Maybe we'll survive (day 8 - 14)
Nijny Tagil, 04/08
The morning of our departure, one guy from the
building where we are sleeping texts Kuba on Instagram: seems like we are the
discussion in the group chat of the people living there. When we are leaving
the parking, two nice babushki are discussing about the noise made by
Arkadia when we start her. To be honest, I was never expecting to be the talk
of the week with our car, but last night they transmitted on the National Tv
the interview we recorded in Tomsk, so I shouldn't be surprised.
Heading out of Ekaterinburg, we are expecting to meet the great Ural Mountains,
this magnificent place full of parks and lakes and breath-taking views. We go
up north, 150 km far from the city where we rested for the last couple of days.
The weather is not too hot: in the car we can finally breathe after days of
suffocating. We only have a couple of hours to our next stop, but when we get
there, we are completely disappointed: another industrial city, of course. The
sky is grey and is full of chimneys from factories. It's even super cold. We
stop at a mall to have lunch, but all the restaurants are closed. We give up
and go to KFC, at least is something. The lunch goes quickly: we just want to
leave this place and we are even freezing with our shorts and sandals, but, in
the end, we made a lot of way to come up here, so why not go around the city
with the car? What we see is contradictory, as everything in this country: on
one side there are nice churches and buildings, on the other a giant red
factory is covering the view. We spot a church on the top of a mountain, drive
there to get a couple of cool shoots with the car... and, of course, the gate is
closed. Such a disappointment today. Arkadia stays in front of an old wooden
house and we climb up to see this fucking church: ten minutes are enough, with
the wind blowing us away and Kuba that starts to sneeze. Perfect. Once back at
the car, an old babushka starts to spy on us from the door of her house, when
we turn, we see her calling someone else and a younger lady, probably the daughter,
comes. They are both smiling at us and chatting: there's nothing weird about
it, we look funny and we are getting the attention of everyone in the streets.
At this point is already afternoon and the only thing we can do is head back
again towards Ekaterinburg. We find on our way the border between Asia and
Europe and stop for a while to see the monument and get pictures - Cris even
falls on the ground while trying to sit down. For the night, we camp near a
lake and make a new friend: a little dog from one of the houses nearby, that
tries to get cuddles and food (and she does, obviously). This day was a bit of
a disappointment, but it ended quite well.
Chelyabinsk,
Turgoyak, 05-08/08
How could I even call
yesterday a disappointment? That's because I didn't know what was expecting me
today. Again, the day is ending in the wrong way. Guess where we are? In the
garage of another bloody mechanic, of course. And the day had started so well!
The morning is sunny; the dog is again with us and we pack totally relaxed.
Leaving the village, we take the road to Chelyabinsk and read some curiosity
about the city and the area: not even need to say it, is another industrial
place, one of the biggest of Russia, and nearby there is the most polluted
place on earth, forty-two times more radioactive than Chernobyl. Such a lovely
place. We don't stop there but have lunch in a restaurant in a village where is
supposed to be a very bad copper factory - we are chasing all the horrors of
the country if you didn't realize it yet. We keep driving south, half-destroyed road alternate with perfect smooth highway. And that is when the
brakes start to give some problems. It's afternoon, we are on the dirt road in
the middle of a wasteland: the factory destroyed completely the environment,
the ground is dry, and nothing will ever grow on it again. It's actually
terrifying to see all of this. And our car is having another one of her
moments, again. Kuba keeps driving slowly, until we reach the closest mechanic
at 6 p.m. The guy checks our car and tells us that the brakes are completely
gone and that we don't have oil at all. Wonderful news! To get the new pieces,
we wait for a taxi for about half an hour and then he starts to work on it.
Kuba is feeling sick, pale as a ghost and puking: the overheated car destroyed
him today. Now we are just sitting and waiting. The mechanic finishes to work
around 10:30, while we watch Russian dramatic telenovelas on the tv. Finally
starting again, we go to camping on the Lake Turgoyak, on of the clearest
lakes in Russia, and that's it. We stop there for three nights, enjoying the
hot weather out of the car, swimming and downing bottles of vodka surrounded by
drunk Russian partying until morning. Hangover, hot weather and loud people
together are the worst mix ever, but we manage to drink a couple more beers
during the day. On Saturday afternoon, after Kuba went again to the mechanic to
change the hand-brake and check the oil - Arkadia drink half litre per day at
this point -, we leave the camping. We drive under the rain, feeling super
sleepy and stopping at gas stations for short breaks. We reach Ufa in the
evening, with the idea of visiting the city the next day: the modernity of the
place surprised us a lot. Find parking outside the hostel stresses us out for
some minutes: we seriously reached the highest level of tiredness, after
resting for three days like pigs in the camping. Hopefully, tomorrow will be
better. At this point, we are just trying to enjoy all the ups and downs of our
trip. Otherwise, wouldn't be a real adventure.
Samara, 09-10/08
Today is raining again. It is supposed to be like this
for all the week, but, since we are staying in the car, we are fine with it. We
stop for lunch in a nice restaurant and stay there discussing for hours:
probably one of us will leave sooner than expected, so we have a lot to talk
about. The rest of the afternoon is just highway until we enter in Samara,
another place that is a complete discovery. On the way, we experience again the
peculiarity of Russian traffic: car accidents, shouting people that think
honking is not enough and the amazing line of cars going off the road on the right
to get before to the head of the lane: this is Russia, road is road. We book
the hotel and put the address on Maps: we want to get there as soon as
possible, our driver has a cold since two days and we booked the sauna for the
evening. But, as every time we believe is going to be easy, everything goes in
the opposite direction: the GPS leads us to an inexistent building, and we
start driving all around the city changing addresses three times. We finally
pass next to the hotel, but I am the only one who sees it and Kuba keeps
driving despite I am shouting that we are going the wrong way. He finally turns
the car, but we cannot find the entrance of the hotel. A guy comes to rescue us
and we finally get in. After some moments of rest, we order food and head to
the sauna. It's a nice one and the owner offers us the local beer, Zhigulevskoe
(my life is rotating around the word Zhiguli since one month already, there
should be something wrong) and switches on the tv: Russian live music; just to
annoy the guys, me and Ania sing the songs that we recognise while going in and
out the sauna. A text from the restaurant communicates to me that we will not have
the food and I get pissed, even because there is no internet connection. We go
back to the rooms: Ania and Cris boil some water and have noodles, me and Kuba
are stubborn enough to order burgers from a shady place, despite our eyes are
almost closed. We watch a movie and, after more than one hour, we get our
shitty dinner: I can't even explain the sadness that that food inspired us. Off
to sleep still a bit hungry because we couldn't manage to finish it.
In the morning we go to visit the city: is sunny, and we walk along the shore
of the river Volga. On our way, we meet amazing statues, soviet huge
monuments and the old brewery of Zhigulevskoe. We have a nice time; we are
relaxed and in a nice mood. After the walk, we go for lunch to an Irish pub
called 'The Shamrock' and then drive towards Tolyatti, the reason why we came
south instead of going straight to Kazan: that's the city where they produced
our Lada and there is even a museum about the 50 years of production. We are
taking our old lady to see where she comes from. We get in the apartment that
we booked and have a slow evening doing nothing. Tomorrow we will visit a
museum about war machines, with the biggest submarine in the world, and the
Lada museum. After that, we will finally head to Kazan.
The second week flew away in a very weird way: the hours spent in the car start
to be blurry and the places we crossed seem already like old memories. We are
halfway through our trip, but at the same time, it seems both that we just
started and that we are about to arrive. We will keep going - and buying motor
oil for Arkadia, so maybe she will take us home in the end.
Alessandra De Santis
