Oki…… Tree days on a train through Russia. Interesting experience and not at all as uncomfortable as one could think. Friendly people on the train and we´ve bought food from the old ladies that sold stuff on the stations that the trains stopped at on the way to Irkutsk. There were some Scandinavians on the train. Two girls from Finland and one guy from Gothemburg that now lives in Italy. But other than that not many spoke english. But it works rather fine to communicate anyway. “Sign language”, pointing and trying to say stuff in other language that might have similar words. Some pics from the train……..
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Hard to understand russian in writing but we are slowly learning parts of the cryllian alphabet. Things gets easier if you at least can read some of the street signs. You cold not even guess the name of a city if you see it´s name written with cryllic letters! But we are slowly learning. Good fun but Eva is soo much better than me when it comes to learning new words and things. I have other qualities tho I hope…… 😀
We arrived to Irkutsk early today after three whole days and four nights on the train. I slept only a couple of hours and Eva didn´t sleep at all this last night. Out of worries for our bikes and how to get them off the train I guess. We grabbed our stuff as soon as the train stopped and ran towards the cargo wagon where our bikes were since we only had 25 minutes to clear some paper work and get the bikes off. We hoped that they could arrange some sort of ramp so we could just drive off but that was not an option it seemed. The bikes weigh over 250 kilos when they are stripped so not really light weight. Instead they just grabbed the bikes and carried them off the train via a small trailer/trolly or what the hell you call those things.
Russian style. In Sweden they would say: “No we don´t want to do that and the union won´t let us”…... In Russia they just solve the problem….. So we got the bikes on the platform without a scratch on them and totally intact. The next worry was if we had enough petrol left in the bikes (since we had to empty the tanks before loading the bikes in Moscow before departing) to get us to a petrol station. We packed the bikes and drove off from the train station and made it to a petrol station located a couple of kilometers away without a problem. THAT felt great! Would have hated to run out of gas on the tram tracks or uphill on a bridge. But that didn´t happen and we are happy and safe at the Baikaler hostel downtown Irkutsk where we will stay tonight. Irkutsk is a nice Siberian city located near the Baikal lake. The biggest fresh water lake on the planet. We´ll drive along the shore tomorrow on our way to Ulan-Ude. Here are some pics from Irkutsk:
Eva and some very interested lads at the petrol station. People often seek contact and wants to talk. Even the staff at the petrol station demanded to be in the pic. 🙂
Seems like they buy old and used machinery cheap from other countries and use them until they can´t maintain them anymore. And russians are GREAT at keeping things running!! This thing is from Sweden and I remember seeing these machines on the roads around Sweden during the 80´s. Two brothers had the company that was called “The Brodd Brothers” or something similar. They had a slogan. “Broddway – The Brodd Brothers on the Way”. Or something similar. Long time ago and I don´t remember exactly but it was good fun to see something I remember from when I was a wee boy some 30 + years later in a town in Siberia……. 😀
She didn´t try to shoot me. I´m grateful.
We had lunch today at a Uzbeki restaurant we found. Great food! I drank 1,5 liters of mango juice.
The mandatory Lenin statue. The hostel we stay at is located on Lenin street…..
Downtown Irkutsk near the hostel. One can see a Stalin statue behind the bus.
We´ll leave for Ulan-Ude tomorrow. Hope for good weather and great views over the Lake Baikal. We´ll stay the night in Ulan-Ude and cross the boarder to Mongolia the day after tomorrow. We hope to be in Ulanbataar that same night. More later.
Cheers!//Jan
Birka Adventure Riders 