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Week 1 | Week 2 | Week
3 | Week 4
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| Week 9
Week 10
| Week 11
| Week 12
| Week 13
| Week 14
| Week 15
Zapadnaya Dvina River
Day 70 - August 13
It was an overcast and windy day. The size of our community has increased by 50 percent so there is a thirst to learn the stories of the new cyclists.
While I was away in the Balkans, or during my time cycling alone, the original group took up the habit of stopping for coffee at a cafe after the morning's first 50 km. While this new aspect of our morning cycling ritual struck me as having an edge of pampered civilization, this being my second day experiencing it I have started to see it otherwise.
I enjoy the morning coffee break, but our arrival is more locust comedy than gentlemen cyclist. As the 50 km mark nears, a horde of cyclists nears an unsuspecting cafe. The group, with out mercy but rather a sense of ownership descends on the cafe and asks for 33 cups of coffee and tea prepared with or without sugar and milk.
This seems relatively uninteresting until one imagines a cafe with only three cups or 20 chairs. The one or two people working in the small roadside cafe are overwhelmed not only with the size of the drink order, but also with the number of foreigners dressed in silly looking cycling outfits. Prior to our departure, after the second round of coffees have been delivered, the work staff becomes more friendly and curious; the terror of having to serve us subsides and then, as quickly as we arrived, we depart leaving empty coffee tins in our wake.
Near Zabele
Day 71 - August 14
We spent the day cycling through Pskov oblast, where Aleksandr Puskin, the most cherished of Russian poets, lived for 15 years and where he wrote Eugene Onegin. The section through which we cycled was primarily agricultural, but the city of Pskov recently celebrated it 1100 anniversary and the region is also home to the oldest monastery in Russia.
Pskov, as with Russia, is filled with history and stories yet to be discovered. Yesterday, as I sat near the river, Bernard, one of the German cyclists that joined us in Moscow, sat and read a letter his father had written to his mother 60 years ago while fighting the Red Army in the Pskov region. Today, he learned more of the story.
Valerie, the Russian cycling with us since Vladivostok, is from the Pskov and his father fought the Germans here during World War II. Thus, the fathers of two cyclists were forced to be enemies, whereas Bernard and Valerie have chosen to be friends. And in some sense, the friendship of Bernard and Valerie gives me hope for places embroiled in conflict.
Zilupe, LATVIA
Day 72 - August 15
Finally, with the world's largest country behind us, we entered Latvia and the first border crossing in Europe. (Having gone through Kazakhstan, I had already enjoyed the sense of accomplishment of crossing one border, while for others in the group it was their first crossing since Vladivostok.)
It is interesting how the somewhat arbitrary (in the sense of being determined by politicians and the international community) political borders of a country can come to make a day seem significant, and lift the spirits of those of us who had been cycling since May. There was a momentary tinge of sadness to be leaving Russia, where I had traveled so many kilometers and learned so many stories, but the excitement of moving West pushed any romantic longing back as I offered my passport and received my exit stamp.
The Ural truck, our support vehicle, took longer to cross the border, so we waited on the Latvian side of the border for it to clear customs. Once the Ural was in Latvia, we cycled a few km further before setting up camp in Zilupe, where we were meeting another support vehicle that would accompany us to Scheveningen. That night, there was a festive air in the camp, for now the end seemed close; subsequent border crossings and the sense of accomplishment they bring would be more frequent; and in theory the roads would be better.
My first impression of Latvia was that it was more prosperous than Russia. Probably my enthusiasm for Zilupe was more to do with being on the other side of the border, but Latvia is scheduled to become a member of the European Union next year, so there is probably some accuracy in noting a higher standard of living. I was still able to communicate with people in Russian -- this is not surprising for the older generation, but I was surprised that some younger people were equally comfortable in Russian; in many places, the younger generation has lost Russian, but street signs as well as monuments were in both Latvian and Russian. How this changes once they enter the EU will be interesting to observe, for that transition will effectively make the Latvian-Russian frontier the only border to cross between Vladivostok and Scheveningen.
Daugavpils
Day 73 - August 16
The day began with an option: 150 km by paved road or 110 km; 70 km paved, 40 km unpaved. Many of the new cyclists had only thin tires, and were apprehensive about an unpaved road.
In the end, we chose the unpaved road and to our pleasant surprise, the unpaved road in Latvia was better than many of the paved roads in Russia. Just as we settled into a quiet morning, a cold rain, and eventually a hail storm, came along. By lunch, however, the rain had stopped and we could catch glimpses of the sun.
We had lunch in a park overlooking a typical Latvian village. It seems traditional for married couples to make a photographic pilgrimage to important sites around their homes. Two different couples and their parties came to the place where we were having lunch to have wedding pictures taken with their village in the background.
I spoke with a few school aged children who were part of the festivities, curious to see if Russian was still being taught in schools. They both spoke a little English because they went to an English school, but when I asked if they knew Russian, they replied, "We are Russian." What was interesting was later in the conversation, as they were telling me about the area and said that they loved "their country [Latvia.]" While others estimated the Russian population in Latvia to comprise close to 50 percent of the total population, the young girls had no difficulty seeing themselves as Latvian citizens and ethnic Russians. The relative prosperity and pending entrance into the European Community also must play a significant role in ethnic Russian's fondness for Latvia.
There does seem to be a relatively amiable co-existence between the ethnic groups. Cycling further into the country, one sees both Orthodox and Catholic churches and in Daugavpils the churches sit across the street from each other. But as I went around the city and entered a bookstore in the center, I was surprised that the only books available were in Russian. No doubt there are other areas in town with books in Latvian, but the absence of Latvian hinted at some segregation in the city.
Ukmerge, Lithuania
Day 74 - August 17
Early in the morning, we reached the Latvia-Lithuania border and crossed it much more quickly than the Russia-Latvia border.
One Lithuanian friend described the relationship between the two countries as "not bad but not good," implying a neighborly-friendliness or competitiveness within the protection of individual state interests. Both countries are preparing for a May 2004 entrance into the European Union, and it is evident by the road improvements and billboard announcements with half of the EU flag and the other half waiting to be unveiled in May.
A few additional observations of the day: the dominant fixture of the landscape is a high population of storks and the preservation of nests in the marshy area. And the further one gets from Russia, the fewer Orthodox churches are seen along the landscape; by Lithuania one sees a greater predominance of Catholic churches than even in Latvia.
Marijampole
Day 75 - August 18
The further west we go, the more I am struck by: 1) the relative comforts of the modernized west and 2) how much I came to accept the life of Siberia. Traveling with the sun has led me to appreciate Eastern Europe more than I may have had I come from the west. Each day moving west introduces further connections to a society of leisure.
Today, for example, we saw a number of cycling groups training on the outskirts of Kaunas. I spoke with a number of Russians in Siberia who dreamt of cycling long distances but lacked the resources to afford a bicycle or finance a trip. This was the first time I had seen organized teams training for cycling events and increasingly I see more people with quality bicycles and the time to use them.
A few young cyclists changed their training plans when they saw us and circled back to escort us through the city of Kaunas. They gave us a brief tour of the old part of town and continued in the peleton to the outskirts of the city.
Economic aspects of leisure time seemed most blatant, here. Economic progress, after all, is as much about the ability for leisure as it is about basic sustenance.
Gizycko, Poland
Day 76 - August 19
The border crossing between Lithuania and Poland was the easiest yet; the guards were friendly (as they had been at the Latvia-Lithuania crossing) and more cordial rather than authoritatively silent while inspecting our passports. Again I was struck by how Poland seemed more affluent that countries further west, but also how the borders denote a difference that is culturally visible.
In the case of Poland and Lithuania, some of the difference can be accounted for by the government regimes during the Eastern Block -- Lithuania, for example, was part of the Soviet Union whereas Stalin is reported to have compared the imposition of communism in Poland to putting a saddle on a cow -- and the speed with which they embraced the market economy, but there also seems to be more rooted cultural differences that the border helps reify.
Already Russian has become less useful to me in trying to communicate, as even older Poles do not seem to be comfortable in the language. In Latvia, and to a lesser extent in Lithuania, I could still speak Russian with the older population. But before one thinks that Poland is radically more progressive than Lithuania, it is worth noting that Poland is one of two countries in the world where our Iridium satellite phones, which the group has used in Siberia and elsewhere, are blocked and do not work. As the borders between these three countries disappear in nine months, it will be interesting to see what differences are kept and what differences are lost.
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