Riding a Ural Ranger from Tallinn to Kazakhstan…

 

We´ve been driving for a while now, two weeks…

 

 

Driving a Ural Ranger in pink camouflage, which I additionally have named Pinky, has brought a lot of amazement in some people we met during the trip. Many shows thumbs up, motorists honking with delight, others smile but most people are curious and want to talk, check out the Russian technology and take some pictures of the bikes, especially my bike.
The journey so far has been beyond expectations. In the beginning I was quite worried about how I would be able to handle the bike. It’s pretty tough to speed up the bike and it does not go very fast either. That´s a pity! Moreover, it is more stressful and exhausting to ride a motorbike with a sidecar. But I love my Pinky!!!!!
We have encountered a lot of bad roads and it was a day when we drove a total of 240 km of offroad of the worst possible kind. Everything from bumpy gravel, bumpy asphalt with billions of huge potholes, and uneven freshly laid asphalt, sand and rocks with large deep holes !!! What a fucking torture for both body and soul! The bikes really showed their capacities and I thought the bikes will break down. The only thing that happened was that the sidecar wheel on my bike fell into a deep hole with a huge bang but even that didn’t stop the bike. I managed to pull the bike up, all by myself, from the hole and continue the journey as if nothing had happened.
Not a single scratch on the bike either!!!!!
But the last 80 kilometers I was crying like a baby! All because of pain! Each and every bounce was horribly painful. Arms, every muscle on my body, spine, kidneys and even my womb was affected by the bad road surface. I have never ever experienced such a painful ride before, but we had no choice but to continue the ride! We forced ourself to Sharya where we had booked a shitty and shabby accommodation. My whole body screamed in pain when we finally arrived to Sharya. I’ve had incredibly difficult to get off the bike! I cried when I tried to get off my bike!

The ride to Perm was also quite difficult … at least for me.
Jan had been so sweet the night before! He cleaned my visor on my helmet with baby wipes which probably contained…. lotion. And you can probably guess what happened next! Or? If not, I can tell!!! It was a total disaster for my visor. That day, it rained and was very windy and for me it was a challenge besides keeping the bike on the road in the pouring rain and the strong winds… I couldn´t see a shit. My visor was mucky and became blurred, misty and rain drops molded onto the visor. I tried very hard to get rid of the mucky stuff on my visor with one glove while driving but it just got worse. I couldn´t even see the fucking road which made me panic! And I´m talking about the worst kind of panic! I didn´t know what to do but I took a real deep breath and screamed my fucking head off in the microphone: Heeeeelp!!! Then Jan responded briskly and cheerfully: -”Can you be more specific!? What kind of help you need right now”? Me strucked by panic yet quite focused while driving in pouring rain and the mucky visor I tried to explain to Jan that I couldn´t see a shit!!!!
Despite the pouring rain, the mucky visor and driving in blindness Jan managed to guide us right … into my next disaster!!! A fucking boom… right in my face!!! The boom hit me in the right cheek, upper lip and nose with such force that it bounced back and hit the front cover on my bike and then ended up on the ground. What a fucking bad end of the day. Despite the accident, we drove to the hotel which was about 100 meters away. The staff at the hotel came with a large bag of ice and stood standby just in case I was in need of a doctor. Thankfully nothing was broken even if my nose looked really crooked and swollen. I am still worried about my nose because I had an operation in november due to a nasal septum deviation.

Ice Caves in Kungur was a fantastic experience. We tried to visit the cave 4 years ago but it was closed that day… we got there too late!
Kungur Ice Cave is a karst cave located in the Urals, near the town Kungur. The cave is famous for its ice formations and is a popular tourist landmark.
Inside the cave there is narrow path which is called “the women road” because a long time ago a german princess fell down on this road. After she returned from the cave she got married with a swedish viking. Therefore, it is said that if a lady falls down on this road she will get married soon. And… unfortunately… I didn´t fall!!!

Well it´s our last night in lovely Ekaterinburg where we´ve been resting for a few days!

 

And tomorrow we are riding to Irbit, to the Ural factory where Pinky and Tiger (Jan´s bike) were ”born”. I wonder how the people in Irbit will react when I come riding on a Ural Ranger in pink camouflage with Jan behind me in the same kind of bike but in a different colour… orange????

Russia, Kazakstan etc – Estonia to Ekaterinburg.

This summers trip will be through Russia to Kazakstan and home again. The route home will depend on how much time we´ll have left but either via Krasnodar, Crimea, Ukraine and home trough Poland and the ferry from Gdansk. Or the bigger and more direct roads back west via Moscow and Estonia.We´ll se what happens….. New for this year is that we are not on the BMW´s. We´ll do this trip on two Russian made Ural sidecar bikes. Different beasts but good fun and they are fantastic in their own odd way……! 🙂

Left Stockholm on the 15th of June so we´ve been on our way for two weeks now. Ferry to Tallin/Estonia and then east via Narva, Ivangorod, St Petersburg, Tikhvin, Vologda, Kostroma, Kirov, Perm and we are now in Ekaterinburg. Good trip in general. No technical problems with the bikes but there has been some days that has been rough regarding road quality…… More holes than tarmac and off road riding as well. But in general it´s been a good trip so far. Some rain but people has been great and friendly as usual here in Russia. The major negative incident that has happened is when Eva got a boom in the head when going into a parking lot just at the hotel in Perm. Hurt ALOT and we where afraid that she had broken her nose for awhile but only brused up and lots of pain. That was no fun at all. The boom operator fucked up and lowered the boom too early with lots of pain and some fixing with the bike as the result.

Will head to Irbit and the Ural factory tomorrow. That will be great fun. Very happy with the bikes. Built like tanks. We like them. A lot. Some pics….

Loading the bikes aboard the ferry from Stockholm to Tallin.

Just arrived in Russia and stayed the first night in Ivangorod. This very kind man had a B&B that we stayed at. Great experience.

You meet people along the road. This bunch of Honda riders where very friendly and interested in what we where up to. And why we ride russian bikes…. 😀

Tikhvin.

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Please meet our traveling companions Molly and mr Vysotsky. 🙂

Visited the dino park in Kotelnich and also the paleontological museum. Lots of dino findings in this area dating 250 – 270 million years old….

Bus in Kirov.

The boom incident in Perm. Poor girl. Painful experience.

Lots of road work and bad roads in some areas. The main roads are often good. The smaller ones not as good all the time….. 😉

Ekaterinburg at night time.

Irbit tomorrow. Will write more later.

Cheers! //Jan

Kirovsk – St Petersburg……

Long time since last blog post. We are now in St Petersburg and we´ll stay here till the 8th of august. Tomorrow! LONG days on the bikes since Kirovsk. South on small roads and then up north again to Arkhangelsk and then south to St Petersburg. Most (if not all) people seem to take the long route on the main roads when traveling from Murmansk to Arkhangelsk. We did not. Shorter distance on the smaller roads but the roads has been everything from good to absolutely awful. 😀 And the biggest problem has been to find places to stay at night. Mostly smaller villages and trying to find hotels through Trip Advisor, hotels.com etc has not been an option. The few hotels out in the ”outback” has not been registered at the regular travel sites on the net. And pretty much none has been speaking english. And our russian is not very good! 😀 Time consuming (but good fun!!) trying to communicate with people without a common language! The interesting thing is that people on the Kola peninsula speak a completely different dialect that is MUCH harder to understand for us than what people speak in Siberia, Moscow or down south in Kaukasus. We´ve not understood much quite often and they´ve not understood the few words that we actually know….. Interesting….. 😀

The ride from Kirovsk to Arkhangelsk was “interesting”. The weather got hotter when getting further south and we passed some VERY polluted areas and also some very beautiful ones. VERY uncomfortable beds at the hotels we did found and at one place, in Plesetsk, we met the most unfriendly bitch ever that worked the reception desk. She was actually the only evil person ever during this trip. Loud and nasty, she was. And refused to give us a receipt after we had paid for the room. We made her give us a receipt a couple of hours later and left early the next morning. The next town/village is a military town and a big NO to visit for tourists. We managed to work our way around and made it to Arkhangelsk two days later and rode some of the worst stretches of roads ever. It´s totally amazing how much abuse our bikes can take! AND we also rode some great but small roads! 😀

We liked Arkhangelsk. Great town up by the White Sea. Stayed there a couple of days and then worked our way south on the big road towards St Petersburg. The only bad thing that happened in Archangelsk was that someone tampered with my bike one night. Twiggled some switches and set the alarm off. Probably tried to sit on it and ran off when the alarm went off. Eva celebrated her 50´s birthday here in St Petersburg. Had a GREAT day! Visited the Hermitage, great Georgian dinner, went on a horse wagon ride and other things. Fantastic city to turn 50 in. Will leave for Helsinki and the ferry back to Sweden early tomorrow morning. 400 kilometers and a border crossing to check out of Russia. But first, the St Petersburg subway!! Considered as the nicest and most beautiful subway stations on the planet! Together with the subway in Moscow….! Some pics….:

Old petrol pumps. 80 octane. They had a pump with 95 as well. Two pumps with 80 octane….. 🙂

A coffee shop we ate at. Dirt roads for a long time both before and after this village.

The dust would not settle for a LONG time when cars passed. No wind and it was hard to see the road…..

Small villages out in the middle of nowhere. Pretty but not much to do I guess. I doubt they have a disco or a recording studio in da hood……

Our bikes found a friend….. 😉

If you have to go to the toilet at a cafe along the road it often looks like this. I always opted for the woods instead…..

There is a pay phone somewhere in the bushes…. 😀

Mosquitoes had a tendency to get stuck in my beard rather often when riding my bike…..

Best coffee ever in Arkhangelsk!!

The food is often boo good along the road when riding but they surely know what they´re doing in the bigger cities.

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A Subway restaurant in Arkhangelsk.

The pedestrian street surrounded by old wooden houses in Arkhangelsk. Pretty and charming.

We found this absolutely fantastic ”hotel” runned by a Armenian family when heading south towards St Petersburg. Rather basic place BUT clean, great food and very friendly folks!

When we got there, around 7 at night a tuesday, there were a bunch of older Russian women (and one guy) dancing to very (!!) loud disco music! And they continued to dance while we were eating dinner. The music was very loud and we could not talk to one another during dinner. It was totally crazy but good fun! 😀 😀

This is how they get their cars from one side of the river to the other during summertime on the Russian countryside. During winter, they use the frozen rivers as roads.

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One of the more heavily polluted areas we passed on our way south.

This is a rather common view along the roads. Garbage, plastic bottles etc……

The hotel in St Petersburg. The only really nice hotel during this trip. We celebrated Eva´s birthday here in St Petersburg so a nice hotel was a must.

Hey! The Avatar dude!!

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We really like St Petersburg.

The Hermitage. Russias biggest museum and filled with some of the greatest art objects on the planet.

The Hermitage was amazing. TOO big tho! Would need several days to see it all! We spent three hours there.

We took a ride with these fellows around the square. 🙂

The Hermitage. If you get a chance, check it out!

Eva got a burning birthday drink. She did not drink fast enough so the plastic straws melted…. 😀 😀

That´s all for now. Another update when we´re home again. The ferry back home to Sweden leaves from Helsinki, Finland, tomorrow evening. 200 km to the border, checking out from Russia (can take some time….) and 200 km on Finnish roads to the ferry. We arrive on swedish soil on saturday morning but we won´t go straight home. We´ll visit our friends Staffan and Gunilla that runs a hostel some 230 km´s from Stockholm before going home. We usually end our vacations at their place. Take care till next update and thanks for reading….! 🙂

Cheers//Jan

Murmansk – Kirovsk……

Oki. Here we go again…. 🙂

Monday 21st of July to 24th of july.

Had some lazy days in Murmans after riding the bikes from Stockholm. We needed a little bit of rest. 🙂 Walking around in the city was good fun and we´ve been treated friendly by everyone we´ve met. And we also did something that we´ve NEVER done before! We rented a car! We wanted to go ut to Barents Sea and the only way to do that is to go out to a small village called Teriberka located north east of Murmansk. The the last stretch of road is no good. Sandy gravel….. No favorite for a biker. And Eva had injured her foot when she fell down a some stairs and driving in sand with a bad fot is no fun so ve rented a car. Some pics from Murmansk and the surroundings…..

The car that we rented. A Citroen. French car with russian plates. It had a anti spin system. Ever tried driving in sand with anti spin? It doesn´t work very well. Not much happens when you press the gas pedal…… Don´t ever stop in sand when in a car that has anti spin! 😀

Beautiful ride out to Teriberka through some typical Russian tundra. And lakes as we got closer to the sea.

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Lots of old boats and ship wrecks around Teriberka. And lot´s of worn down and abandoned houses…..

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But it was beautiful in many ways even considering the condition of buildings and boats. I imagine that it must be a harsh environment to live in during the cold season tho.

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We met this couple from the Tjeck republic on a bike when we left Teriberka. They had ridden the bike with two people on it and fully loaded with luggage through the 40 kilometers of gravel and sand on their way to the village but felt that it was too hard to do it on the way back as well. So we loaded their luggage and the girl in our car and the guy took the stripped bike through the hard section until we got out on asphalt again. And he was a EXCELLENT rider indeed! He was much faster than us in the car! 😀 Then, again, anti spin….. Don´t judge me too hard but we could hardly move through the sandy bits. But he was FAST! Excellent rider. And they were both very friendly and kind. Nice to meet some fellow bikers and to be able to help them out.

I started to feel sick on our way back towards Murmansk. Must had ate something bad. Just when we got back into the city I had to stop at a bus stop and I made it out of the car but not much more than that. I threw up all over the street. Massive vomiting. It was ugly. And there where lots of people around that stared at me. Very embarrassing indeed! Felt MUCH better afterwards tho so that was good. We returned the car to the rental company and took a taxi back to the hotel. I took a shower.

The Alyosha statue in Murmansk.

We had dinner at this little greek outdoor barbecue place twice during our stay. Best food we had in Murmansk. A small family owned place. Most often the best!

We left Murmansk and headed south yesterday. GREAT road (not all roads are great in Russia) and nice scenery for most of the time. But we passed a couple of towns that looked like shit. Worn down and heavy industries.

We arrived to Kirovsk yesterday evening. This is a ski resort during winter time so there are beautiful mountains around. Not much tourists during this part of the year tho.

Decent hotel. Not all hotels in Russia are decent. And I suspect that we´ll experience our share of shitty hotels from now on during our ride towards Arkhangelsk. A ride that is around 1.650 kilometers through a part of Russia that mostly have smaller villages. And they don´t have hotels all the time….. We often go online and use hotels.com, trip advisor and some other hotel sites to find hotels. And from now on there are hardly no hotels to find on our route through these sites. We realized that fairly late yesterday evening so we decided to stay another night here in Kirovsk to figure out what to do. So we´ll leave tomorrow instead of today. There has never been a problem finding hotels before during our travels through Russia. On the trip to Mongolia going through Siberia it was fairly easy and there are bigger cities spread out one days riding apart all through Siberia. The same in Kaukasus. But here there are mostly smaller villages. There are most likely lots of hotels but they are not listed on the travel sites. And the few that we´ve actually found has VERY negative reviews. ”Worst hotel I´ve ever stayed at” and that sort of stuff. 😮

The biggest ”problem” when traveling in Russia is the language. And the alphabet. And that most people don´t speak english. Especially in the smaller places. And that we don´t speak russian. We manage to get around anyway and we have a lot of fun trying to communicate. It usually works out just fine after awhile. But finding hotels out in the woods where they necessarily don´t even put up a sign on the building where it says that it´s a hotel makes things complicated every once in awhile. Anyway….. We are now trying to figure out where the hell to go and where the hell to sleep until we reach Arkhangelsk 1.650 kilometers away. Might be that we´ll have to ride some very long distances during these next days. We´ll try to talk to the people down at the reception at the hotel and ask them for advices. Might be that they´ll point out some villages where they know that there are hotels and we just take off tomorrow without making any reservations in advance. One problem is that the people that works in the reception doesn´t speak any english….. And we don´t speak any russian. And can´t read the cyrillic alphabet very well……. Anyway. These next days might get interesting……. 😀 😀

Til next time…..

Cheers//Jan

Atomic icebreaker, Lenin, in Murmansk…

… is the world´s first surface ship with nuclear facility. The icebreaker was built in the Soviet Union, first of all, to serve The Northern Sea Route. It was floated out on December 5, 1957. Due to its large power capacity and high autonomy, the icebreaker showed its excellent performance at first navigations. Using the atomic icebreaker had significantly extended the navigation period. For its first 6 operating years the icebreaker cut over 82 thousand nautical miles and independently led more than 400 vessels. The icebreaker “Lenin” has worked for 30 years and in 1989 was taken uot for service and put on dateless anchorage in Murmansk. It is now a museum.

A very young and nice couple who guided us to the icebreaker.

 

      

 

Bored and lost Jan. The guide was speaking russian and Jan didn´t understand a word!!!

Welcome to Paradise on Earth …. Nikel, Peninsula, Russia …

…the town, where huge investments are made to benefit illness and environmental disaster.

 

The lovely beach, which by the way is deserted, invites you to party 24/7, take lovely bathing in polluted water, buy rusty longdrinks and where the sun is rarely visible due to smog with wonderfully stinging sulfur odor. 

 In order to blend in and cough with inhabitants of the town, you should immediately take some very deep breaths. You know; breath-in-breath-out-method … but do it slooooowly!! Do this a few times and then cough as much as you want. If you also get lung cancer or other appropriate chronic and fatal illness, consider it as a bonus. 

And best of all, the heavily polluted air and water is completely free … does not cost you a nickel. Stuff we like!! Right??? 

To entertain the cough and other fatal illness, don´t forget to breath in the polluted air while walking. 

 Thank you for visiting our extremely polluted town Nikel. 

We wish you an unpleasant stay in Nikel!

 

How to get your own unique Murmansky ”quick fix”-face for free…

 

Girls! Skip all the expensive anti-aging creams!! The contaminated water is also extremely beneficial for your skin. So get here and rag of your face with the contaminated water, leave for a while before wiping the abundance … then take a look in the mirror and see how your skin changes. 

You may not notice an immediate effect but eventually you´ll feel a painful tingling in the face and after a while a lovely skin redness occurs. Isn´t that nice????? Shortly thereafter, your face will fall off. Don´t worry, don´t panic… you´ll get a new face … slightly thinner and tighter …  Model: Murmansky quick fix. 

To protect your Murmansky quick fix from the sun’s harmful rays you should use a gas mask to cover your new face. You do not need to buy a gas mask … they are scattered all around the area. There are free gas masks for everybody in the area. Unfortunately there´s only one model and in one color.   Watch out for the gas masks hanging in dead trees … they may be dirty. Choose one lying on the ground instead … they contain sulphide clay and it´s very beneficial for your “new” face. 

After some time … a day or so, you should take a long walk in the acid rain during your visit in Nikel… the rain has the ability to corrode nicely on the skin and “improve” small defects on your “new” face. 

 

Sad facts about Nikel…

The town is linked to the Norils Nickel plant nearby where many of its citizens are employed and which causes grave environmental and health concerns for the population. The nickel smelter which has been an eyesore in Norway and Russian relations for decades due to its extreme pollution levels, usually deposits its sulfur dioxide fumes to the south of the town where the countryside is a brown moonscape of bald hills, barren of plant life for kilometers around. In the summertime, the toxic fumes which for the rest of the year rarely blow northwards towards the town, occasionally do just that, making breathing difficult and even burning holes in people’s umbrellas.

 

Stockholm – Murmansk…..

Oki folks! First proper post during this trip! We left Stockholm last tuesday after we got our russian visas.

Tuesday, 15th of July.

Left Stockholm and only got to Hudiksvall in Sweden on the first day. 300 kilometers only. Road construction (!!) and a late start….. But we had at least left Stockholm and started the trip.

Wednesday, 16th of July.

The next day was a bit better but started out with a small accident when Eva fell down the stairs during breakfast at the hotell. Hurt her foot and has been in pain ever since. But her foot is getting better now. Hard to shift gear on the bikes the first days tho. We arrived in Skellefteå after some 480 kilometers. Again heavy road construction and not only that, bad weather too. Thunder and heavy rain. But still a good days ride. I almost got killed by a elderly man in a sports car. He drove WAY to fast and did not manage to slow down on one of them 2 to 1 roads just as the two lanes turned into one…. And there I was. I luckily saw him in my read mirror and realized what was about to happened and I managed to move out of the way. He passed me with centimeters to spare. Safety rails on both sides of the now one lane road but I passed him at a buss stop a few hundred meters later and stopped him. I slowed down and blocked his way with the bike. And then I walked over and talked with him. He looked scared but I hope that he´ll NEVER do something like that to a guy on a motorcycle again. I´ve never ever been so closed to being killed in traffic. It would have been Bye Bye if I had not seen him and managed to move out of his way. On a one lane road with safety rails on both side of the lane. Centimeters to spare! Not a favorite situation.

Thursday, 17th of July.

Short distance from Skellefteå to Rovaniemi in Finland. 375 kilometers. No rain and pretty much no road construction! Very little traffic in Finland and good and fun roads to drive on a bike. And Rovaniemi is a odd city to visit during summer time. Santa Clause lives in Rovaniemi! One can even meet Santa during summer. Pics below….. You´ll get it….. 😀

Friday, 18th of July.

Left Santa and drove north to Kirkenes, Norway. LONG ride and very cold at the end when we got up into northern Norway. 530 kilometers on rather winding roads. Kirkenes is a fine little city located near the russian border up on the Barents Sea. We´ve been here before some 5 years ago when we did a trip around northern Sweden, Finland and Norway. Midnight sun! Daylight around the clock during summer. No daylight at all during winter.

Saturday, 19th of July.

Woke up, had breakfast and left Kirkenes. Arrived at the russian border around 12 o´clock (noon) norwegian time/2 o´clock russian time. Fast border crossing. 45 minutes. Usually takes MUCH longer to get into Russia. We know the routines now since this was our 7th border crossing into/out of Russia during these last two years. Murmansk is only some 230 kilometers from Kirkenes so a short ride. We decided to go visit the mining town Nikel first tho. One of the dirtiest places on the planet. They mine for nickel there and they sell it mainly to the automobile industry in west. Nickel is used in catalytic converters in cars. Interesting place to visit but I´m glad that I don´t have to live there. The town by itself pollutes the planet three times more than what the whole country of Norway does annually….. The surrounding area is pretty much totally dead. The ride towards Murmansk was beautiful after having put some distance away from Nikel. Looked like northern Sweden with lakes and beautiful scenery. The roads was not very good for parts of the distance tho. This road was a dirt road up till some few years back. But it needs some major repair work already. Lots of restricted military areas in this part of Russia so one can´t go everywhere. Have to stick to the main road with some exeptions like Nikel and a few other places. We arrived in Murmansk in the evening and we were actually rather exhausted after riding some 1.750 kilometers in 4 days through heavy rain, thunder, road construction areas and cold weather. We crashed like babies before midnight local time.

Sunday, 20th of July.

I woke up VERY late! 11.30 and breakfast was over. Eva woke 2 minutes later, looked at me and said with a angry voice: -”Why didn´t you wake me”??!!? I replied: –”Cause I just woke myself”!! 😀 We´ve been walking around the city today. Eating lunch at the very shabby place underground below a small mall. Visited the Lenin nuclear ice breaker and got a guided tour of the ship. In russian. We did not understand much…… 😀 Had a lovely barbecue dinner at a greek outdoor place near where we live. Very basic ”restaurant” but they could make fantastic food! Might go back tomorrow. Murmansk is a rather wore down town. It has it´s charm and it´s typical russian in many ways but worn down. I like it. Friendly people as everywhere else in Russia. People come up and say Hi and they try to communicate even tho many don´t speak english. Some pics from the trip so far……

The High Coast bridge in Sweden. This part of Sweden is on UNESCO´s World Heritage List.

Yeah. Silly stuff! That´s me being silly in Finland!

Rovaniemi! Where Santa lives! Crazy town! Notice the christmas tree outside our cabin.

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Santa rides Ural motorcycles!

No comments……

Not much traffic in northern Finland.

The midnight sun in Kirkenes, Norway. Just over the horizon….

Me and my bike. I like my bike! It takes me to places and has never failed me. My bike and Eva are my trustworthy travel companions!

On the beach outside Nikel, Russia. One of the dirtiest places on the planet.

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it is actually the western world that is to blame for this destruction of nature. We buy their stuff but we refuse to pay the actual cost so that the russians can produce nickel in a environmentally friendly way. We just buy from somewhere else if it gets too expensive and some other country will destroy their nature instead. Cheap is not necessarily the best thing in the long run….. At least not for the nature…..

Other parts along the road towards Murmansk was very beautiful tho! And very friendly people!

Some pics from Murmansk……

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The best McDonalds restaurants we´ve ever visited have been located in Russia. Did not eat at this one tho but I get a feeling that the russians think it´s the ultimate revenge towards USA to have the nicest McDonalds restaurants on the planet located in Russia! 😀

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The Lenin ice breaker. First nuclear powered ice breaker ever. Built in 1957. Impressive ship.

Deuche Industri Norm.

iPhone prototype aboard the Lenin.

Good Murmansk stuff….. 🙂

Eva found a friend……

More in a couple of days. We´ll take the bikes tomorrow and visit some places around Murmansk. Will leave Murmansk on tuesday or wednesday depending on if we´ll go up to the Barents Sea coast north east of Murmansk or not….. Bad roads and a long ride back and forth. We´ll see what we decide to do. Time to sleep now. 20 past one at night here and it´s bright as during daytime outside…..

Cheers//Jan

Kola peninsula…..

Hi all! We are about to leave on another bike trip next week. This time around the Kola peninsula in north eastern Russia. Murmansk, Arkhangelsk etc. Will be a good trip. More when on the road! Take care, folks!

//J

Leipzig – Kiel……

Hi again. The trip is coming near it´s end. We are now in Kiel and the ferry to Gothenburg leaves in less than 6 hours. Our original plan was to take the ferry from Gdansk in Poland to Nynäshamn just south of Stockholm and then go to visit our friends Staffan and Gunilla at the hostel they run some 180 kilometer west of Stockholm in a little village called Regna. We´ve ended all of our trips at their place since we started to do these sometimes mad trips some years back. The ferry from Gdansk was fully booked so we had to look for other options. We tried to book too late as usual….. 🙂 There is another ferry from Poland to Ystad in the very southern part of Sweden but that was also fully booked. So we decided to drive all the way through Denmark and the bridges and up through Sweden towards home til Eva remembered that there is a ferry from Kiel to Gothenburg. Gothenburg is on the west coast but since we were going to visit our friends in Regna 180 kilometers west of Stockholm we did the math and it turned out that it was only a 100 kilometer detour going via Gothenburg. And we did not have to drive the 800 kilometers through Denmark and Sweden. And it´s Eva´s birthday tomorrow when the ferry docks in Gothenburg and Gothenburg is her birth town so we might opt for breakfast in Gothenburg instead of eating on the ferry. She gets to see her birth town on her birthday. I think she will enjoy that. And that ferry was NOT fully booked so we will be in Gothenburg tomorrow…… 🙂

Left Leipzig yesterday and drove the 500 kilometers to Kiel. Hit some HEAVY rain going north…… 😀

Eva did not look sad even after getting soaked in the rain. This was actually one of very few rains we have experienced during this trip around the Black Sea. A few drops in Russia, one VERY heavy rain shower in Georgia and yesterday on the road to Kiel. So we can´t complain. Later we stopped at a “Rasthof” for some dinner. Did not notice this sign before it was time to leave…..:

We had parked right where the sign was. “Frauenparkplatz”. Now I´ve studied german for some time and I guess that this parking space was reserved for a “frau”. Is Eva considered a “frau” or is it for elderly women only? Or is it a space where men leave their wife’s while having a cup of coffee? “Park your frau here…..”? I don´t know. But our two motor bikes was parked there for an hour and none told us to move them. The sign was located rather high up in the air so we did not see it. We don´t have this kind of signs in Sweden either so….. I don´t know. But we might have broken some serious german law of some kind……

Don´t know how to describe this in a way that makes sense but I´ll give it a try….. Sometimes often minor things happens that makes you think. Got an sms text message from my sister some days back when we were in Romania. She had included a picture with our moms grave stone that she took while visiting her grave that day. She also wrote: –“Mom says Hi”.

So what has this have do do with anything? A couple of months before our mom died in a brain tumour back in 1998 mom and I was out driving in her car. I was driving and she was in the passenger seat. Her sense of humour changed abit at the end and got more direct in some sort of way. We had many good laughs there at the end. We were talking about something that I don´t totally remember now this long after during this car ride but I had misheard a word she had said. I remember that I at that point said: –“Ah, you mean “A” as in “apa” (monkey/ape in swedish)”? And she said: –“Yes. Or A as in Ann-Louise”. Her first name. We laughed about that since she had connected the word monkey with her own first name. She did not have this kind of humour earlier in her life but she started to joke around about her self quite often at the end. Oki. So 15 years later I got a text message from my sister saying “Mom says Hi”. Just minutes before the text message showed up on my cell phone I and Eva had bought two bottles of Coca Cola at a gas station. Coca Cola has started to print names on the bottles lately and Eva grabbed a bottle and I did the same and then we paid for them and walked out to the bikes. The name that was on Eva´s bottle was “Tündérke”. Some romanian name perhaps? My bottle said “Apa”. Monkey/ape in Swedish. Eva and I laughed at that wondering if “Monkey”, or “Apa in swedish, was a common first name in Romania.

It was very hot that day, + 42 degree C, and we stopped at another petrol station some 2 hours later. I ran in to get another bottle of Cola and again just grabbed one, paid for it and out to the bikes again. I took a look at the bottle checking what name that was printed on the label…..

I thought that was pretty cute to print on a Cola bottle but did not think much about it and it was actually an hour later when on the bike that I remembered the car ride I and my mom had done 15 years earlier and the “apa”/”Ann-Louise” incident. Didn´t she think that the greeting from my sister was enough? Was this a way for her to say “Hello” by her self? Did she use the HUGE company Coca Cola to say Hi to me while in Romania? I might not have come to think about the apa/Ann-Louise thing if it wasn´t because of my sisters text message. That kind of connected everything. Or was this just one of these coincidences that happens on a daily basis that is noting more than a coincidence? I don´t know. But I first bought a Cola bottle that said “Apa”, then I minutes later got a text message from my sister that said “Mom says Hi” and then I bought a Cola bottle that said “Mama”. And then I remembered the spa/Ann-Louise incident 15 years earlier…… And all of this just within an hour or two. Silly thing but it got me thinking……

I´ve also been thinking about a title for this bike trip that will soon come to an end lately. This are some suggestions that I´ve come up with til now…..

* Around the Black Sea with an open fly….. (the fly on my biker pants broke when we left Sweden so I´ve been riding with my fly open ever since……)

* No petrol around the Black Sea…… (the petrol meter did not work when I picked my bike up after service just before we left so the bike has been telling me that I´m out of petrol for some 8.000 kilometers……

Anyone else that has any title suggestions for the trip? Feel free to contribute….!

Sincerely//Jan and Eva

Motocamp Bulgaria (Idilevo) to Leipzig…..

Oki. Have had lots to do lately and not much time to update the blog. And we have a early morning tomorrow so I must keep this fairly short or at least write quick…. 😀

Left the GREAT Motocamp in Idilevo, Bulgaria, on the 26th of july and went to Targu Jiu in Romania. We had american biker Ebenezer as a great company with us since he was interested in doing Transalpina with us the following day. Good fun that he tagged along.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transalpina_(DN67C)

I drove Transalpina first time about 3 years ago in early october and temp below 0 degree C at that time. Cold as hell. MUCH warmer this time but also lots of traffic since it was during the weekend and in july. The road is pretty much totally renovated now and all of it is now paved except for a couple of 100 meters on the north side when back around sea level again. Eva and I spent the following night in Cebes and Ebenezer continued north for some more hours since he was abit in a hurry. The hotel in Cebes was interesting. Fine hotel but the staff was…..unorganized….. 😀 Frustrating experience but at the same time very funny. Faulty Towers kind of funny….. 😀

Continued east the next day to Timisoara to visit pour friend Adrian. We met Adrian at the Motorcamp in Idilevo 3 years ago and has met him again after that. Last time last year in Ulanbaataar, Mongolia. Had dinner with him and slept at his place. We plan to meet up again next summer in Murmansk….. 😀 GREAT fellow indeed. Very friendly. Left Timisoara on the 29th and headed north west towards Budapest. Had to go by a BMW dealer to check my front wheel up. Nothing wrong with it but we put new tires on in Bulgaria and the front tire is noisy as hell. Never used this specific model before so I did not recognize the very loud sound it creates when going fast. But the dealer kind of looked at the tire and said that this was normal for this specific tire. They checked out the bearing in the front wheel but nothing wrong. My hearing still works it seems. I hear better than most musicians that has been playing for 35 + years….

Left the BMW shop and stayed the night at a trucker motel along the motorway north west of Budapest. We had been riding in 40 + C degrees for a couple of days and no air-condition in the room. It must have been well over 35 degree + in that room during the night. I almost decided to sleep in the shower with the water turned on. Next stay was in Brno, Czech Republic, and the following day we visited the Bone Church in Kutna Hora. Eva will write more about that later but here is a link for those who wants to know more….

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedlec_Ossuary

I´ve been there before but Eva had not. Interesting place and a must to visit if in da hood.

The following day we planned to go to Leipzig, Germany, and that was what we did but we stopped in Dresden first. Eva has been struggling with her motorcycle boots from day one of this trip and she was in pain with blisters and shit. Could not take it any more so we stopped at one of them big bike shop outlets that one can find here in Germany and she got herself some decent boots. Costed half of what they cost back home in Sweden. Good thing. And all of her problems went away immediately. Have not seen a happier biker ever I think. She had me try a pair and I´ve never tried more comfortable bike boots ever in my life. So I bought a pair myself too and shipped my other boots back home. 😀 And then we took off for Leipzig. Had one day off here today and we went to the Leipzig Zoo and saw some giraffes, lions and lots of other cool animals. Impressive zoo actually. Walked around there the whole day. Hot in the sun but it was worth it.

Some pics…..

Motocamp Bulgaria. We got to know some new friends. Ebenezer (USA) that went with us on Transalpina, Alexander Conrad (Germany) and Denis from Scotland. All wonderful people that we hope to meet again. Denis is one of the most funny persons we´ve ever met. And that scottish dialect…… 😀 Helpful and friendly fellow. And then Polly, the Doug and Ivaylo of course. They are doing a fantastic job with the Camp and this is truly our favorite place on the planet!

We opted to take the ferry over the river and get to Romania that way instead of taking the bridge further east. Less riding and I got to be on a “boat” for awhile.

We drove Transalpina the following day and lots had changed since I drove that road first time 3 years ago. LOTS of new houses in the newly developed ski resort on the southern side of the road and lots of people selling food and souvenirs along the road. But a stunning road it is. Some pics….

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And then we got to Adrians place. Great to see him again. And then we went to the Bone Church in Kutna Hora outside Prague but more about that later……

And today we visited the Leipzig Zoo. Impressive place indeed.

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We are slowly getting closer to Sweden. A 500 km ride tomorrow to Kiel and then the ferry from Kiel to Gothemburg, Sweden, on sunday. We´ll be in Gothenburg on monday and then we´ll visit some friends that runs a hostel in a little village called Regna on monday night. We always end our vacations at their place. And then back to Stockholm on tuesday. So this trip is coming to an end soon. Sad thing. It´s been a good trip and we´ve met lots of fantastic people. But more about that later. Bed time now. See you later, alligator!

//Jan