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Day 57 - July 31
Chelyabinsk
Entering Chelyabinsk under a gun-metal sky, foreboding of rain,
my first impressions were influenced by the overcast weather. Had
there been any sun during the day, I might have found something
more redeeming in the rows of apartment buildings and factories
distinctive of a Soviet city.
Continuing along towards Revolution Square, where one finds the requisite
statue of Lenin at
the center of the city, my second impression was more gracious and
probably fairer. Chelyabinsk is a very large city with a lot of construction
and renovation of old (pre-Soviet) buildings. It offers the comforts
of a large city, one of the more peculiar of which is an extensive
underground shopping area.
The pedestrian walkways that go under the major road of the city,
often Lenin Street, house quite elaborate kiosks and shops where
one can purchase anything from beer and sausage to women's clothes
and a television.
Today was my third day in Russia since re-entering from Kazakhstan,
and I was again on the look out for a hotel to get the appropriate
registration stamp. The first two hotels I went to did not have
the registration stamp and would not give me a room. I was finally
sent to a hotel for tourists and there I was only allowed to stay
in one part of the hotel, the expensive part. This would have been
deluxe in the mid-1980s and if the object was to impress the foreign
traveler then a friendlier front desk attendant would have gone
a long way.
Across the alley from my window, is a mosque with a minaret that
looks more like a lighthouse than one traditionally expects. I make
note of it here, because soon I will be entering the Muslim republics
of Bashkortostan and Tatarstan. (For that matter, as I cross the
Ural Mountains I will be leaving Asia for Europe.) Nonetheless,
the Russian Orthodox Church has a visible presence in the city and
Orthodox religious paraphernalia can be purchased in major stores
around the city, including the underground shopping areas.
Day 58 - August 1 -
near Satka
Sometimes we're most afraid of the unknown. I knew that today I
would encounter the Ural Mountains and a number of truck drivers
had warned me that it would be very difficult. Their scouting reports
had informed me that there were no switchbacks in the road, which
led me to believe that the mountains may not be as steep as some
earlier in the trip, but the extra weight of panniers would not
make the mountains any easier.
The first 60-80 km were fast and with only a few rolling hills.
Then I hit the first long incline. What followed was a series of
long climbs and quick descents; 45 minutes up, five minutes down.
I was relieved to find that the mountains were much more manageable
than people made them out to be.
About 120 km outside of Chelyabinsk, as I was finishing a climb
and looking for a place to eat, I looked to my right and saw a sign
marking the end of Asia and the beginning of Europe. I expected
a ragged mountain peak or something more stately and impressive,
rather than the trees and weathered concrete pillar in the parking
lot of a cafe/rest area. The sign did, however, give a sense of
accomplishment that the crossing of borders can do, and now with
Asia behind me I had the month of August to cross the European continent.
Day 59 - August 2
past Asha
The rolling mountains continued throughout the day with long ascents
and descents, but manageable. I cycled the day with Boris, a Russian
cyclist whom I met at the Asia-Europe border marker the day before
and who was cycling around European Russia as a way of advertising
the bicycle shop where he worked.
At lunch, we got involved in an extended conversation with Babushka
Rita (Grandmother Rita, as she introduced herself.) Rita was selling
herbal remedies in front of a cafe and managed to convince Boris
(or at least played on his sympathies) to buy an oil that she advertised
as the magical elixir for all ills.
Rita was 71 and lived with her husband in the nearby town of Trehgorni,
a closed village where she had lived since leaving Moscow as a young
bride at 23. Many of the communities that were closed to outsiders
during Soviet times have been opened, so I was surprised to hear
that Trehgorni was still closed. She said that it was a war research
city and she would invite us as guests but she could not. And while
she was nostalgic about Moscow, she also very much liked where she
had lived for the last 48 years.
Further down the road, I met Vera, a woman also in her 70s who
was watching over an Orthodox chapel on the roadside. Expressing
her wishes for a safe journey, she gave us a more formal blessing
than Rita and when, at dusk, camp was finally set up in a hay field
with hunters
shooting in a distance, I was able to sleep well.
Day 60 - August 3
Near Duftuli
As we entered Bashkortostan, we came upon a group of people conservatively
dressed and wearing head scarfs. I expected to see a strong presence
of Islam in Bashkortostan, and thus assumed that this was one of
the first indications of being in a Muslim republic. Of course I
was wrong; it was Sunday and I saw a group of Russian Orthodox people
on a pilgrimage to a monastery near Nizhny Novgorod.
While cycling through Bashkortostan, I only saw one mosque in a
village. Even in the capital of Ufa, I did not see many signs of
a cultural and religious affinity to anything other than the former
Soviet Union. Granted, I was only briefly in Ufa, but riding along
the main road for
15 km, I expected to see more than a statue of Lenin and a few Soviet
mosaics.
Bashkortostan visibly wants to assert its own identity as a republic.
The Bashkorti flag is prevalent and road signs list village names
in both Russian and Bashkorti. There are also roadside advertisements
advocating the importance of Bashkorti nationalism, in general connected
to the revitalization of the national language.
After a quick tour of Ufa, I headed another 100 km further, while
Boris stayed in Ufa to leave after a few days for Samara. The original
route would have taken me through Samara, but because of where we
are staying outside of Moscow, the route was changed to go via Kazan
and Nizhny
Novgorod. The road continues to be paved and decent for the most
part. Of late, the biggest challenge to cycling on the roads has
been that there is no shoulder. Thus, you rely on the hospitality
of notoriously aggressive Russian drivers to respect your attempt
to ride on the white line. In the evening, with many people returning
from their Sunday picnics or days at the dacha, the narrowness of
the main roads was especially evident as ongoing cars maneuver their
way between me and the car they are so impatient to pass.
Day 61 - August 4
Naberedzny Chelny
Yesterday, the prominent roadside product was honey. At every intersection
and few km in between, people were selling Bashkorti honey. Today,
the roads were lined with oil wells and powder blue oil pumps. The
republic oil company appeared to have a monopoly on the gas stations
and appeared to be an integral part of the republic's economic development.
Once crossing into Tartarstan, however, the oil drills were gone
and again the roadside focus returned to agriculture. Nearing the
city of Naberedzny Chelny, the economic emphasis was on motorized
transport.
The city is filled with truck repair shops and auto sales shops,
a higher density than I have seen elsewhere, and much of that has
to do with it being the center for production of Kamaz trucks, Russia's
most popular truck.
Naberedzny Chelny is a planned city that looks like it was built
in the same assembly-line fashion of the trucks. The landscape is
filled with similar looking concrete apartment buildings and people
know where they are not by name, but rather by number. I had met
Boris, a truck driver (not the one I cycled with for two days),
at a cafe outside of Chelyabinsk and he invited me to stay with
him in his family in Naberedzny Chelny. As I was searching for his
apartment, I would ask people and immediately, just by the building
number, they would point me in the correct direction.
Upon arriving, I apologized for being late, saying that the day's
ride took me longer than I thought it would. Of course they understood
and Tanya, Boris' wife, had made a wonderful meal. It was not until
an hour later that I discovered there was a two hour time difference
between Bashkortostan and Tatarstan and that I was actually two
hours earlier than I thought. And if I would have remembered to
move back my alarm, I would have gotten two hours of extra sleep.
Day 62 - August 5
Kazan
Because of not moving back by alarm, I started the day earlier
than I had intended. This worked out for the best as the day was
very hot (close to 100 degrees F) and it gave me more time to walk
around Kazan, the capital of the Tartarstan Republic.
The population of Tartarstan is around 50 percent Tartar and 50
percent Russian. And while Islam has always played a strong role
here, with Tartar Islamic leaders among the most influential in
the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union, Tartarstan has
been relatively moderate and somewhat secular in its articulation.
Kazan reflects the plurality of the republic's population, with
churches and mosques side by side. The Kazan Kremlin, for example
has within its walls a mosque and Orthodox church that are both
being renovated. And in the pedestrian shopping area, there are
vendors that sell both Islamic and Russian Orthodox paraphernalia.
Generally, however, the center of town has a higher concentration
of Orthodox churches, whereas the outskirts of town seemed to have
more mosques.
There is great effort in the city to reconstruct and restore many
of the pre-Soviet buildings that reflect the city's architectural
heritage. The main shopping area in the center of town has been
closed to auto traffic and is filled with the life and sounds of
people walking, gathering, shopping and playing music. All of this
adds to a feel that there is some progress here, and that the city
is trying to construct a future not only for its own inhabitants,
but also for tourists.
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