Hi again. We left Omsk and drove to Tyumen. Long ride but we liked Tyumen. We had lunch at McDonalds and coffee/tea at Café Berlusconi. The café definitely deserves a better name. Nice café. And then we continued to Ekaterinburg via Irbit. Irbit is a very small town were they manufacture the Ural motorcycles. They used to make over 100.000 per year during the good old days but now they build around 5.000. All of them sold to western Europe and USA. Lovely bikes. We visited the Ural museum and it was honestly not much to see. The factory was not possible to visit since it was closed for the day and one also need to contact them before you get there to get a tour of the factory. And we had not done that so we left and drove on to Ekaterinburg. We stayed at a hotel outside the city so we did not see much and left for Perm the next day. Hit and run-stay…… We tried to get into the ice cave outside Kungur but we didm´t find the place first so Eva asked the police for directions and they escorted us to the place! But it had closed for the day when we got there so we left and got straight to Perm instead.
Perm was nice and we had two nights there. Friendly staff at the hotel that helped us get in contact with Thomas from Germany that lives in Perm. He took us to see Perm-36, a Gulag camp that is now a museum. We were told that most if not all Gulag camps got totally destroyed so Perm-36 is unique. It´s the only Gulag camp that is open to the public and they are renovating it and restoring parts of the camp that got destroyed so that future generations will get a chance to see the horrors that happened during those years. If I don´t remember things wrong Perm-36 was in use up til -92 about so it was not that long ago actually that they closed it down. And quite many say that the government still punish people for their opinions like they did back then but they place folks in regular jails now instead of camps as they did back then. Please read more here if you are interested…..:
The restaurant at the hotel in Perm was closed the second night we where there. Another wedding party. Another night with very drunk russians that had too much vodka. All of them was very nice but russians can drink, that is for sure….. 🙂 We also learned that Perm might be the most corrupt city in Russia…… That sucks…..
The ride from Perm to Kazan was…..interesting…… 700 kilometers but we found a road that was 200 kilometers shorter than the main road so we took that road instead. The Garmin GPS also thought that it was a MARVELOUS idea! Great road in general with very little traffic but we kind of found out why not many took that road when we had 250 kilometers to Kazan…… The road transformed from a perfect road to…..shit……gravel…..deep sand……gravel…..shit……..sand and gravel. Felt like we were back in Mongolia again all of a sudden! And then we had to cross the river on a shitty old barge and that itself took two hours. And then some more gravel and sand before the perfect paved road appeared again and we had 100 kilometers left to Kazan. Took forever….. We arrived in Kazan after the sun had set and it was dark. Tired as hell.Slept till 10.30 this morning, had breakfast and visited the Kreml here in Kazan. Kazan is a BEAUTIFUL city! And the Kazan Kreml (Kremlin) is on UNESCO´s world heritage list. For more info about the Kreml, please read here…..:
A good day and also Eva´s birthday! We had a fine dinner here at the hotel and will hit the sack early tonight. Will go for a birthday drink at the terrace on the roof of the hotel later. And prepare for the drive to Nizjnij Novgorod tomorrow. We have booked ourselves and the bikes on the ferry from Tallin on thursday so we only have few days left on this trip. Will feel strange and in some ways sad to be back on swedish soil again on friday. Some pics……:
The roads and the nature doesn´t vary much in this part of Russia. Straight roads, lots of trucks and not much to look at. Trees and shitty villages. I think we´ve seen more trees and shitty deserted villages in Russia than most russians….
Café Berlusconi in Tyumen. Nice café that should find a better name….
Irbit. The home of the Ural sidecar motorcycles!
The Ural museum in Irbit. Not the best museum I´ve been to but still interesting. Have I said that I want a Ural? :o)
Gotta love those sidecar motorcycles….!
We had to stop at this little restaurant next to the road for a late lunch during a heavy rain and a lady that worked at the restaurant took me out behind the restaurant and showed me something I didm´t expect to find. Their neighbor had cages with wild animals that he had captured and the first thing I saw was a bear. There were also three wolfs and a boar. One of the wolfs was just a baby and i got a chance to say Hi and it licked my hand. Very cute indeed but my general opinion is that wild animals should be out in the wild and not in cages behind a restaurant. Now I don´t know the story behind all this since none spoke any english and I don´t speak russian so……
This is the female wolf. Beautiful animal but I felt sorry for them.
The baby wolf was indeed very friendly. Licked my hand and hoped for some candy I guess but I had none.
The russian police escorted us to the Ice Cave outside Kungur since we did not find our way. Friendly indeed and we´ve not been stopped once during this trip. Others haven´t been as lucky we´ve been told. But the russian police have been nothing but kind to us. The cave had closed for the day when we got there tho so we went on to Perm. If you´re in the area and wants to visit the Ice Cave, give me a call! I have the coordinates in my GPS!!
Does it say “Porn” on the McDonalds box…..? “Porn de Chock”?
Perm used to be one of the hidden cities where they built nuclear weapons, rockets and other military things. The russians took the city off the maps in the same way as they did with Sillamäe in Estonia that we visited a couple of years ago. Some weapons are still manufactured in Perm but things have opened up and they don´t hide things any more. They even have a exhibition in the city where one can take a look at some of the weapons that has been built in the city through the years. The “Stalin Organ” among many other things….
-
- p1040075
-
- p1040076
-
- p1040078
-
- p1040079
-
- p1040082
-
- p1040085
This is a later version of the “Stalin Organ”…..
Something less frightening than weapons….. We had ice-cream on the way from Perm to Kazan…..! Russian ice-cream!
This is only funny for the swedish speaking part of the audience…..
The perfectly good asphalt road turned to SHIT all of a sudden on our way from Perm to Kazan! Sand, gravel, more sand and small shitty villages with very bad roads that we had to go through…… And then a river crossing where we had to load the bikes on a shitty barge together with trucks transporting timber to get us across the river and it took just too much time…… HARD work! Sand is NOT my favorite…..
-
- p1040135
-
- p1040146
-
- p1040157
-
- p1040164
-
- p1040171
Always nice to be on a boat but the barge looked like it would sink any moment. Rusty as hell and not really sea worthy I would say. They drive over these rivers on the ice during winter time and they seem to use whatever they can find to get them over in the summer time…..
We made it to Kazan after it got dark. Took it fairly easy since we know that the road condition can change drastically in a second and it´s hard to spot pot holes or other bad things when you can´t see…….
Eva is happy on her birthday today! 🙂
Kazan is a beautiful city! Eva will post some pics from Kazan and Perm-36. Will leave for Nizjnij Novgorod tomorrow. And then Tver and then we´ll try to get to the Estonian border somehow…… Don´t know yet what route to take but we have to be in Tallin on thursday evening when the ferry leaves. Will be on swedish soil again on friday at 10 o´clock if the bikes don´t break down. These next days will mostly be travel days but we´ll try to update again before we´re home. Take care til next time.
Cheers//Jan
Birka Adventure Riders 