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.

 

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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

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