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Week 1 | Week 2 | Week
3 | Week 4
| Week 5
| Week 6
| Week 7
| Week 8
| Week 9
Week 10
| Week 11
| Week 12
| Week 13
| Week 14
| Week 15
68 km Before Chita
Day 37 - June 22
We are naive and optimistic. The question we have been asking since
we started cycling on unpaved roads is "how long until we reach asphalt?"
We have heard many different answers, about one per person asked,
and each one we wanted to believe. There was disappointment whenever
we passed a suggested distance and the dirt roads continued, but with
blind excitement we would set our new expectations on the estimate
of the next person.
This morning, after two hours of cycling, I spoke with a construction
worker who said asphalt began in 25, 30 kilometers at most. Twenty-five
kilometers came and a hint of distrust set in; 30 kilometers arrived
and hope seemed deflated. At 33 kilometers, however, the dirt road
came to an end and pavement stood before us.
We were the most excited we had been since leaving Vladivostok. We
stopped to celebrate. Some kissed the asphalt, and some urinated on
the dirt road. Our spirits were high as we cycled on.
Chita
Day 38 - June 23
It was an easy ride into Chita. We received an escort into town and
were welcomed by the vice-mayor. The media was there and I was interviewed
for the evening news.
I knew I would be asked why I was doing this. My reasons are logical
to me, and include wanting to see the country and meet people. But,
it is difficult to articulate this in a way that satisfies the Russian
reporter.
Chita appears to be more ethnically diverse than other Siberia cities.
In the evening, I talked with the manager of the hotel about the large
number of Chinese construction workers. Usually, they work on different
construction projects and then return to China for awhile, but because
of SARS, the border was closed and they could not return home. The
hotel manager praised the construction workers work ethic and said
that typically there was a lot of tourism from China, but the closed
border was hurting business.
Spending time with people like the hotel manager is one of the reasons
why I am biking across Russia.
Chita
Day 39 - June 24
A rest day is never a complete day off. We spent the morning doing
routine bicycle maintenance -- tightening bolts, cleaning gears, replacing
tires or brake. In the afternoon we did some sightseeing.
Having cycled across the sparsely populated expanse, Chita, with a
population of around 300,000, feels like a metropolis. It is a decent
sized city, but what struck me was how many of the old wooden houses
were intermingled with Soviet concrete buildings. Many of the signs
are in Chinese, a statement of the city's proximity to China and the
influence of an ethnic Chinese population. But Chita remains a typical
Soviet-designed city, complete with a Lenin statue in the center of
town, a Lenin Street, a large central square, and military monuments.
In the evening, I met a professor of anthropology at a local university
and we talked about neo-Shamanism in the region. Apparently, a number
of shamans are coming from Mongolia and training people in their skills.
The result has been an increased participation and enthusiasm for
shamanism. I suspect the increase of neo-shamanism has much to do
with a desire to reclaim a cultural identity that is distinct from
the Soviet past.
5 km past Gorekatsan
Day 40 - June 25
Asphalt may be the best invention since the bicycle. At least that is what you are inclined to think after cycling without it for so long. As we left Chita, the way seemed quite easy and it was only now that I really appreciated how hard the unpaved section of the road had been. Cycling seemed much more civilized than it had been days before and the way seemed lighter.
It was a surprise to see plains and flat land as we left Chita, but it was as welcome as the asphalt. Though today we went further as a group than we had before, almost doubling what we did during the unpaved sections, it felt like another rest day. Most likely that is just the "asphalt honeymoon" and, like creatures of habit, we will become critical of the different types of asphalt we encounter on the long road westward (already my bicycle seat can recognize seven.) For now, however, I am thankful for the easy road we enjoyed today.
15 km past Khilok
Day 41 - June 26
It was again a relatively easy day cycling and as has been the case before, upon leaving a city we entered a significantly less inhabited section. At times, the road seemed deserted, and then a small village appears that emphasizes the remoteness of your location.
Usually, we cycle through these villages more quickly than news of our arrival travels (and having grown up in a small town, I know that gossip travels fast), and I wonder what those few bystanders who see us say to their neighbors. Occasionally, they ask where we came from and where are we going, but when I tell them Vladivostok to the Netherlands, their look of confusion often remains.
That night, we set up camp in a field of flowers by yet another cold stream. We were in between villages, which meant more confused looks, from drivers of trucks and passenger cars that pass our campsite. I like to think that seeing tents and bikes among flowers gives some air of sanity to our endeavor, but whatever story they tell likely holds some truth to it: i.e. a group of foreigners are going to Holland on bicycles; clearly they do not know what they are doing or else they would take the train, or even a car. But we are, of course, happy to be going by bicycle, if for no other reason than for the look of confusion we get when we say we are going from Vladivostok to the Netherlands.
Past Khonkholoi
Day 42 - June 27
The landscape was more forested than the day before, providing a striking view of brown trees amidst a bulk of green. It looked like fall foliage, but it was actually trees that had been burnt by fires. I do not know if they were from the fires we heard about a week or two before, but whenever they took place they were widespread.
Today we saw a lot of people in fields planting potatoes. Down the hill, some children working in the fields saw us and seized the opportunity to take a break and enthusiastically cheered us along, qualifying them as our biggest supporters of the day.
Later in the afternoon we entered the Buryati Republic, which has the largest population of Buddhists in Russia. There was an abrupt change in asphalt as we crossed into the republic, suggesting more modest funding for road maintenance, but the surroundings were beautiful and the road comfortable enough.
Nearly 25 percent of the Republic's population is ethnic Buryati and the Mongolian influence is most evident. But while you do see more signs of Buddhism along the roadside, it would be an exaggeration to suggest that it is a mono-religious republic. The many cemeteries that we see on our path are filled with headstones topped by the cross of Russian Orthodoxy, and there is a feeling of greater diversity than other areas we have seen on our trip.
20 km past Ulan-Ude
Day 43 - June 28
For a few years now, I have been perplexed by the Russian propensity to use light blue paint for everything. I tried to come up with a number of different theories as to why everyone would paint their shutters, doors, fences, etc. light blue and every rational answer I could think of was always unsatisfying. After all, it does not make sense that light blue paint would be less expensive than brown or red (if it had a catchy name like "robin egg blue" or "newborn boy blue" then that would at least sound more expensive) and how everyone would conform to the light blue color-scheme is still a bit of a mystery to me.
Of course for the last five years that I have pondered the predominant coloring of Russian houses, I have failed to do what curiosity demands: I never asked. Today, we cycled through a village where the houses were painted colors other than the blue-standard and my eyes were ecstatic. I stopped to take a picture of the most colorful house on the block (which still used a respectable amount of light blue paint) and remarked to my Russian friend what a difference color can make, at least to my eyes.
Later, I did the obvious and asked two Russian friends, why light blue? Both said it was because light blue was the color of the sky and that was very pleasing to the Russian mood. I was surprised that light blue shutters would have much to do with the mood of a population and even more surprised to learn that light blue was the most expensive color (debunking my theory that low cost was the cause of extensive light blue paint use.) Despite the explanation, I still find it a bit unsatisfying and am beginning to conduct an informal survey on paint color.
After the visual respite of the colorful village, we took a brief side tour to visit Ulan-Ude, the capital of the Buryati Republic. While it had the requisite Soviet buildings, there was a Mongolian influence in mosaic patterns and a few statures around the center. The most dominant statue, however, was that of Lenin's face. Rather than one of the typical Lenin poses -- the thinking Lenin with hand on chin; the proud Lenin with hand on hip and one foot forward; or the directional Lenin with hand outstretched pointing to the future (or directing traffic) -- the enormous head structure struck me as peculiar. I do not know if there are any parallels or not, but Kashgar, China, a center for the Uyghur people; one of the cities furthest from Beijing; and a population the Chinese have difficulty controlling, sports the worlds largest statue of Mao. I suspect Ulan-Ude has one of the largest statues of Lenin's head, but I do not know if the Buryatis are as rebellious towards Moscow as the Uyghurs are towards Beijing.
Ulan-Ude had the lowest density of ethnic Russians of any of the cities I have seen thus far. Despite that fact, the Russian Orthodox churches were very visible. I heard that there were also some "Old Believers" (a more puritanical sect that broke off from the Orthodox church and found refuge in Siberia), but I was unable to find where they congregate. Equally elusive were the Buddhists in the city; I could not find a Buddhist temple (due more to my time limitations I suspect than to an absence of Buddhist beliefs) and with the sun waning and camp set up along the river 20 km outside of the city, we left Ulan-Ude and the charms of difference it seemed to hold.
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