7th to 13th of July 2011
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What did I write on my homepage: …human beings can plan beaucoup but proven by experience things can develop their own dynamics and take its own course…
One thing to mention before I describe what happened to me during these days is that in Chita virtually no police exists (though they have the military everywhere). Here the cars go with 100km/h through the city (if they can) doing car races and acceleration games and I even saw one car overtaking a police car with such a speed…no laser guns, no stop, no nada. Not too bad but better you are in a car...
Well, I picked up my tires the next morning at the transport company and drove with them to the Mitsubishi/ Yamaha (also motorbike) dealer and friendly Raman welcomed me whom I visited already the day before. 3 hours later I got a call: You can pick up your motorbike, tires are changed and the gasoline valve as well. All looked ok and I went back to my hotel and prepared everything for the next morning for an early start. I checked all the screws once more, checked the chain, checked the clearance on both sides of the wheel, all in parallel.
The next day I wanted to push to the limit, trying to go the 1.200 km to Tynda in one shot. I had my early start and what then followed was based on a combination of different factors: I stopped only after 200km, the Yamaha dealer seemed to have pushed in the wheel to far (but all in parallel) and I failed with my control (it seems that I stopped 2 times at exactly the same position that I didn’t see that the chain was too loose) and the chain itself was certainly already worn out.
However, when I made my first stop after 200km it smelled of burned rubber and nearly all the rubber studs in the middle of the tire were gone and those ones still there were hanging loose more or less melted away from the mud flap which hang also in stripes. And I stopped there only because somebody told me in Chita to stop at every opportunity to fuel up on the Amur Highway (M58 and the river is called Amur) because there is a section of 350km in between where you don’t get anything. The chain, now obviously to loose and the sprocket had already a strong saw tooth: shit!
I loosened the wheel and pulled it out in order to tighten the chain and fixed it in this position.
I went another 150km when a couple on a Goldwing passed by on the other lane and when I saw them stopping I made a U-turn and stopped behind them in a parking lot. Russians from the Baikal and after some small talk they gave me two telephone numbers from bikers in Tynda and Yakutsk who could support me with fixing my bike. And my chain was again lose, the saw tooth worse even though the wheel was in the position in which I fixed it. The chain was completely done.
But still positive, I thought I could make it to Tynda…I went on on the M58 super highway in the wild east and every 15 min one of those temporary registered Japanese cars passed by the other lane. I saw how the hired drivers drive those cars and my guess is that 50% of those are halfway done once they reach Moscow or any other area in Russia for sales. They all have some big temporary registration paper in the front windshield + the whole front is pasted with adhesive tape for all the insects hammering in on those cars on their long way into Russia.
In Chita they told me not to stop anywhere on this highway because of criminals on the road and also in the villages close by. Exactly this I had to do now. Surprisingly early I run out of fuel and I fumbled with my new valve and only after I cut off the supporting strings to get the tube + valve a bit lower I could satisfy my “running low fuel” lamp. But only for another 20km…so, I was really low on fuel and I stopped at a parking lot (they have lots of them on this super highway but with nothing there) because I saw I guy fixing his car there.
He sold me 2l of gasoline and I prayed to make it to the next filling station: I decided to go to Mogocha, 5km to the left side of the highway instead of pursuing a gas station on the highway. The filling station was on the other side of the city…but I made it and when I fueled up I found out that I had less than 1l left in my tank. My engine had to work hard with all these ruined parts and it used now 7.5l whereas normally I drive with an average of 5.5l on a hundred kilometers.
This didn’t look good at all and it began to dawn on me that I might not it make it to Tynda. I went on – what other choice I had in the middle of nowhere? Luckily I found another fuel stop 50km before I reached the Tynda/ Yakutsk crossing while again my “low fuel” lamp was brightly beaming. When I reached the huge (no joke) “highway cross” (because if you make a turn to left towards Yakutsk you end up on gravel after 1km, the same towards Never) I had to take my decision. I looked to the ruined back of my bike, 9.00pm in the evening, still 165 km to Tynda which is not a big city, 1.000km back to Chita, 1.200 km to Yakutsk and Vladivostok more than 2.000 km… I decided to look for a hotel in Never.
Any other decision would have brought me into bigger trouble: ending up somewhere with a breakdown in the forest on the way to Tynda with all those lovely insects (nearly everything what is in the air here wants your blood and especially mine)…So I tried my luck in Never – what coincidence (!) – not only the village’s name (never say “Never” or how was that?) but also that I looked to this village at least 3 times back at home when I made my planning for this trip because it marks the turn towards the North, towards Yakutsk. And I knew as well from my “research” that there must be a railway station whether in Never or in Skovorodino approx. 20km away…and now exactly here I stranded!!!
In Never no hotel and a woman wanted to send me to Skovorodino when a guy approached me and told me about a roadside hotel behind the huge highway cross towards Vladivostok, just another 2km down the highway. That was really luck because on the 1.000km between Chita and Never there had been nothing. And they had a room for me after 10pm and later I even got food.
That evening I was not able anymore to organize something for the next day. Next morning I had some “conversation” with the chief and since I was still determined to make my way to Yakutsk in order to try to fix my bike with the contact I got from the Baikal couple on the way, we tried to find somebody going to Yakutsk with a truck to put my bike and myself on it…
The day passed by and basically nothing happened (except 1 single conversation with a truck driver who couldn’t give me a lift because he had no space left in his truck; but he contacted a friend who was supposed to start from Chita 2 days later…) and when in the evening Yuri (a transportation and shipping expert from Vladivostok with whom I was already in contact for shipping out of Magadan and/ or Vladivostok) told me that I wouldn’t get my bike out of Yakutsk by plane and if, then only to Moscow because I would have to do there customs clearance…(Why I had meanwhile the thought of flying out the bike? Because it dawned on me that I wouldn’t get the spare parts locally, I would have had to fly them in. And this takes a lot of time. Remember, to get my first set of tires it took more than 2 months because they got stuck in the customs in Moscow) …I came back to the point where I started. Whole day waiting for nothing and stuck in this roadside hotel but of course it could have been worse!
The next morning again the “Russian shrug” (this word I learned now in Vladivostok from Sveta from the transport company, originated by 2 UK guys who had to wait for more than a month for their motorbikes which got lost with a container) which is a shrug with stretched arms and open hands and an apologizing smile (oh, I had this often before) now from the chief and his employees. Left alone there, that was the point when I took my decision: I have to organize it on my own. I rolled my motorbike out of the “garage” and slowly made my way over gravel to Skovorodino, around 20km away.
I found the railway station Skovorodino, surprisingly big for this remote village, but here they stock also oil and gas for the region; huge gas tanks are installed here (they call it terminal). And after I ran around in the station I found one guy who was more or less responsible for the shipping of cargo. With “hands and feet” we tried to communicate and when I was meanwhile with him in the warehouse I made another call to Yuri. He translated for me on the phone; I should leave the bike there and they will try to get it on the cargo train which was scheduled for 10:30 pm but might arrive only at 2:00 am in the morning. The other “real” cargo and earlier train wouldn’t accept my bike because I would have to crate my bike + nobody could do this for me here. Recommendation was to stay there until the train arrives…and what should I have done in my roadside hotel + taking the additional risk of a breakdown going there 20km + coming back another 20km?
I waited 12 hours on the train station…in between I asked different people for shipment papers, any kind of documentation and I only got shrugs and faint smiles. Not one word English. Then some people approached me…all hands and feet communication…drunken already…and they didn’t give me peace. In the end I walked to a bar (bar, haha: a 2x2m micro store with 4 rotten benches and 2 tables under a rotten metal roof outside, behind a metal fence, separating this location from the railway… and after 15min I had again a crowd of people trying to communicate with me…exhausting.
When I went back into the station (meanwhile around 11:00pm) I ran into a police officer who told me to follow him into the police office. He pointed out to sit down + then he started his PC and a translation program Russian/English which didn’t work that bad. Now 3 police officers took care of me, asked what I was doing, why I am here, why I left the train station, why I went to this small bar, where I came from, where I stay, where I want to go…puuh, I got a real interview and then they told me to not leave the station, that this is a criminal area and I should not speak to anybody + in case of any kind of problem to contact them. Continuing now with the one officer we developed an idea on how the shipping of the motorbike could take off including how to get some paper or document for the shipment + where potentially I could pick up the bike in Vladivostok and with this idea we went to the officer in charge of shipments (meanwhile change of shift; aargh!) + talked to her.
After this nerving interview at least I got a positive feeling that I /we would be now on the right track.
From the communication between “my” police officer with the shipment officer I got the impression that everything was transferred to her. After that we went back to the police office, went through some other communication steps and that he would help me later and the last sentence he put in his interpreter program was: “We will not detain you!”
I was really shocked and I expressed this to him…as if I am a criminal suspect…??
We came to the conclusion that this was a translation program error and all was fine. Ok.
I went back to the deserted waiting hall and finally one loading guy approached me to get my bike. I drove out of the warehouse and there were 6 workers, the shipment officer, my police officer and the cargo train rolled in, at 1:30pm in the morning. I had to cross the tracks…left or right…nobody knew…ok, left and general hand movements: I had no idea where to go and I think they had also no clue. In the end I had to drive far out of the station on the elevated train platform getting more and more narrow with potholes in it and in the very end the space between the 2 tracks was only 1m and I was on a 30cm raised ridge in between, no light…I just said to myself, do not fall left or right.
They hurried me and told me to empty the gasoline fast, fast, fast, so I just pulled of the fuel line let approx. 8-10l of petrol just between the tracks…5m away they smoked. Then I asked for my papers and the shipment officer shrugged her shoulders and said njet. I freaked nearly out, the whole fucking day I ran after them for papers where in the end they said I would get them from the train personal and now: nothing! And “my personal nice” police officer was also gone!
I ripped out the starting key of my motorbike and I ran back the 800m to the station, to find the police officer in his office. I made clear to him that they wouldn’t provide me any papers and that he wanted to help me…ok okay, we made together a run back to the left alone bike (he in the end slower and slower and I faster and faster because meanwhile I was worried that it would have been gone/stolen already, coz the “atmosphere” was not good out there with the workers when I freaked out there…I understood some racist undertone…this all in the darkness of the night). When we reached the place the bike was still there but the train was pulled in closer to the station, so I had to push my bike all the way back on this 1m wide trail; shit + what kind of organization!?
You can imagine how I felt from the 1.6km run in my motorbike clothes at 28°C (it still had), backpack, gasoline all over my hands…however, the police officer tried to negotiate something but there were only shrugs and njets, so we woke up Yuri in Vladivostok at 2:00 am in the morning, to do some translation. In the end it was take it without papers or leave it. Ok, take it and the workers yelled already at me move, move, move! And the next minute they wanted to lift the 200kg (including my fully loaded boxes) just with 2 people (me + only one worker) with hands on the 1.5m high train platform through a 1.5m wide door…Were they all nuts?
All staff just put stress on me but in the end nobody wanted to help?? I called the other workers to help and with 4 people we just managed to get it onto that level + through the cargo door. Hurry, hurry, hurry…we pushed the bike towards one side wall + I put it on the side stand and I told them to fix the bike…njet, njet…I told + showed them again to fix the bike…njet njet, leave, leave, get out of the train! That was the last sight of my moto and I didn’t know if I would ever see it again. And certainly the bike would fall while the train would move and the other 14l of gasoline left inside because they hurried me would flood their container + other goods…but what could I have done when they just pushed & hurried me in their un-organized manner…?
Yuri told me on the phone that he would help me to find the bike in Vladivostok…but with no paper at all?
I tried to find a taxi in front of the station and finally one arrived… this asshole wanted to have 2.000 Rubles (50 Euro) for the 20km back to my hotel. I offered him 1.000 knowing that he had the advantage at 3:00pm in the morning. Njet. I sat down and waited when another car (no official taxi sign on top) arrived and I just went to the driver and asked him. He left a good impression on me and I in return accepted the 800 Rubles without any argument:-) We went through the darkness (real darkness, not that kind of we have in Germany) of the night, through the thick forest and a thought struck me: What should I do if he would stop somewhere? At 3:40h in the morning I arrived safely in my roadside hotel to find out that they moved all my clothes from my relatively nice room with shower + toilet to a sticky small room without anything. Aha, but what can I do in this culture? I think it is rude and I mean I paid the night before my 2.500 Rubles + gave them no impression, that I wouldn’t pay in future…and I told the staff that I would go to Skovorodino to the train station…they couldn’t think that I wouldn’t return and not being keen to get my belongings, or? On the other hand I can be still happy, coz my GPS and SAT phone were still there and all the other stuff as well…
I took a shower in the common shower area and went to bed. At 9:00h I woke up in order to take care of the “shipment of myself” when I ran into the angry chief (and I had already 2 conversations before with the staff…they just knocked my door until I opened)…and he gestured something like “how I could leave and organize my bike shipment to Vladivostok if he works on a solution to get it to Yakutsk”. Now I was also angry…and then they told me to pay 2.000 Ruble for this sticky room…I just made my way for the reception to get the price list, which was displayed there. Ok 1.800 for the sticky one…but at least 5 Euro I saved:-)
When I met the chief again 1.5h later in front of the hotel I apologized and tried to be friendly because it was clear to me that I totally depended on those people, I still had to get away from there in one single piece and needed as well their help to get a taxi. He reacted friendly on my approach and made a call to that guy we arranged before supposed to come from Chita in about 2 days to pick me up on the way to Yakutsk. (…and I think he didn’t make any other arrangement for me anyway)
I got my taxi and the driver wanted to take advantage of the situation. In the end we agreed on 800 Ruble before we started our travel to Skovorodino. Once we were in the car, he was very friendly and he showed me the landscape, gas tanks and whatever…
At the train station I had to find out that all schedules are Moscow time. So my intended train leaving at 15:51h was supposed to leave at 21:51h in the evening local time. OMG, does this never stop?? Again 9h of waiting at the train station!!! The train takes then 2.5 days to Vladivostok and no, this train is not 4.950 Rubles (info from the day before), it is 7.815 Rubles for whatever reason…I didn’t understand. I just bought the ticket instead of waiting another additional 4 hours for the cheaper one. Oh man.
While I waited outside of the waiting hall some guys approached me, at 2:00pm already drunken…oh no, this thing started…again. At one point I just left and went into the village’s park from where I could hear loud disco music. But beside the 3 “outdoor DJs” there were no people at all…I sat down, then I lay down on a bench holding my belongings tight. When the first elderly ladies arrived with nice dresses, sun glasses and straw hats the disco music changed to something like slow Russian traditional music and the whole park developed to a meeting point for the elderly on Sunday afternoon (which I find good and nice!).
While I started to enjoy “the show” the director of the park (a woman in her 40ies) approached me and more or less threw me out of the park because I lay on the bench. Oh man, this rudeness here…On one hand you are here in the wild east and you risk your life out there with criminals around you and on the other hand you are thrown out of a park with 3 flowers + some grass between the sand because you lay on a bench.
When I went back to the railway station I met again “my people”…ohjeohje…I walked off to the small bar (I quoted this place before already:-) beside the station and I got my peace this time for an hour before it started there…you really have to lock up yourself in a room to get your peace. Finally the time passed by + I got my big bag out of the locker room and when a train arrived at 21:15h I asked one officer on the platform if this is mine…njet, tritzy minutes. Ok and I watched the people getting out of their train, smoking, walking to the mini magasins + 2 roadside micro food stalls buying some food & drinks when I saw another train moving into the station, behind the waiting train.
Intuition told me that this was my train and I looked underneath the train in front to see if there are movements behind (nothing) and I looked to the pedestrian overpass which came only down again after approx. 10 tracks…the officer yelled at me (if I wouldn’t have asked him before + showed him my ticket nobody in the whole train station would have to told me that this is my train despite all of them knew about my fate) hurry, hurry, hurry.
I tried to run with all my stuff over the platform to the first train, the officer pointed out to climb through the first train in order to get to second one behind (really a climb: 5 steps up through a narrow door, I had to put each bag separately up into the train, out of the train on the other side the same procedure) the officer meanwhile on the other side yelling at me and when I was finally on the other side of the first train the footstep of my train was already pulled in and the train ready to leave…special grace, the footstep was lowered again and I put in my luggage one by one…no helping hand.
I just had my luggage inside, myself still outside, when the train started to move…wild east. This is a thing which really pisses me off here: the whole day nothing happens, everybody is laid back and then all the action explodes in one moment + all the energy you saved or gained the time before is gone in a couple of seconds. After 2 controls (each time I had to show my ticket) in the narrow train aisle, complaining restaurant personal because I had to go through with all my luggage to reach my wagon (I just told them: Ach, last mich doch alle in Frieden! And I had to think of Jan’s Father who said to me back in Germany: I communicate with the Russians in German…and somehow he is right; it doesn’t matter if English or German, anyway nobody would understand) + bumped further through all the doors with my heavy load. The 3rd and useful control showed me my compartment: I had a sleeping wagon! Thanks heaven and shit on the money I spent on the ticket.
When the train had left Skovorodino my mobile went dead, no network anymore, and while I cooled down in the aisle and looked out of the window, the daylight fading away quickly, fog in between the endless trees and on some human made openings in between the mental stress of the past 3 days slowly faded away…In the end I was able to get out of here in one piece. Let’s see how it will go then in Vladivostok…
And now I travel with the Trans Siberia Railway, I never dreamed of that…other people do. This train goes a maximum of 100km/h but mostly it is about 60-70km/h maximum high speed :-) and you might know this tack, tack, tack…tack, tack out of the films. Well this is it. And I think some of the tracks are not even welded together (that is then a hard TACK, TACK) but on the other hand all this stuff works with temperatures between -50°C and +50°C and that makes it then somehow impressive…even though everything looks old and like rudimentary technic, the poles for the electricity are partially bent to the left or right that you think how can that…but it works. Just to remember: If we have in Munich -10°C and 10 cm of snow we have the first failures with our S-Bahn.
The landscape/environment changed over this long distance, birch trees and endless pine forests, later oak forests followed by marsh lands and all of the sudden (I mean 1.5 days later:-)) a crossing of a big river delta and arrival in a big city. In the beginning of my train travel there were only from time to time some huts and some villages but now more and more civilization “pours in”.
By the way, back in Skovorodino they check every train in the night which leaves the train station for blind passengers, officers beside the train with beams searching the underneath of the train and in each of the wagon’s open train doors the staff of the train with beams looking to the outside that nobody jumps on the train while it takes up its speed. Wild East, Wild West…only some time in between. :-)
My new tire after 350 km. I should have taken the picture at km 200 when the rubber studs still hung partially on the tire...but at that moment...
The "highway crossing"...Magadan :-(
The tire after 1.000km. Well other people need for that 10.000km :-))
The sprocket is also done
The Skovorodino experience...all in best order?!
The Russian Post has to wait as well...they can sit for hours in the car, no problem
Each afternoon one thunderstorm...
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What did I write on my homepage: …human beings can plan beaucoup but proven by experience things can develop their own dynamics and take its own course…
One thing to mention before I describe what happened to me during these days is that in Chita virtually no police exists (though they have the military everywhere). Here the cars go with 100km/h through the city (if they can) doing car races and acceleration games and I even saw one car overtaking a police car with such a speed…no laser guns, no stop, no nada. Not too bad but better you are in a car...
Well, I picked up my tires the next morning at the transport company and drove with them to the Mitsubishi/ Yamaha (also motorbike) dealer and friendly Raman welcomed me whom I visited already the day before. 3 hours later I got a call: You can pick up your motorbike, tires are changed and the gasoline valve as well. All looked ok and I went back to my hotel and prepared everything for the next morning for an early start. I checked all the screws once more, checked the chain, checked the clearance on both sides of the wheel, all in parallel.
The next day I wanted to push to the limit, trying to go the 1.200 km to Tynda in one shot. I had my early start and what then followed was based on a combination of different factors: I stopped only after 200km, the Yamaha dealer seemed to have pushed in the wheel to far (but all in parallel) and I failed with my control (it seems that I stopped 2 times at exactly the same position that I didn’t see that the chain was too loose) and the chain itself was certainly already worn out.
However, when I made my first stop after 200km it smelled of burned rubber and nearly all the rubber studs in the middle of the tire were gone and those ones still there were hanging loose more or less melted away from the mud flap which hang also in stripes. And I stopped there only because somebody told me in Chita to stop at every opportunity to fuel up on the Amur Highway (M58 and the river is called Amur) because there is a section of 350km in between where you don’t get anything. The chain, now obviously to loose and the sprocket had already a strong saw tooth: shit!
I loosened the wheel and pulled it out in order to tighten the chain and fixed it in this position.
I went another 150km when a couple on a Goldwing passed by on the other lane and when I saw them stopping I made a U-turn and stopped behind them in a parking lot. Russians from the Baikal and after some small talk they gave me two telephone numbers from bikers in Tynda and Yakutsk who could support me with fixing my bike. And my chain was again lose, the saw tooth worse even though the wheel was in the position in which I fixed it. The chain was completely done.
But still positive, I thought I could make it to Tynda…I went on on the M58 super highway in the wild east and every 15 min one of those temporary registered Japanese cars passed by the other lane. I saw how the hired drivers drive those cars and my guess is that 50% of those are halfway done once they reach Moscow or any other area in Russia for sales. They all have some big temporary registration paper in the front windshield + the whole front is pasted with adhesive tape for all the insects hammering in on those cars on their long way into Russia.
In Chita they told me not to stop anywhere on this highway because of criminals on the road and also in the villages close by. Exactly this I had to do now. Surprisingly early I run out of fuel and I fumbled with my new valve and only after I cut off the supporting strings to get the tube + valve a bit lower I could satisfy my “running low fuel” lamp. But only for another 20km…so, I was really low on fuel and I stopped at a parking lot (they have lots of them on this super highway but with nothing there) because I saw I guy fixing his car there.
He sold me 2l of gasoline and I prayed to make it to the next filling station: I decided to go to Mogocha, 5km to the left side of the highway instead of pursuing a gas station on the highway. The filling station was on the other side of the city…but I made it and when I fueled up I found out that I had less than 1l left in my tank. My engine had to work hard with all these ruined parts and it used now 7.5l whereas normally I drive with an average of 5.5l on a hundred kilometers.
This didn’t look good at all and it began to dawn on me that I might not it make it to Tynda. I went on – what other choice I had in the middle of nowhere? Luckily I found another fuel stop 50km before I reached the Tynda/ Yakutsk crossing while again my “low fuel” lamp was brightly beaming. When I reached the huge (no joke) “highway cross” (because if you make a turn to left towards Yakutsk you end up on gravel after 1km, the same towards Never) I had to take my decision. I looked to the ruined back of my bike, 9.00pm in the evening, still 165 km to Tynda which is not a big city, 1.000km back to Chita, 1.200 km to Yakutsk and Vladivostok more than 2.000 km… I decided to look for a hotel in Never.
Any other decision would have brought me into bigger trouble: ending up somewhere with a breakdown in the forest on the way to Tynda with all those lovely insects (nearly everything what is in the air here wants your blood and especially mine)…So I tried my luck in Never – what coincidence (!) – not only the village’s name (never say “Never” or how was that?) but also that I looked to this village at least 3 times back at home when I made my planning for this trip because it marks the turn towards the North, towards Yakutsk. And I knew as well from my “research” that there must be a railway station whether in Never or in Skovorodino approx. 20km away…and now exactly here I stranded!!!
In Never no hotel and a woman wanted to send me to Skovorodino when a guy approached me and told me about a roadside hotel behind the huge highway cross towards Vladivostok, just another 2km down the highway. That was really luck because on the 1.000km between Chita and Never there had been nothing. And they had a room for me after 10pm and later I even got food.
That evening I was not able anymore to organize something for the next day. Next morning I had some “conversation” with the chief and since I was still determined to make my way to Yakutsk in order to try to fix my bike with the contact I got from the Baikal couple on the way, we tried to find somebody going to Yakutsk with a truck to put my bike and myself on it…
The day passed by and basically nothing happened (except 1 single conversation with a truck driver who couldn’t give me a lift because he had no space left in his truck; but he contacted a friend who was supposed to start from Chita 2 days later…) and when in the evening Yuri (a transportation and shipping expert from Vladivostok with whom I was already in contact for shipping out of Magadan and/ or Vladivostok) told me that I wouldn’t get my bike out of Yakutsk by plane and if, then only to Moscow because I would have to do there customs clearance…(Why I had meanwhile the thought of flying out the bike? Because it dawned on me that I wouldn’t get the spare parts locally, I would have had to fly them in. And this takes a lot of time. Remember, to get my first set of tires it took more than 2 months because they got stuck in the customs in Moscow) …I came back to the point where I started. Whole day waiting for nothing and stuck in this roadside hotel but of course it could have been worse!
The next morning again the “Russian shrug” (this word I learned now in Vladivostok from Sveta from the transport company, originated by 2 UK guys who had to wait for more than a month for their motorbikes which got lost with a container) which is a shrug with stretched arms and open hands and an apologizing smile (oh, I had this often before) now from the chief and his employees. Left alone there, that was the point when I took my decision: I have to organize it on my own. I rolled my motorbike out of the “garage” and slowly made my way over gravel to Skovorodino, around 20km away.
I found the railway station Skovorodino, surprisingly big for this remote village, but here they stock also oil and gas for the region; huge gas tanks are installed here (they call it terminal). And after I ran around in the station I found one guy who was more or less responsible for the shipping of cargo. With “hands and feet” we tried to communicate and when I was meanwhile with him in the warehouse I made another call to Yuri. He translated for me on the phone; I should leave the bike there and they will try to get it on the cargo train which was scheduled for 10:30 pm but might arrive only at 2:00 am in the morning. The other “real” cargo and earlier train wouldn’t accept my bike because I would have to crate my bike + nobody could do this for me here. Recommendation was to stay there until the train arrives…and what should I have done in my roadside hotel + taking the additional risk of a breakdown going there 20km + coming back another 20km?
I waited 12 hours on the train station…in between I asked different people for shipment papers, any kind of documentation and I only got shrugs and faint smiles. Not one word English. Then some people approached me…all hands and feet communication…drunken already…and they didn’t give me peace. In the end I walked to a bar (bar, haha: a 2x2m micro store with 4 rotten benches and 2 tables under a rotten metal roof outside, behind a metal fence, separating this location from the railway… and after 15min I had again a crowd of people trying to communicate with me…exhausting.
When I went back into the station (meanwhile around 11:00pm) I ran into a police officer who told me to follow him into the police office. He pointed out to sit down + then he started his PC and a translation program Russian/English which didn’t work that bad. Now 3 police officers took care of me, asked what I was doing, why I am here, why I left the train station, why I went to this small bar, where I came from, where I stay, where I want to go…puuh, I got a real interview and then they told me to not leave the station, that this is a criminal area and I should not speak to anybody + in case of any kind of problem to contact them. Continuing now with the one officer we developed an idea on how the shipping of the motorbike could take off including how to get some paper or document for the shipment + where potentially I could pick up the bike in Vladivostok and with this idea we went to the officer in charge of shipments (meanwhile change of shift; aargh!) + talked to her.
After this nerving interview at least I got a positive feeling that I /we would be now on the right track.
From the communication between “my” police officer with the shipment officer I got the impression that everything was transferred to her. After that we went back to the police office, went through some other communication steps and that he would help me later and the last sentence he put in his interpreter program was: “We will not detain you!”
I was really shocked and I expressed this to him…as if I am a criminal suspect…??
We came to the conclusion that this was a translation program error and all was fine. Ok.
I went back to the deserted waiting hall and finally one loading guy approached me to get my bike. I drove out of the warehouse and there were 6 workers, the shipment officer, my police officer and the cargo train rolled in, at 1:30pm in the morning. I had to cross the tracks…left or right…nobody knew…ok, left and general hand movements: I had no idea where to go and I think they had also no clue. In the end I had to drive far out of the station on the elevated train platform getting more and more narrow with potholes in it and in the very end the space between the 2 tracks was only 1m and I was on a 30cm raised ridge in between, no light…I just said to myself, do not fall left or right.
They hurried me and told me to empty the gasoline fast, fast, fast, so I just pulled of the fuel line let approx. 8-10l of petrol just between the tracks…5m away they smoked. Then I asked for my papers and the shipment officer shrugged her shoulders and said njet. I freaked nearly out, the whole fucking day I ran after them for papers where in the end they said I would get them from the train personal and now: nothing! And “my personal nice” police officer was also gone!
I ripped out the starting key of my motorbike and I ran back the 800m to the station, to find the police officer in his office. I made clear to him that they wouldn’t provide me any papers and that he wanted to help me…ok okay, we made together a run back to the left alone bike (he in the end slower and slower and I faster and faster because meanwhile I was worried that it would have been gone/stolen already, coz the “atmosphere” was not good out there with the workers when I freaked out there…I understood some racist undertone…this all in the darkness of the night). When we reached the place the bike was still there but the train was pulled in closer to the station, so I had to push my bike all the way back on this 1m wide trail; shit + what kind of organization!?
You can imagine how I felt from the 1.6km run in my motorbike clothes at 28°C (it still had), backpack, gasoline all over my hands…however, the police officer tried to negotiate something but there were only shrugs and njets, so we woke up Yuri in Vladivostok at 2:00 am in the morning, to do some translation. In the end it was take it without papers or leave it. Ok, take it and the workers yelled already at me move, move, move! And the next minute they wanted to lift the 200kg (including my fully loaded boxes) just with 2 people (me + only one worker) with hands on the 1.5m high train platform through a 1.5m wide door…Were they all nuts?
All staff just put stress on me but in the end nobody wanted to help?? I called the other workers to help and with 4 people we just managed to get it onto that level + through the cargo door. Hurry, hurry, hurry…we pushed the bike towards one side wall + I put it on the side stand and I told them to fix the bike…njet, njet…I told + showed them again to fix the bike…njet njet, leave, leave, get out of the train! That was the last sight of my moto and I didn’t know if I would ever see it again. And certainly the bike would fall while the train would move and the other 14l of gasoline left inside because they hurried me would flood their container + other goods…but what could I have done when they just pushed & hurried me in their un-organized manner…?
Yuri told me on the phone that he would help me to find the bike in Vladivostok…but with no paper at all?
I tried to find a taxi in front of the station and finally one arrived… this asshole wanted to have 2.000 Rubles (50 Euro) for the 20km back to my hotel. I offered him 1.000 knowing that he had the advantage at 3:00pm in the morning. Njet. I sat down and waited when another car (no official taxi sign on top) arrived and I just went to the driver and asked him. He left a good impression on me and I in return accepted the 800 Rubles without any argument:-) We went through the darkness (real darkness, not that kind of we have in Germany) of the night, through the thick forest and a thought struck me: What should I do if he would stop somewhere? At 3:40h in the morning I arrived safely in my roadside hotel to find out that they moved all my clothes from my relatively nice room with shower + toilet to a sticky small room without anything. Aha, but what can I do in this culture? I think it is rude and I mean I paid the night before my 2.500 Rubles + gave them no impression, that I wouldn’t pay in future…and I told the staff that I would go to Skovorodino to the train station…they couldn’t think that I wouldn’t return and not being keen to get my belongings, or? On the other hand I can be still happy, coz my GPS and SAT phone were still there and all the other stuff as well…
I took a shower in the common shower area and went to bed. At 9:00h I woke up in order to take care of the “shipment of myself” when I ran into the angry chief (and I had already 2 conversations before with the staff…they just knocked my door until I opened)…and he gestured something like “how I could leave and organize my bike shipment to Vladivostok if he works on a solution to get it to Yakutsk”. Now I was also angry…and then they told me to pay 2.000 Ruble for this sticky room…I just made my way for the reception to get the price list, which was displayed there. Ok 1.800 for the sticky one…but at least 5 Euro I saved:-)
When I met the chief again 1.5h later in front of the hotel I apologized and tried to be friendly because it was clear to me that I totally depended on those people, I still had to get away from there in one single piece and needed as well their help to get a taxi. He reacted friendly on my approach and made a call to that guy we arranged before supposed to come from Chita in about 2 days to pick me up on the way to Yakutsk. (…and I think he didn’t make any other arrangement for me anyway)
I got my taxi and the driver wanted to take advantage of the situation. In the end we agreed on 800 Ruble before we started our travel to Skovorodino. Once we were in the car, he was very friendly and he showed me the landscape, gas tanks and whatever…
At the train station I had to find out that all schedules are Moscow time. So my intended train leaving at 15:51h was supposed to leave at 21:51h in the evening local time. OMG, does this never stop?? Again 9h of waiting at the train station!!! The train takes then 2.5 days to Vladivostok and no, this train is not 4.950 Rubles (info from the day before), it is 7.815 Rubles for whatever reason…I didn’t understand. I just bought the ticket instead of waiting another additional 4 hours for the cheaper one. Oh man.
While I waited outside of the waiting hall some guys approached me, at 2:00pm already drunken…oh no, this thing started…again. At one point I just left and went into the village’s park from where I could hear loud disco music. But beside the 3 “outdoor DJs” there were no people at all…I sat down, then I lay down on a bench holding my belongings tight. When the first elderly ladies arrived with nice dresses, sun glasses and straw hats the disco music changed to something like slow Russian traditional music and the whole park developed to a meeting point for the elderly on Sunday afternoon (which I find good and nice!).
While I started to enjoy “the show” the director of the park (a woman in her 40ies) approached me and more or less threw me out of the park because I lay on the bench. Oh man, this rudeness here…On one hand you are here in the wild east and you risk your life out there with criminals around you and on the other hand you are thrown out of a park with 3 flowers + some grass between the sand because you lay on a bench.
When I went back to the railway station I met again “my people”…ohjeohje…I walked off to the small bar (I quoted this place before already:-) beside the station and I got my peace this time for an hour before it started there…you really have to lock up yourself in a room to get your peace. Finally the time passed by + I got my big bag out of the locker room and when a train arrived at 21:15h I asked one officer on the platform if this is mine…njet, tritzy minutes. Ok and I watched the people getting out of their train, smoking, walking to the mini magasins + 2 roadside micro food stalls buying some food & drinks when I saw another train moving into the station, behind the waiting train.
Intuition told me that this was my train and I looked underneath the train in front to see if there are movements behind (nothing) and I looked to the pedestrian overpass which came only down again after approx. 10 tracks…the officer yelled at me (if I wouldn’t have asked him before + showed him my ticket nobody in the whole train station would have to told me that this is my train despite all of them knew about my fate) hurry, hurry, hurry.
I tried to run with all my stuff over the platform to the first train, the officer pointed out to climb through the first train in order to get to second one behind (really a climb: 5 steps up through a narrow door, I had to put each bag separately up into the train, out of the train on the other side the same procedure) the officer meanwhile on the other side yelling at me and when I was finally on the other side of the first train the footstep of my train was already pulled in and the train ready to leave…special grace, the footstep was lowered again and I put in my luggage one by one…no helping hand.
I just had my luggage inside, myself still outside, when the train started to move…wild east. This is a thing which really pisses me off here: the whole day nothing happens, everybody is laid back and then all the action explodes in one moment + all the energy you saved or gained the time before is gone in a couple of seconds. After 2 controls (each time I had to show my ticket) in the narrow train aisle, complaining restaurant personal because I had to go through with all my luggage to reach my wagon (I just told them: Ach, last mich doch alle in Frieden! And I had to think of Jan’s Father who said to me back in Germany: I communicate with the Russians in German…and somehow he is right; it doesn’t matter if English or German, anyway nobody would understand) + bumped further through all the doors with my heavy load. The 3rd and useful control showed me my compartment: I had a sleeping wagon! Thanks heaven and shit on the money I spent on the ticket.
When the train had left Skovorodino my mobile went dead, no network anymore, and while I cooled down in the aisle and looked out of the window, the daylight fading away quickly, fog in between the endless trees and on some human made openings in between the mental stress of the past 3 days slowly faded away…In the end I was able to get out of here in one piece. Let’s see how it will go then in Vladivostok…
And now I travel with the Trans Siberia Railway, I never dreamed of that…other people do. This train goes a maximum of 100km/h but mostly it is about 60-70km/h maximum high speed :-) and you might know this tack, tack, tack…tack, tack out of the films. Well this is it. And I think some of the tracks are not even welded together (that is then a hard TACK, TACK) but on the other hand all this stuff works with temperatures between -50°C and +50°C and that makes it then somehow impressive…even though everything looks old and like rudimentary technic, the poles for the electricity are partially bent to the left or right that you think how can that…but it works. Just to remember: If we have in Munich -10°C and 10 cm of snow we have the first failures with our S-Bahn.
The landscape/environment changed over this long distance, birch trees and endless pine forests, later oak forests followed by marsh lands and all of the sudden (I mean 1.5 days later:-)) a crossing of a big river delta and arrival in a big city. In the beginning of my train travel there were only from time to time some huts and some villages but now more and more civilization “pours in”.
By the way, back in Skovorodino they check every train in the night which leaves the train station for blind passengers, officers beside the train with beams searching the underneath of the train and in each of the wagon’s open train doors the staff of the train with beams looking to the outside that nobody jumps on the train while it takes up its speed. Wild East, Wild West…only some time in between. :-)
My new tire after 350 km. I should have taken the picture at km 200 when the rubber studs still hung partially on the tire...but at that moment...
The "highway crossing"...Magadan :-(
The tire after 1.000km. Well other people need for that 10.000km :-))
The sprocket is also done
The Skovorodino experience...all in best order?!
The Russian Post has to wait as well...they can sit for hours in the car, no problem
Each afternoon one thunderstorm...
