign, welcoming me to Russia. I wasn't going to mess about trying to set up my camera and posing with ten fingers held up, but perhaps the very fact that I didn't portrays my nervousness at this point as well as anything else. After I went past the sign I considered pulling an immediate U-turn back to Finland. I had, after all, crossed into Russian soil now and could surely count the country well and truly bagged. But the visa had been expensive and I had a hostel booked in Saint Petersburg, so against my better judgement I cycled on to the border point.
There were a number of cars going through, almost all of them Russian. It was the major border point between Finland and Russia, but the cars had to park up and the occupants get out to queue at a booth where an official would check the passport and whatnot and then the occupants had to move on to a customs booth where another official searched the car. It was all rather ramshackle, with people out of their cars wandering around and so on, I'm sure it was difficult for anyone to keep track of everything. Still, I'm sure there can't be that many people trying to sneak into Russia.
I queued up at the first booth. Behind the screen was the most depressed looking woman I have ever seen. She took my passport and immigration form.
"Who's driver?" she said in a thick Russian accent.
"Sorry, do you speak English?" I said.
"Who's driver?"
"What?" I had no idea what she was saying.
"WHO'S DRIVER!"
"Oh no, sorry, I'm on a bicycle" I said cheerfully, pointing at my bike.
The woman shook her head and started tapping at her keyboard and staring at a screen. I think she was checking her Facebook profile. It took a while. I have literally never seen anyone look more fed up with life. Finally, she scanned my passport and my visa, gave me a stamp and waved me on.
Next came customs. The guy manning it decided to take this moment to wander off to another building. It really would have been very easy for me to hop my bike around the barrier and disappear into the country, but I thought I would be less likely to get shot if I waited for him to come back. When he did he asked me if I had been to the first booth to get my passport stamped and I said I had and then he waved me through. He really could not have cared less what I had in my pannier bags. I really could have smuggled Karin in after all.
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I was in Russia. There was a little village just off the main highway right across the border so I went down the side road to take a look. It was a completely different world! Literally all of the buildings were made of crumbling brick walls. There was a stray dog padding about on the road. There was a beat-up old car at the side of the road. There were a few people about too, looking at me suspiciously. But there were also bright flowers in the gardens and washing hanging from a line. My map showed a small road going off in another direction from this village but I could see it was just a dirt track into the woods and I would probably get very lost if I took it. My balls aren't quite that big, so I went back to the main highway and followed that east instead.
It wasn't very much of a main highway. There was only one lane of traffic in each direction and there wasn't much of it at that. Even so, the youtube videos still had me worried enough to mostly cycle on the shoulder of the road, which was gravel but possible to cycle on. I wanted to be out of the flow of traffic as much as possible while I was here and the shoulder meant I could do that. Every so often I would come across someone, usually a late middle-aged woman, sitting on the shoulder with buckets in front of them. The buckets were filled with blueberries or red berries or mushrooms and were obviously for sale to motorists. I only saw one car stopped to buy anything and it had a Finland licence plate. I assume, given that the traders were only on this side of the road, that the main clientel were foreigners crossing the border. I myself was keen to stop and talk to these people, not necessarily to buy anything, although I would have, but more just to talk and see what these people were like. But everytime they looked completely sad and unfriendly. They had no smile for me, made no effort to make me want to stop and be sold to. Often they were doing something else, reading or talking on their phones. So I never did get to buy any blueberries. Instead I peeled off the road and found somewhere to camp, which was incredibly easy because it was nothing but forest everywhere. And in the forest there were lots and lots of wild blueberries, so I picked my own instead.
Today's ride: 21 km (13 miles)
Total: 5,209 km (3,235 miles)
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