Dad: “We have been on the road for 1 million seconds which comes out to about 117 days. Mum and dad have been alive for alot longer than a billion seconds. A billion seconds is 32 years. A trillion seconds is 32,000 years.” (dad found this information in The Almaty Herald published July 22 - 28th).

Before going off to see the sites of Astana (Kazakhstan’s new capital since 1998), our first day was spent doing much needed clothes washing in the hotel bath tub - such style! Then it was out (together with Iain), pounding the streets of the city from early afternoon till late evening. One of our first stops was an English Pub which was an experience of East meets West and then a challenge to actually find the bar once inside - it was a bit of a labyrinth. Finally seated, with an apple juice costing approx £6 per glass, we scarpered before ordering anything.

Astana (meaning ‘capital’ in Kazakhstan) is full of very clever, modern, innovative and shiny new architectural design and engineering feats - we had never seen so many quirky buildings clumped together in one place. London’s gherkin and Paris’ pyramid looked lonely in comparison. Everywhere we had been so far throughout our trip had been oldie worldly and full of history but in Astana, no building looked older than 20 years. It was like taking part in a mirage - especially as we had just driven for hundreds of miles along half sealed, half dirt, track roads of vast emptiness - except for avian wildlife (eagles), 4-legged herds (horses, cows & goats etc.) and never-ending expanses of flat green empty desert-like grasslands. It was also mind-blowing to realise we had hardly made a dent traversing Kazakhstan from the border - we were now just more central of the northern section having driven hundreds of miles from the eastern side of the same area.

We quickly learned there is an old part to Astana where we were based but it still looked relatively modern to us with a mixture of apartment blocks, hotels, cafes and markets. In the new part, the English pub and many restaurants (and westernised prices to match), shopping centres, bridges and monuments. Every building we saw in the new part had a theme of some kind - whether a pyramid shape (Pyramid of Peace) with lifts that went sideways (contains a 1,500 seat opera house among other things), an amazingly true to imaginary life - spaceship - the best we’ve ever seen (housing a zoo or a circus we think) a tilted spinning top/tensile structure (Khan Shatyry Entertainment Centre - aka the world’s largest tent), an orange squeezer-like looking building (shopping centre), a huge towering globe (we learn later it’s a very famous view point of the whole of Astana called Bayterek - you can take a lift to the top of it) a building of Ying & Yang design (we think probably a restaurant) - and we’re sure there were probably countless other structures we didn’t get a chance to see. We didn’t go inside any of the buildings nor did we have any information to hand at the time (we googled later) but it was mind-boggling to try to guess what the function of each structure actually was at the time. We learned later that Lord Norman Foster who built the Millenium bridge has been a major player here (thank you Graham for the info!) - responsible for at least 3 of the structures already mentioned. Overall, definately an oil rich place with plenty of money to spend - yet hard to believe it’s there when you are out, deep in the sticks and wilderness of Kazakhstan!

While out and about in the city - Iain, Jessica and AJ got into trouble with the Police for running up a large steep grass hill instead of using the pathways and steps. They had reached the very top of a high viewing platform they’d managed to climb from the back where a huge big tall flag mast was situated. If you walked using the paths and steps, the viewing platform was actually barred from public access. It was funny watching the Police get them down and also watching them puzzledly trying to work how they’d managed to bypass them and their security cordon without being seen. We blamed Iain of course for leading the children astray!

We walked to get close up views of the buildings we had seen in the car on arrival, hit a supermarket for pizza slices, bananas, beer, juice for lunch on a bench while watching Jessica and AJ play on a bouncy castle play area (both getting too old for such but they didn’t care). The roads were wide, busy and difficult with traffic - otherwise quite peaceful to walk around. We managed to find some relaxing areas around the pedestrianised backstreet zones along the Ishim River and the children found two further play parks to try out along the way. We hit the supermarket again on the way home to save money and had a camp style dinner in the luxury of our hotel room. Lee, Helen and Bev joined us later for drinks, the children jumped all over the beds and another very late night was had by all.

Day two was spent sorting the final bits of our clothes washing and more importantly, locating a welder to repair our damaged roof rack.

Vehicle Issues

Our roof rack as was about to collapse from the rough roads of Kazahkstan - the supports were splintered, bolts were missing, it was creaking and unsafe. Around the back of the garage of the hotel where Iain had stored his bike we mimed requirements to a local who promptly jumped in his car and asked Andrew and Iain to follow him. The welder was located with no issues on the other side of town and on removing the roof rack - two of the support legs immediately dropped off onto the floor. The roof rack was re-welded the same day with plated supports on each corner (took a couple of hours) and cost approx £75 and a couple of beers for the guy who’d provided the original directions. Lee decided it would be a good place to try to see if he could get his collapsing Land Rover plated and welded before moving on. It would be great if he could.

We were missing a hub cover for one rear steel wheel and to prevent any oil spillage or dirt, we followed Lee’s advice to cover it with a small piece of plastic and an elastic band which Iain helped fix on and it worked a treat!

Other Emergency Issues

Haircuts: Andrew and AJ.  Situation: Desparate! Status: Nearly in pigtails!

Route from Astana toward Almaty

The route from Astana to Almaty, our next destination in the far south east took us two days to reach. Roads were no issues to start with - sealed and good but rough for a long stretch about half way out - but still sealed - just a bumpy ride. We were thankful for small mercies but couldn’t help but notice the countless blown out tyres, rubbish and debris everywhere along the sidings. It would take hours for a breakdown rescue service we were sure - if it was needed - and available!? Our route took us along what felt like half way around the circumference of Lake Balkhash (world’s 12th largest continental lake measuring 6,300 square miles - half saline on the eastern part, half fresh water on the west). We passed through the outskirts of Balkhash city - very unpretty and industrialised with mining from what we could see and slept for the night not far away outside. Weather was quite cold. En-route we had a chance to use our winch to help a car transporter operator who was struggling and having difficulty loading a broken down vehicle. Next morning we were able to see the lake but had a feeling we’d passed the best bits of it throughout the night as what we could see in daylight was a huge expanse of water - nothing else - no trees, not a single one, no interesting sites, the place desolate except for water pools and marshland about the place. We were sure we could see a trawler on the lake in the distance but the lake was overall so huge and flat looking, we couldn’t really appreciate it or it’s size…….

Initial conversations had en-route from the Russian border to Kostanai city:

Mum “Love your style Jessica!” (about her now expert way of wee’ing by the roadside unseen)

Jessica “First class and for free……I wonder what God would think about me wee’ing on his garden?”

Mum “I don’t think he’d mind”

Mum “What do you think of Kazakhstan so far?”

Jessica “A bit empty. It’s just fields”

Mum “It’s very clean though”

Dad “That’s because there’s nothing and no-one here”

Mum “The roads are good”

Dad “That’s because no-one drives on them. They were probably built 50 years ago but because they’re empty, they look like new”.

Dad “It’s vey bleak” (repeats about 50 times)

Mum “I never expected the roads to be so good” (we learn later in our trip through Kazakhstan that this isn’t always the case).

Our First Impressions on Entering Kazakhstan

Very flat, very empty - just bleak green fields, telegraph poles and a railway line. Single lane carrigeway, no traffic - a desolate place and very quiet - but it was getting late so we thought maybe this was a contributing factor and we were still near the border. One hour later - still an expanse of nothingness. Excellent road (pretty much only one road that we could see). We were expecting horses somewhere on the horizon - but nothing - not a soul in sight except for an odd car now and again. We passed through a small village which looked drab and uninhabited - like a nuclear blast had hit it and then onto a town, slightly more modern but resembling ghostville. The land was so flat and open, going on for miles and miles, we couldn’t find anywhere to pull in without sticking out like sore thumbs for the night. We drove onto the first major city in our roughly planned direction called Kostanai. Quickly checking it out, we located a cashpoint for some local currency, then pulled away a little outside the city, out of sight behind what looked like a dis-used bus shelter. Making sandwiches from left over provisions in the car and the children long asleep, it was 1am in the morning - the lights went out completely along the motorway - complete darkness. By the time we’d eaten and chatted about our day and our next plans, it was 2am before we slept.

Kostanai and Onward

Next morning, Andrew was up at dawn and chomping at the bit for us to move on. He was keen to drive onto the capital Astana rather than double-back to Kostanai, convinced there was nothing there. Children still asleep with blankets and seatbelts, we pulled off heading for the capital. Along the road so far there had been plenty of petrol stations and we had just under a half tank. It dawned on us after a good while driving, there were no more petrol stations and hitting almost empty, we started to worry. Out of the blue, we bumped into Iain the biker riding up behind us - we’d met back in Russia a couple of days ago. Iain was in the same situation - in the red with his bike almost empty of petrol. Luckily, our chance meeting had occurred just then, right by 3 fuel stations grouped together along the roadside. There was also a cafe. The first station had no fuel except a sub-standard petrol called 80. We bypassed the second which looked closed and had a cow wandering around it but visited the third - we were saved! Diesel cost for 80L approx 18 Euros. We could have filled our tank to 120L but were being careful until we understood the exchange rates and to make sure we had enough money for breakfast (payment is up front for fuel in Kazakhstan).

We hit the cafe called FA CUP and went straight over to a table of locals to look at the food they were eating and to ask them if they could pronounce the names in Kazak for us. We realised there were huge similarities to Russian which is also spoken but Kazak is the main language). We used the nice clean loo’s, chatted with Iain and had a good breakfast. The children had what looked like pasta tortelinni shapes filled with meat - a traditional dumpling dish garnished with chives. AJ said they looked like rabbit poo with grass on top - he didn’t finish his meal and Jessica just managed. The adults had beefsteak (hamburgers) with rice and a fried egg on top. Driving on, the landscape was still bland but suddenly we started to see eagles, beautiful clouds, cranes, cows, sheep, horseback herders, then more animals in herds crossing the road every so often. We had to stop every so often to let them pass. It was a cold morning but getting warmer. Peaceful farming activities in the fields began and the roads still remained unbelievably empty. There was only one long single road leading us through. More eagles with wing spans as wide as the car hovered over us as we drove on, plus other birds of prey we couldn’t identify - amazing! Our journey through Kazakhstan had begun…..

En-route to Astana City

Our route from Kostanai to Astana took us most of the day, driving from early morning till late evening (Kazakhstan is the world’s 9th largest country with huge distances between major cities and only one single road system of single file traffic in each direction to reach each place). It was 6.30pm when Iain arrived to Astana, texting us the details of the hotel he was staying. It was 9.30pm before we arrived, finally checking-in to the same hotel. To get to the hotel, we had help from a nice lady called Saulee who jumped in our car and took us straight to the address and entrance. She asked us to call her to join her for tea while we were staying but unfortunately we didn’t get around to doing this. It was a shame we didn’t get the opportunity.

Long, long, long before arriving to Astana, about 400 - 500km away, the train line we had seen upon entering Kazakhstan was still running alongside us and we saw a solitary light mint green painted wooden train go by. The land all round us was still flat expanses of green but pretty devoid of any life. Still very quiet for the first half our journey, we felt like we were in a spaghetti western with the odd ball of tumbleweed as the only movement we could see flying by.

We stopped at some stage by the road-side during the second half of our trip when a lorry pulled up on the other side. It’s occupants came over selling us a melon out of the back. We bought one and the men on the lorry shared a second with us by the roadside in exchange for a knife to cut it. We saw strange looking cemetries, each grave surrounded by a wall with an iron domed decoration on top and finished by a half moon emblem.

About 200km+ from Astana we stopped in a small town called Astrachan and were directed along it’s high street to a small place called Cafe Alla where we had chicken and the children ended up with meat filled dumplings again - but these were much nicer than before and resembled large pasta filled pork pies. AJ and Jessica were happy, declaring that these were not like the rabbit poo with grass on top from the morning, but delicious. This was good news as these were the only things we could manage to point to on the menu in the hope we would receive something half decent and edible.

Leaving Cafe Alla after a chat with the owners, the road started to get very bad - very bumpy and rough - then disappeared to an unsealed dirt track the rest of the way in.  Then it just got worse and worse and worse. Every now and again we could jump over to a part of the new road being built, only to come off again for long periods. It was just dirt track with incredible dust kicks from the lorries in front us - we had difficulty seeing at times. If parts of the new road were built and accessible, it meant traversing (off-roading) across wide mud ruts centred between the two. Our mascot fell off the front of the car, our roof rack cracked almost to dis-integration, we lost a bolt, a hub cap off one of our steel wheels and nearly damaged the underside of our vehicle in the process. it was that rough. Nearing the end, Andrew refused to turn back and use a make shift slope - instead galloping over impassable terrain everyone else had refused - he just had to do it! Determined to see what the Land Rover was capable of. 

The underside of our vehicle just about survived but the roof rack was about to come off. It wasn’t until we were almost approaching Astana approx 20km away, that the road became good again. We wondered how Iain had fared the journey on his bike and with vision through the dust and lorries. We nicknamed the long stretch of road we had passed the ‘boneshaker’. AJ decided to have a nap and slept through the whole thing while Jessica loved every minute of the drama and rough riding. She thought it was great. Mum was a woose and worried we’d have no vehicle left! Dad was delighted at the opportunity to have a play - his arguement “well if we can’t use it for what it’s intended….etc. etc. etc.”

We arrived to the outskirts of Astana at 8.30pm and were greeted with Police checkpoints (there are many throughout Kazakhstan) but we were not stopped. We got many waves, smiles and honks from other Kazakhstan cars passing by. Approaching the city and it’s views was something we had never seen before - we thought we had arrived to another country - maybe Bahrain? - it was very rich and unique with it’s shiny, pristine and very new-looking modern buildings - all differing in the most unusual styles and shapes. Two which immediately stood out on arrival were - a giant spaceship (housing a zoo) and a giant silver tilted spinning top overlooking the river (housing a shopping centre and a beach). No old buildings or historical interests in sight - almost like a brand new city had been planted, in the middle of nowhere, just in time for our arrival. Borat had got it terribly wrong!

Pulling into the car-park of the hotel, we were amazed to find a black and white zebra Land Rover parked there - belonging to Lee, Helen and Bev. We’d left the UK a day apart at the beginning of April, meeting up in the Netherlands for one night, bumping into each other at a campsite in Bran, Romania and now here in Astana, Kazakhstan - 12,000 miles later, both at the same time, in the same hotel and in the same city. Like us with our caravan, they had left with a fully loaded Sankey trailer. and, like us with our caravan, the trailer was now missing.They had arrived to the hotel only half and hour before us, gone to their room to check-in and returned downstairs again. The faces of all us when we met in reception was a picture. Together with Iain, celebrations ensued in our room and a catch up was had by all eight of us about where we’d all been and what we’d all done until the late hours.

Booking into the hotel was different from anywhere we’d been before. We could book in for either 12 or 24 hour chunks. Checkout would be at the same as we’d arrived if we opted for 24 hours stay - ie. checking out at 9.30pm the next evening. Cost was approx 75 Euros but for this price we got an enormous room with huge double bed, two huge singles, a 3-pce leather suite, TV and bathroom with shower. We were adamant we didn’t want to pay hotel prices anymore but when we saw the room, we thought it was worth every penny. Cost included breakfast and we could wash our clothes in the bathtub (we had two big bags worth and hadn’t washed anything at all since Estonia!). We booked for two and a half nights - effectively 3 nights, leaving at 9.30am on the third day.

Bevhelee and Iain’s Experiences

We learned from Lee, Helen and Bev that they had been in Kazakhstan for about a month and had loved it, visiting many places north, south, east, west and centre of the country. Kazakhstan they said was by far their favourite country and they could easily stay longer. Their stay in Astana at the hotel was now their second visit before heading out for Russia en-route to Mongolia. They told us they hadn’t been keen on Russia at all and didn’t visit St Petersburg or Moscow even though they’d passed through both. They’ve never liked busy cities anyway and found the busy roads and systems in both of the cities difficult. They’d also experienced bad weather while passing through Moscow where trees had blown over. They headed south to Chechyna, wild camping all the way, not realising the sensitivity of the area and were constantly subjected to many police stops and bribes every day - on one occassion having to pay 200 Euros for over-stepping a white line and on another, stopped a total of seven times in a single day. Excepting the Black Sea coastline further south which they thought was beautiful, they didn’t find people friendly or happy and weren’t looking forward to returning again to Baikal as originally planned. They’d also had much trouble at the outset at the Narva border crossing before entering Russia due, to not having any paperwork for their 1968 trailer. They had been made to go through hoops with much detailed paperwork at customs and after being made to wait 7 hours on the Russian side, they were refused entry and turned back. Another contributing factor was that they had a French number plated vehicle, were English and had more than one address.  They gave away their trailer and all it’s contents in Narva before making their second succcessful attempt to cross. They’d put much effort into their trailer - it was a shame. To explain their address, origin and number plate problem, they had to say they had two houses to explain away the issue.

From Iain’s perspective, he had also not been that enamoured with Russia and he didn’t like Ukraine due to the hard work for his bike on the roads - he had found it very tough going. In Ukraine (L’viv) he’d been stopped and caught for money - accussed off a trafffic violation he hadn’t commited. Having crossed to Russia from the Ukraine with Sevarik and Maciej who he’d met there - spending time wild camping in the potato field of a farmers houses and by lakes throughout his visit, he said he’d not really had the opportunity to meet anyone while in Russia except a farmer who reported him and his two friends to the police, suspecting them as immigrants. Iain is a well-travelled backpacker and has visited many places across the world. This was Iain’s first trip using a bike and his view was that he couldn’t get the same sense of a country in the way he could by foot. It just hadn’t been the same for him.

For Lee, Helen and Bev their Land Rover was now a wreck having pummelled it badly on the rough and non-existent tracks of Kazakhstan - they love off-roading and had plenty of opportunties to play - once even driving miles and miles with no tracks at all and just a compass as their navigation aid. Their chassis had now spiit and was being held together by industrial ratchet straps. Their breaking system had also completely worn out and was shot. They needed new tyres as they had run down their exisiting to the bare minimum. They had used one spare tyre they had due to a blow out and had only one good tyre left to use. They weren’t sure if the vehicle could make it further and were seriously considering going to Poland to buy a truck to continue their route onward to Australia. From day one, Lee, Helen and Bev had been travelling using two roof tents but the exterior roll bar was now also causing problems due to the state of the body of the Land Rover generally.

We felt releived not to have been the only one’s suffering trials and tribulations i.e.with our caravan - long since dumped after collapsing from sodden ply wood caused by the rains over a long period - then finished off by the bad roads we’d travelled through some time back. It was interesting to hear everyone’s differing perspectives, experiences and circumstance but more important - everyone of us were safe and well and just about still on the road!

We arrived to Troitsk city (Chelyabinsk Oblast) at about 5pm Russian local time and low on money, we hit the cashpoint before heading to the Russian-Kazakhstan border. Troitsk wasn’t anything to write home about - a large city of the old Russian ilk - more like we had been incorrectly expecting before visiting the country. We looked in the local mini-supermarket to stock up on food but apart from bread, ham and a huge queue, we changed our minds about buying anything and headed straight out again. There are plentiful small magasins (mini supermarkets/shops) throughout Russia but many without than those we have found with, selling fresh fruit and vegetables - else they have been sold out.

We drove down a long road, sign-posted for Kostanai airport. It was a longish road out to the border from the city, about 15 minutes drive and we arrived about 5.30pm. We got our ticket for the queue (small hut, left hand side, just inside the barrier) and it wasn’t long before we were greeted with a “well!, well!, well!” from a very friendly Russian border official who proceeded to help us through the border control process. After a chat about our travels and what we were up to, he told us we were in fact the second English transit of the day (Iain the biker had been the first transit during the morning). We told the guard we’d shared a lake with Iain and the accompanying mosquitos the night before. On this note, he said hello to the children, told us that in Russia there is a saying that ‘children are the flowers of life’, went off and then came back again with a can of mosquito spray as a gift for us. He told us to make sure that we used the spray on our skin, said good-bye and wished us a good journey - he was a nice man.

From the Russian side of the border, we had no issues and just followed the herd through the process. At 6.45pm we reached the Kazakhstan entry point which was just spitting distance away. Again we had to register ourselves and our vehicle in the queue (small hut left hand side right by the inside of the barrier), then obtain car insurance (to the right - inside the toilet block which is outside of the barrier - there is a small office called CARS inside the toilet cubicle on the right). We couldn’t understand a word the insurance lady was saying and had a great game trying to describe our requirements but we got there in the end. Cost: approx 20 Euros for 6 weeks cover. Thankfully, the lady who sold us the insurance was very calm, helpful and patient with us.

We had a bit of wait on the Kazakhstan side before being pushed through, we think they’d gone to lunch as there was no-one to be seen for a while. All was going well until customs, the last stage of the process before getting our queue ticket stamped for exit, when - we suddenly got stung for our first ever bribe. To get our final exit stamp on our queue ticket, we were told we would need to pay what looked like 20 being crossed out and changed to 50 Euros. Realising too late what was happening, we gasped and explained that we didn’t have the money, at the same time realising we shouldn’t be talking money as all other vehicles were just whizzing straight past us - but we’d missed the boat and our escape route - we’d already taken money out in the confusion thinking it was a legitimate cost initially. We managed to get away with paying 500 Russian Rubles (12.50 Euros), waving the note around and saying it was all we had (we wished we’d picked another smaller note in the rush - or even better, nothing at all - else, a fake foreign note would have been nice to give and have got the last laugh). In a bid to salvage ourselves, we asked for a receipt but the officers just sat back and looked at us, slipping the note inbetween the leaves of their book, as if to say - you must be joking! We learned later that Iain hadn’t paid anything but they’d tried to haggle with him - he’d claimed ignorance and got away. We already knew ourselves we shouldn’t have succumbed - we knew it had been our fault completely and been caught out. So far, we’d managed to escape any such payments throughout our trip. We finally entered Kazakhstan around 9pm feeling very disappointed with ourselves.

“I look back at my history and can’t understand how there could have been a wheat shortage - it’s everywhere” (describing landscape from Kazan to Ufa)

Having managed to order tea, fried eggs and 3 slices of bread with ham and cheese for breakfast with success in Russian the day before at the hotel in Kazan -we got it wrong the next and received 4 tiny lemon quarters on a small plate instead of the eggs we wanted. Such was life! We checked out of the hotel at 12 noon - as usual wanting to make use of every penny of our money and every ounce of comfort with showers and a toilet we could grab. We decided as we would be moving deeper into the countryside that we could start looking for places to wild-camp - maybe near a lake or river.

Destination was a bit of a question mark for the first time on our trip - normally we knew where we wanted to go. We had designed an original route that said we should follow a trail north easterly to Perm, Yekateringberg and then possibly catch sight of the trans-siberain railroad. This would take us into the middle Urals with the thinking behind this being - the route would be fairly well-known, safe and traversable. Pondering over the map, we decided to head more south easterly instead - we would get closer to a more unknown area and also hopefully nearer to an accessible Kazakhstan border entry point.

Before leaving Kazan, we got lost, parked up to look ot our maps when a nice man called Ascar who came and asked us (in perfect English) if he could help us (he had studied and lived in Ascot, England from 1993 for four years). Following a chat we were on our way again - this time heading in the right direction (we have GPS and European Sat Nav but throughout our trip, we haven’t attempted to use either - preferring maps instead, the children learn better and we’ve had some of our best times this way).

Heading eastward toward Ufa, it wasn’t long before the scenery gave way to beautiful huge golden snow-like wheat fields and fantastic country-side scenery. The further we got, the more agricultural industry, lakes and huge wide rivers we saw. Picturesque reed filled lake like swamps and well-kept villages with small pretty wooden houses clumped together filled our views. No glamourous architecture here but pure, simple living. This neck of the woods was void of traffic though we still had our fair share of the dreaded rutted roads.

We stopped at a roadside cafe ordering Borsch soup, bread, chicken with rice and lemon tea - successfully! Everywhere we’ve travelled through Russia, whoever serves us in the roadside cafes, has had a good giggle at our efforts in pigeon Russian which usually involves us standing at the counter staring at the menu dumb-founded while looking at our phrasebook with lots of urr’s and um’s. But everyone usually appreciates our situation and is always nice to us. At cafes, petrol stations and shops they show us the price on the calculator to let us know the cost. Since arriving in Russia, wherever we go - we often get thumbs up and hoots from other drivers. People we meet are always friendly, love the vehicle, seem to love us for being English generally, are amazed by our trip and are happy, smiling and very helpful. We hadn’t expected this at all - we love Russia very much for this and it was getting better the further out of the main drag we were going.

The road directly into Ufa itself is superb and the city looked interesting but it was late at night and we needed somewhere to sleep safely. We decided to head out past Ufa and onward toward Chelyabinsk and beyond.

We pulled into a cafe at midnight to grab a coffee and check we were on the right road only to be greeted by the waitress and a group of lorry drivers. On hearing we were English and travelling through Russia, we were promptly seated, plyed with beer, coffee, chocolate and nuts to celebrate the occassion of our meeting (the children were asleep by this stage). We showed them our route and they showed us where they lived in Russia and the next destination they would be travelling themselves - some journeys lasting an incredible 4 days to cross to their next destination. The lorry drivers asked if we had been troubled by the police or pulled in to give money along our travels and were amazed we’d had no issues (touch wood). They explained to us in Russian that it is a way of life for them to have to pay bribes else be taken off the road. The company they work for usually providing the kitty they need to pay the police off. They said the amount of money varied depending on where they were in the country but - no-one escapes (Russian lorry and car drivers alike must always pay something).  Throughout our trip through Russia, we’d been spotted and tailed several times by Police cars, especially along the country routes - but so far - we’d had no problems.

One of the drivers gave us his new up-to-date Russian atlas as a gift - we exchanged a written message in our old one in return. The younger brother of another lorry driver who knew a tiny bit of English from school took Andrew’s Zippo lighter (Andrew loved that lighter) and gave him a disposable one in return (Andrew was a bit gutted but glad of the friendly exchange at the same time). The waitress gave us chocolate bars for the children and another driver shared his beer and nuts with us. We gave kisses and thank you’s in return. After photos and email echanges, we were on our way again - it was now 2am. We headed off down the road and found somewhere to sleep amongst lorries and cars. This time, we searched for someone to pay a fee but with no-one around, we went straight to sleep.

We woke to find 3 cars and 3 tents with Muslim Turkic occupants inside. We said hello, grabbed a coffee from the cafe and set-off on our way. No sooner were we on the road when we bumped into our first English motor-biker called Iain and following not long behind him in a campervan - a Polish father (Sevarik - non-English but Russian speaking) and his son (Maciej aged 13 - English speaking). Both vehicles had been travelling together in convoy since meeting in Ukraine and were about to go their separate ways. A quick chat revealed that Iain and Anne knew the same biker called Jim back home in the UK - a very small world sometimes!

Our new friends told us they had managed to wild camp most of the way through Russia choosing lakeside locations and the back gardens of villagers. Sevarik being a major advantage to the three as he could speak Russian and converse with the locals fluently. We swapped details, checked our maps and agreed to move on from the layby we had parked.  

Before meeting up again, we stopped and ordered a cafe goulash and rice for breakfast - cheap, cheerful and did the job. Toilets resembled Slumdog - still a very hit and miss affair for us - and where was McDonalds when you needed one!? or decent clean-living fuel station!?

As we’ve moved through Russia - first to St Petersburg and then onto Moscow, we’ve seen only a handful of people of posssible Mongolian and Chinese origination, standing out because they are so few.  Moving deeper into Russia, however, large groups of Muslim Turkic and a variety of mixed communities became apparent. We got surrounded by a group of  Turkic Muslim or Seganese boys in the cafe we were eating, trying to sell us mobile phones and asking us if we had some dollars. We declined with Andrew quickly moving us all back to the car to move on.

Not long into our route, we saw pretty wildflowers plus the Ural mountains coming into sight and we began our ascent - very slow going due to smoking snail paced lorries making their way uphill in single file traffic. Now and again, we’d pick up speed to overtake only to fall back again behind another big slow moving beast. That was pretty much the order of play for the rest of our day.

We caught up with Iain, Sevarik and Maciej and agreed to follow them off the beaten track to what was a small poor village nearby a lake. The lake wasn’t good and covered in green slime and moss. The ground around and the tracks pure mud. We left but not before visiting the small village shop which involved walking through someone’s backyard and straight into their small house to a room which was the makeshift store. Everyone had left their shoes outside and although we didn’t remove ours, Iain wondered later if we should have. It was worth the off track visit just to see the shop - we felt too rude to take photos inside and later wished we’d had the guts to ask. Bread, eggs, tomatoes and fruit were all very fresh - no beer - we paid and loaded up with what we needed, heading off to another lake (and to find beer) another 10km away.

No English speaking and in the heart of a small community not very far from Zyavatkul, we were the highlight of the next small village community we reached. To access the next lake, again involved off-roading across the back of the village area, through mud-track fields and then across the lakeside plains. A group of locals and cars greeted our views at the lake on arrival. The lake was clean, the views lovely and excepting the swarming mosquitos and some debris about the place, we decided it would be a fine spot to pitch for the night.  While there, two boys on a bike were hanging around trying to get petrol from us, declaring they had run out and promising water in return. We declined and miraculously the boys started up their engine and started doing handstands around us. What was clear was that the village around us had very little- mainly farming communities -  as per the many small villages we had passed throughout the day.

The children played happily, running around with a football and exploring, the locals eventually dispersing. Nightfall came and we had the huge lake to ourselves. We set-up tents, ate and chatted together until midnight (now 5+ hours GMT and officially in Asia). Maciej who at 13 and very mature for his age acted as translator into English for his father. In the early hours the wind and heavy rains came but next morning we experienced no problems and managed to stay dry. Iain had left early to cross the Kazakhstan border, the sun was nowhere to be seen - still wet, raining and getting cold, for the first time in ages - we changed into warm clothes.

Breakfast and pack-up was followed by Jessica and AJ taking charge of the steering wheel of the car for a few minutes each for a little spin around the plains of the lake - quiet and perfect for a quick supervised drive with mum in the drivers seat with the children taking turns on her lap. Together with Sevarik and Maciej, we drove past Chelyabinsk city to where the road forks - they heading further east toward Omsk along the M5 and us on the E123 - heading south to the border of Kazakhstan.

Just ten minutes into our journey we saw a very bad crash on the roadside - lots of police around, a crumpled car upside down and another with it’s front wheel missing - a total four car pile up altogether. The roadside stall specialities, ever changing through different sections of our trip, were now selling orange juice refreshments along our route. Views we had been loving and enjoying became suddenly unspectacular and we didn’t stop except for a brave toilet break at one of the lesser nice petrol stations available. It took two stops before Jessica finally worked up the courage to go to one of them. She favoured hiding behind the car after that.

(Photos not previously loaded for last 3 posts - have now been updated)

Anne says:

“Alright mush” (the word for husband is pronounced mush - love it!)

AJ says:

“How many more days till my birthday?” (AJ will be 6 years old in a few days time)

Jessica says

“We’ve become experts at wee’ing by the road side”

Nizhny Novgorod to Kazan - Roads

After the hustle and heat of Moscow where tarmac along the bridges had melted and stuck to our shoes as well as the vehicle tyres - we had arrived to the peace and tranquility of Nizhny Novgorod sitting very peacefully on the huge swathes of the Volga River (longest river in Europe). Driving long before, toward the city, we would get strong horrible whiffs and smells of very strong manure every so often. It was the same leaving en-route to Kazan, another 400+km away and roughly the same distance we had just driven.

We had only spent one day from early morning in Nizhny Novgorod where we had a nice relaxing day, catching up with homework, baking in the very hot sun, visiting the oldest Kremlin, playing, watching the world and the boats along the two rivers (Volga and Oka where they join) go by. It was hard work in the heat so there were plenty of breaks in the shade of the cafes for rest and refreshments. We’d slept rough the night before so were taking it very easy before heading off again later that day to sleep rough again en-route to Kazan.

Heading for Kazan along the M7 / E22, much of it single lane either side, the condition of the motorway changed from a mixture of some very good to very bad surfaces - all sealed but an interchange of huge ruts, lumps and bumps over a long distance which then became smooth again - a pattern that continued all the way through. Some of the ruts felt like being in a boat in rough sea as we would get rocked from side to side and thrown about,especially when a windsock was created from a stream of lorries whizzing past the other way - we were glad not to be towing anything behind us any longer. Traffic although calmer and more orderly was still fast moving. It was late in the day/early evening and Jessica became desparate for the loo - she’d had a slight bout of the runs that morning. We needed to eat and stopped at a roadside cafe, successfully ordering drinks, two Borsch soups, half a slice a bread between all of us (mistake on our part - we assumed a basket of bread - not just one single half slice) and two potato and spinach pies topped with cheese. The woman behind the counter had shown us the pies following our bad struggle in Russian to order something reasonable. We ate everything and enjoyed it. The toilets were in such a bad condition though that Jessica wouldn’t use - taking about an hour to work up the courage - pure and essential need eventually forcing her in the end). The loo wouldn’t flush properly, instead the water rising - Jessica could be seen doing a runner from the vicinity back to the safety of our table. She made an oath to herself never to use a roadside cafe loo again.

Driving late into the night, the weather cooled, mosquitos came out to play and we eventually stopped in a motel car park not far outside of Kazan. We had to pay a small fee of 50 rubles (about 1.25 Euros) to be allowed to park and stay - not much - but it was noisy with people milling to and from the motel cafe and the motorway. Although safe enough in the small hours, some people would come over now and again, to have a look at the vehicle and us adults on display trying to sleep in the front seats (we’d covered the children’s windows earlier for privacy and to block the light).

This was the first time we had slept rough with the children for two nights running. We’d spoken with Jessica and AJ a few times before entering Russia to prepare them - about the drive times being much tougher than Europe due to the sheer size of the country, the distance we would have to cover and the differing environments and possibly more limited freedoms to just get out and play. So far, both have coped brilliantly and our concerns had been largely unfounded but the two road stay with all of us in one car was uncomfotable. The children needed somewhere to lie down and sleep properly and all of us were sweaty, sticky and in desparate need of showers.We were starting to look like tramps.

Early next morning, we ordered coffees from the motel cafe where we’d parked for the night (children still sleeping) and were surprised to find it in immaculate condition and that one of the cafe staff - a young Turkish looking lad - could speak English. We grabbed the opportunity to find out how the motel system works i.e. approx 1800 rubles (50 Euros) including shower for all of us for one night, excluding breakfast and checkout time 24-hours following arrival. We would use motels as a marker from now on in the absence of anything else. We also made a note to use the roadside cafes more, especially in the absence of a decent supermarket as always heaps cheaper than the expensive city areas.

When the children woke, we made them Weetabix cereal with long-life milk and sugar from our own supplies - they had been missing since our entry to Russia. Some homework and we washed our bowls and spoons in front of all and sundry in the lorry park. AJ played on the kerb with his little stash of soldiers by the parked lorries to have his much needed ‘toy fix’ and we were off back on the road again.

As oppossed to the huge cuddly toys for sale that we’d been on the sidings (stall holders) between St Petersburg and Moscow road, the route between Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod was instead now filled with saucy towels, inflatable paddling pools, fresh tomatoes, pears and cucumbers. From Nizhny Novgorod to Kazan this changed again - this time to melons, large bags of dried snacks that looked like giant bags of Wotsits and flying kites for sale.

Kazan

Crossing the bridge into Kazan with it’s breath-taking lakes and riverside landscapes, there was a security border with personnel checking each vehicle and the face credibility of every occupant (Kazan is part of it’s own Tartasan muncipality). We arrived to 3 lanes of very calm traffic, excellent roads, plenty of signage and another blisteringly hot (37 degrees) day. We noticed the night-time mists had also disappeared at night.

We thought Nizhny Novgorod would be pretty had to beat in terms of it’s romantic river setting but arriving to Kazan although different, was equally scenic and breath-taking. On arrival, houses similar to Moldova and Ukraine line the roads among a mixture of both old and new blocks of flats. The roads on the way through are lined with tall thin white barked trees which then turn to dark brown trunks - the woodland enveloping the motorway is stunning. The further to the centre we got, we began to see Kazan’s fantastic UNESCO inscribed whitewashed Kremlin walls and it’s contents including it’s enormous blue mosque and light blue onion domed sparkling Orthodox Cathedral - it is like looking at something out of Disneyland - but this was real. Traffic was very orderly and slow compared to what we’d been used to. We had arrived into a fusion of Turkic, Muslim and Orthodox communities and buildings sitting and all living harmoniously, tolerant and relaxed of one another. It was a very nice cultural city to see.

Moving on from the more well-known end of Russia before Kazan, we had wondered what life would be like driving deeper into Russia - the language barrier, what to expect, what would happen - would it be more predictable of the typical Russia we’d grown up thinking it was i.e.authoritarian and stiff. We hadn’t expected our experiences so far and had now arrived to the delights of Kazan’s richness and diversity, it’s culture, good living, beautiful buildings, rivers, fountains and sheer lovliness.

We pre-reseacrhed accommodation before arriving and settled on Hotel Fatima at 60 Euros per night for all of us including breakfast. We decide to stay for two nights. Our Russian still very bad we described our needs from our phrasebbok and habitual stick pencil drawing and mime habit to the Russian receptionist. We could probably have got a cheaper room while there as we noticed shared shower facilites but we happily opted for one with our bathroom included. Rooms were very basic but clean and comfortable and there was safe parking (1.50 Euros per day). The best part for us was that the hotel sat right across the road from the Kremlin (our fourth visit to a Gremlin) - it was a perfect location. We discovered later on during our stay, an English receptionist at the hotel, working part-time.

Booked in and paid, we headed straight out for food - taking much more care with our budget and found an information centre for a map and small guidebook. Looking at the guide book of Kazan’s surrounding area, we realised we had missed the opportunity to visit an interesting island on our route in. Never mind - we couldn’t do everything. We took it easy, did a quick reccy of the main Bauma Street and ate. Showers and rest were then our next priority until evening when we wandered out again to brave the heat for a stroll around the city.

Beginning at the Kazan Kremlin early next morning, our day lasted till late night taking in all the sights we could possibly manage in one day by foot - weather was meltingly hot at 37 degrees. Children squealed with delight playing in a foam fountain they’d found and anything with water they could then find for the remainder of the day.

We visited the Black Lake, had a look at St Peter & Paul’s very beautiful wooden cathedral, shopped for new shoes for AJ in the shopping centre (he’d battered his last pair to death - now on his 4th pair since the start of our trip), found a great, cheap Russian bistro on the backstreets called Amber (we think). We ended late evening crossing the bridge to the large river beach - AJ was desparate for a paddle - but it was full of mosquitos, bottles, cans, broken glass and debris - we didn’t stay long but the views of the Kremlin from here were spectacular as the evening drew in. As dark fell, we stumbled on a Russian Irish Pub where we met a lovely girl called Ksema living in Kazan who could speak English, sitting on the next table to us with her friends. Ksema helped us translate our drinks order for us, made us feel very welcome and brought pens for the children so they could write a message each on the already graffitti’d tables and walls. Ksema wrote us a special note before we left to wish us a great and enjoyable trip which she hoped the children would remember. It was so touching for us that she took the time to do this and Ksema’s note sits with us in a special place. Ksema - if your reading this blog update - thank you for your help and for making us feel so welcome !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sing the Bling

“Sing, sing with the bling
Keep your hair on
Sing the bling
The sun is shining so sing the bling
Now you know that the sun is shining
Sing and sing.”

By Jessica:

One Life, Live It

“The earth goes round the sun
And the moon goes round the earth
Whilst we living things enjoy our lives

So…….get up, get out
Enjoy your life while your still alive

Yes! That’s right!

Get up, get out
While you’ve still got the chance to live
Why not travel the earth you’ve got
One life! Live it!
One life! Live It!

10…….9…….8…….7……6…….5…….4…….3…….2……..1……

D…….E…….A……..D…..!”

Like many of the places we have been through Eastern Europe and then moving onward to Western Russia - the women are stylish, skinny, gorgeous and know how to dress - no jeans and tshirts here but the shortest of shorts and mini-skirts and high heels. We felt severely under-dressed in our travelling clothes alot of the time.

From Moscow, we checked out of our hotel on the dot at noon (squeezing every last ounce of our expensive splurge) and were proud to have navigated ourselves correctly to the vicinty of a major bookstore in town (Globus Biblico - a huge bookshop in Moscow) to buy ourselves a good English-Russian dictionary, to add to our phrase book. We squeezed ourselves into what felt like the only single car space in the whole of the city centre and were soon boxed in by another car who parked sideways in front of us. No worries - we’d made it and Andrew stayed with the car while Anne plodded off with the children by foot.

One dictionary later, plus a map of Kazahkstan and two new pens for the chilldren - we had coffees back at the car and a part-mimed chat to Alexei (the owner of the vehicle trapping us). We finally left at 4pm and then got lost in Moscow (we missed our exit, heading north to St Petersburg instead east toward Nizhny Novgorod). We commiserated at McDonalds (there are many in Moscow and we’ve had our fill of these - not normally our practice - but they are quick and easy, especially for good, clean toilets and a coffee break sometimes while on the road) and then had another go at leaving in the 6 lane traffic. We eventually made it to the outskirts of Moscow at 7pm.

Driving onto Nizhny Movgorod was no issue - roads were good and lorries still ruled - just the distance between the two places. We had planned to stop off in between at Vladimir and had also been eyeing Suzdal but, on approach we changed our minds as we needed to make up miles and lost time. Not wanting to pay another penny for expensive accommodation, we parked up eventually in a siding with some lorries.

Nizhny Novgorod

Arriving early, we were able to pull up first in the city centre for coffees and breakfast and then park a little way off, right next to Russia’s oldest Kremlin. Maxim Gorky was also born here and there is another Gorky Park (nothing spectacular though like Moscow’s) based here. The Kremlin here is perched very high up facing the Volga River and split by the Oka River which joins it. Here, we learned just how big, wide and long the Volga actually is (longest in Europe). The views from the Kremlin and most of anywhere we looked along the river were very romantic, relaxing and quite special. We were not expecting it to be a beautiful place but it was - very cosmopolitan and trendy to boot. We had a very nice day wandering around while the children played and climbed all over the several tanks, vehicles, artillery guns and spitfire on display at the Kremlin here from the Second World War. Our visit was free and much more fun and accessible for the children than Moscow’s huge tourist mecca. It has huge grounds (we forgot we were inside it at times) and Jessica and AJ busied themselves for most of the day in freedom and role play. We researched a cheap place to stay this time before arriving and had been made aware of a dual pricing warning (one price for locals, another for tourists). On enquiring about a room which we knew should cost us 750 rubles, we were told 7,500 rubles and quickly deciided we were not about to be victims (the cost quoted even more expensive than Moscow).  We abandoned the idea of staying in Nizhny Novgorod but not before lunch, or discovering the beach along the riverbanks - accidently finding a long unsealed off-road track that took us to secret areas where we could have camped and bathed among the inlets and pools we reckoned. But, we were already on our way, heading out toward the motorway so didn’t stop but Nizhny Novgorod was a very pleasant place, especially after the hustle and bustle of Moscow.

We are currently in Kazan (where East meets West) and nothing prepared us for this fusion of culture and beauty - the weather even hotter here. Due to connectivity issues and needing to write up our notes - update to follow.  We’ve been here for two nights, are about to move on and our Russian phrasebook is becoming more and more like a second skin. In Kazan there is English spoken but not as widespread as we have been able to enjoy so far. We are having to focus much more on using the lingo which is better for us in the long run.

Education

Spellings, Map Reading & Compass Navigaton on foot and in car. Making up and writing poems. Russian Cyrillic language learning, Using Russian currency. Logging expenditure (next willl be to manage the budget for the day). Revising capital cities of countries visited so far. Learning about Communism and Marxism including Lenin and Stalin. Learning about the functions of a kremlin and seeing different ones to make comparisons. Journal writing, maths (reasoning) and reading.

Vehicle Issues

Front side light bulb blown - fixed from spares - no issues. Noticed fuel leak in Nizhy Novgorod but we were parked downward on a steep slope. Parked upward in Kazan to test - no further issues.

Mileage/Kilometres

Location: Kazan - 10,461 Miles / 17,315 Km

Accommodaton by Type (and Number of Nights) - Total 107 (including Kazan)

Camping (42), Helpx (23), Hotels (19), Travelling/Rough Stays (18), Homestays (3), Ferries (2)

Countries Travelled (and Number of Nights) - Total 107

Netherlands (4), Belgium (0), Germany (9), Austria (5), Hungary (2), Romania (5), Moldova (3), Bulgaria (32), Turkey (11), Ukraine (9), Poland (6), Lithuania (5), Latvia (3), Estonia (2), Russia (10 so far)

On the Road Expenses

Too scared to look right now!

Bye for now!

A, A, J and AJ

XXXX

“We’re in Moscow, we’re in a hotel and we’re watching the World Cup!”

AJ says:

“We went to Gorky Park and mum and dad bought me a dog”. (The dog is big helium balloon in the shape of a huge Dalmation - but AJ finally got his wish to have a 4-legged friend!)

Dad says:

This trip is terrible - what day is it?” (Andrew is on the mend!)

En-route to Moscow

From St Petersburg and Novgorod, we drove late into the night toward Moscow, in no rush and stopping off now again for a break. Lorries rule the motorway especially at night and every now again we would see clumps of stalls grouped together selling wares such as huge cuddly toys and small rugs. Another time we saw row after row of tiny huts with smoke steaming big hot silver urns of we don’t know what - possibly tea or some other liquid concoction. These strange sights come to life at night - like fairground attractions with their bright coloured,flashing, fairy lights. These stalls lure truckers in for a break or to buy that last minute gift for their children or wives (or ‘my vooman!’ (my woman!) as they say in Russia!) before reaching home from their long distance trawl.

The roads were generally good - nothing of concern - but there was a huge amount of fast moving traffic and many cars have no number plates - we assume from the amount of bashes from the rear, causing the plate to fall off - or possibly other reasons - but if there was a registration number it was usually moved and stuck up inside the rear window. Despite the heat of the day - unbelievable and searingly hot - not something we ever expected of Russia even though summer - but it was very misty at night on the way through.

Driving during the daytime, we stopped at a rather dodgy looking truckers lorry park selling fuel out of a sea container only to find a nice little cafe selling drinks and food alongside. But the toilets though were another matter and we decided these were definately not to be trifled with - a square hole cut out of the wooden floor - you could see the gap and the earth underneath if you dared look long enough! (…….the opening scenes of the film ‘Slum Dog Millionaire’ came to mind). Not all roadside cafes are like this though - many are immaculately clean - we were just unlucky in finding the initial one to stop at.

We saw a couple of campsite signs en-route to discover these were places for lorry drivers to park safely, pay a small fee and sleep at night. Boy George, Freddy Mercury, The Eagles (Hotel Calafornia) and Dido featured on the radio. Driving at night, we passed a fair few dodgy cash only petrol stations with plenty of working girls alive and kicking. We kept moving till we found somewhere decent about 100km outside of Moscow to rest.

Early next day, before hitting the main outer ring road of Moscow, we found McDonalds where we managed to order everything wrong and ended up spending a small fortune - 3 orders and 3 burgers later that we didn’t want - we couldn’t work out how we managed to get it so wrong - there are pictures to point at and a Big Mac and a Happy Meal are universal. Next door was a decent sized petrol station where we bought a small detailed atlas of Moscow all in Cyrillic and returned to the car find our vehicle being photographed by a journalist (Alexei) and a photographer (Andrei) - both keen 4×4 off-roaders based in Moscow who have travelled and tested cars extensively. After a good chat and exchanging details (www.all-road.ru) in our very bad Russian but ever-improving mime routines, we set off on our way.

Andrenalin Andy Rules the Roads!

Well maybe this title is not quite true but we were brave enough to attempt the famous Moscow traffic - much, much worse than St Petersburg. Moscow is massive with a huge 6 lane ring road in either direction on it’s outerskirts and then two equally big inner ring roads to compete with before you get any where near the centre. Drivers are crazy, it is incredibly busy and we saw the aftermath of several cars accidents -some very bad. Vigilance is essential and we had what felt like several near misses. There are in fact 5 lanes but the hard shoulder is used as the unofficial 6th lane by the many cars undertaking, for lorries and emergency services parking and for hauling crashed wreckages off. Much of the traffic weaves through all of the lanes to try to get a few feet further - it is very fast moving with plenty of one way only systems and cars/lorries pulling onto the main drags with no warning - there is absolutely is no mercy! Andrew became a bit of a junkie shouting ‘YES!’ and raising his fist like he’d just scored a goal when successfully sweeping across several lanes to get us to where we needed to be. And then ‘NO!’ when we’d stalled the car somewhere at a traffic light, holding up a queue and getting honked to death.

Heading into the city centre took a while due to the volume of traffic (it was Saturday). The cyrillics were baffling though there are English translations on many of the main roads - great if you happen to have a dual Russian-English map. We had to stop and get away from the main streams of traffic a couple of times to check our route - but even stopping was a challenge to find somewhere. Somehow, we didn’t go too far wrong and were heading on the right track - straight in the direction of the Kremlin as planned.

Before we knew it the Kremlin walls and towers along with St Basil’’s Cathedral quickly came into sight - we were excited as it was only feet from us and we had a full sized view - really amazing. We tried to stop to get a better view but were quickly moved on by the Police who are really on the ball and take no nonsense. Driving away, we saw a stream of limousines and hummers (or nemo’s as the children call them), all containing diffferent groups of newly married bridal parties waiting for their pre-organised photo opportunties (the Kremlin (Gremlin) contains the heart of the Orthodox Church of Russia).

Straight over the bridge in front of us took us in the general direction of the hotel we were seeking. We got a bit lost (derigeur), found our bearings and after a while drove on again and to find some parking. We were tired, it was searing hot and it took us about half a day to find the hotel on foot as it was so tucked out of the way. We daren’t move the car from where it was parked for fear of getting lost on the busy road systems and finding a parking space was very difficult to almost impossible in Moscow.

With the help of Ali, a road sweeper from Kurdistan who could speak English, we eventually located the hotel, checked in and then moved the car. We stayed for 3 nights (approx 150 Euros per night for all of us including buffet breakfast at Hotel Warsaw - aaaaaargh!!!!!!!!!!! but not bad for the four of us by Moscow’s standards). We should have taken time to sort a hostel - if only, if only, if only - but we were here now, didn’t fancy the mammoth task of driving across town again and the location of the hotel was perfect for us. We were in easy walking distance of the Kremlin from across the Moscow River and a stone’s throw (next door almost) to the fun and thrills of Gorky Park. We could fall out of bed into the underground Metro and the bucket loads of cafes, shops, stalls and restaurants around us. Andrew was still in recovery mode from his ear (had been affecting his eating and sleep etc. - he was still catching up), we wanted comfort and too see as much of Moscow as easily as possible. Despite all this, the hotel cost was a worringly massive lump from our budget.

Following a relaxing first nights stay and a late 11am breakfast - it was Sunday - the streets were busy but the traffic much more relaxed. It was hot,we were still tired and wilting from the heat but also the driving. We did absolutely nothing for a few hours except chill in our hotel room. Late afternoon/early evening, we headed a 2 minute walk away, next door to Gorky Park.

Gorky Park

Gorky Park (named after a famous writer Maxim Gorky considered to be the founder of Socialist Realism literature and art) takes in a 3km stretch by the river near Krymsky Bridge with ornamental park area, fountains and a permanent funfair with water log, tea cups, bumper cars, ferris wheel and a very fast and scary looking Euro Star rollercoaster ride to name but a few. The park is open till midnight and with cafes and restaurants everywhere inside the grounds and was a great move for us. Real reindeeer, camels, horses and pony rides featured and there were plenty of photo opportunties. Candy floss and helium filled balloons were aplenty and it was here we bought the dog for AJ and a ‘Patrick’ from Sponge Bob Square Pants for Jessica. The famous ‘Buran’ Soviet space shuttle that never took anyone to space is also based here to climb up and view and there is also an ice rink. The views of the river were our favourite - nice and peaceful — plenty of large boats drifting by and pretty nice scenery. After a wander around, a go on a couple of the rides, some drinks and two balloons later - we headed back to the hotel to make some much needed phone calls, watched the World Cup in Russian and then slept.

The Kremlin

We spent the following day visiting the Kremlin and it felt like a real milestone for us standing in Red Square, being able to see the Unknown Soldiers burial place, the eternal light, the goose-stepping changing guards, Lenin’s masouleum, St Basil’s Cathedral, the ages old fortified walls, the towers, the Senate and all it’s surrounds. Anne’s favourite was St Basil’s, Andrew’s was Red Square while the children loved the goose-stepping march - they were mesmerised (AJ thought they were very good at their job especially as it was so hot). They also loved the life sized Spiderman and Bart Simpson characters dressed up for photo opportunities afterwards, not far away outside the fortified walls. Jessica and AJ goose-stepped all the way back to the hotel, buying special soldiers hats covered in medals along the way to complete the look.

On the day we visited the Kremlin, we left the hotel early and decided to take a walking tour along the way - taking in the rivers, monuments, bridges, lovers padlock trees, the famous Children are the Victims of Vice sculpture, a stroll and a play in the park, a birdseye view of the Kremlin and a general tour of the surrounding area.

Jessica and AJ were our navigators for the day and they brought a compass and maps to help us route find. Before leaving Red Square itself we sat down in one of only two very expensive cafes that face directly onto it, celebrating our visit with two drinks each - a big mistake as it cost us nearly another night’s hotel stay - if only, if only, if only! But we loved every minute of the experience.

While at the Kremlin, we bought ourselves a little guide book from the tourist bookshop so we could learn more about what we were looking at and to relate what we were seeing to the children better - about Lenin and Stalin in particular. We finished the day with a meal in a reasonably priced Italian restuarant and headed back to our hotel, taking in the Metro, the underground subways complete with some fantastic classical buskers playing, a visit through the back streets and a peek inside a couple of the smaller Orthodox churches dotted along the way.

We loved Moscow - we think it rocks and would have liked to have stayed longer - overall a very cosmopolitan, happening and sharp place. There are plenty of sushi bars, night clubs and gorgeous people all over the place putting us to shame in our travelling garb. Expensive cars, restaurants and shops are plentiful but there are budget places like any major city if you take the time to look.

Hints and Tips we’ve learned along the way

Moscow - Arrive and park late evening or early morning - more spaces available. Don’t drive on a Saturday (especially northbound - traffic was at a standstill as we were coming in). Don’t drive on a weekday or during morning or evening rush hour. Best time to drive - try Sunday, much more relaxed.

St Petersburg - similar considerations though not quite as mad and crazy like Moscow

Always make sure you carry a reasonable amount of hard cash (rubles only are fine) as many petrol stations and cafes along the motorway won’t accept cards.

Payment up front for fuel is always required.

Both cities are very expensive - bring lots of money!

We found blue and white Gas sign stations and the red and white emblem Lukoil stations the best.

There are plentiful petrol stations and cafes along the motorways between Ivangorod, St Petersburg and Moscow

Vehicle insurance - it covers any driver as long as the owner has cover (no named second driver required)

Apple juice is freshly squeezed - tastes very refreshing and tangy but too strong for the children it’s that pure (and frothy!).

Toilets often communal in places and one restaurant there were two loos in one cubicle. Beware of some of the motorway cafe toilets. Petrol station ones we mentioned tend to be much cleaner and better for facilities.

Russians love their Sushi bars. 

“Who is Lenin anyway?”

Mum says:

“He was a very important and clever man who played an important part in Russian history”.

AJ says:

“What? Is he famous like Jackie Chan?”

(……….The mind boggles!!!!………………………)

If we had our time again we would have crossed the sea from Estonia to Finland and then entered Russia from there to visit the famous Gulag Archipelago on the remote Solovetsky Islands. We could have then worked our way down to Kizhi to see the multidomed Transfiguration Church before hitting St Petersburg and Moscow. That had been our original plan sometime way back in our trip. Instead, it could now only be a dream as, worrying about time and expense and largely governed by our visa dates, we decided that any part of Scandinavia and the Solovetsy Islands would have to wait for another lifetime - we’d done well so far.

En-route to St Petersburg

Having driven about 80km toward St Petersburg, we were waved down by the Police for a cursory check and advised that we should have stopped by the road works sign. Making sure we were on track and still getting used to the Russian highway, we had missed this. The policeman was nice and seeing all our paperwork was in order, wished us good luck and we were on our way. The motorway wasn’t too bad - pretty good sealed conditions and although there were road signs in cyrillics everywhere - St Petersburg was translated to English - it would be hard to miss the direction we were heading. On the odd occassion, the roads were rough in places but generally good and they are excellent approaching St Petersburg. Unkempt wooden houses everywhere litter the countryside between major towns with some unsightly industrial buildings. What grabbed us most were the huge white road side flowers which are common in the UK (we can’t remember their name) growing everywhere in huge big clumps all along the motorway. We have seen any amount of onion shaped cathedrals/churches of every shape, size and colour - they are everywhere.

We made our way to the south of St Petersburg through very wide long, busy through roads, bought a map of the city from a petrol station then suddenly changed our minds against visiting Solovetsky - it would be our last chance - and began an attempt to head north to the Gulag. But we took the wrong motorway and ended up driving some way further south of the city instead eastwards (we realised our compass was broken about the same time) - our cyrillic reading was bad and we were heading for Moscow. Late at night, tired, in the dark and with huge swathes of mist begining to blanket the motorway, we tried heading around our error for a little while but eventually abandoned the idea as madness. We pacified ourselves with the knowledge that to visit the islands would take several days out of our journey coupled with 2-day full-time drives each way. The full scale of Russia was beginning to dawn on us. Then, there would be a ferry and accommodation to organise once there and we’d want to see Kizhi and the lake on our way back plus a couple of other spots we had our eye on. We knew there would be a couple of reasonable locations part-way en-route we could base ourselves, but we surrended to the night and the conditions and headed back in the general direction of St Petersburg. We put our heads down with the lorries on the outskirts of the city somewhere with the children long asleep.

In St Petersburg

Next morning we woke to blazing daylight and sunshine - it was 34 degrees when we finally reached upper central St Petersburg (we heard the UK had reached similar temperatures). We were tired, melting and Andrew was still in recovery mode from his ear infection - he had done most of the driving from the previous night. We’d already had a reccy of southern St Petersburg the day before but driving through again and then onto the central part of the city is not for the faint-hearted. St Petersburg is huge, the drivers are mad, the roads are wide with traffic, there are lots of accidents, the cyrillics completely alien and you have to have your wits about you due to the sheer volume and craziness of it all - and we had rumour that Moscow would be even worse.

After driving for a couple of hours getting lost, getting to grips finally with our map and the cyrillics a bit better and then enjoying the street lined plentitudes of huge, grand, awe-inspiring buildings, monuments and churches - not to mention the rivers, bridges, one way streets and then the islands we passed over, we finally stopped somewhere on the Vyborg side to get our bearings and to try our luck with accommodation. No joy, we headed off again. This time we succesfully navigated ourselves to nearby Vasilevsky Island.

We couldn’t park on the road we wanted to find cheap hostel accommodation so found another. Here we found Hotel Prima, enquired about the prices using pictionary style language (drawing a stick man, woman and two children with their ages to explain our requirements), died of shock at the prices, scouted around more, decided we were too tired, hot and hungry to try to find something cheaper, let alone move to find a rare parking space - it would take a huge effort. Back to Hotel Prima, we booked ourselves in and went off for a quick walk to find the nearest bar restaurant for a much needed late breakfast and some rest.

We hit on a sushi bar (we had never tried before) realising at the same time that we weren’t far off hitting our 100th day on the road - what better way to celebrate than with chopsticks! The meal was fantastic though we cheated a little with mainly cooked dishes - we thought the children might not eat raw sushi and we didn’t want to risk wasting more money.

St Petersburg was very expensive for our budget. The hotel cost us 125 euros and the meal we had, a whopping 70 euros including two rounds of celebratory drinks for all of us. The White Nights continued to allow us to have effectively a double day in one so after our late breakfast come lunch, we returned to the hotel around 1pm and slept on and off till 5pm. Between times, the children had stripped off their clothes and jumped, together with entourage of toys, into the huge swimming pool that was our bath complete with whirlpool jets - all the comforts they could imagine (none of us had seen a bath since Austria and before this, at home in the UK). We had a bed each (four beds) with incredibly high ceilings - no hard earth ground to have to sleep on with tiny tents, no car to have to be bent double - we could stretch our legs and have soft matresses - heaven!!!!!!!!!

The evening saw us walking the streets of the historical centre of St Petersburg - to see the WInter Palace with it’s 1,056 rooms and 117 staircases - it is absolutely gigantic - no photos of ours could do it justice. Andrew worked out that if the children were to sleep in just one room per night, it would take them nearly 3 years to sleep in each of them. We focused on the historic side - visiting Peter and Paul Fortress - the oldest building in the city, walking across bridges, through a small park where still life painters were at work, looking at Nevsky Prospeckt (St Petersburg’s most famous street), the Monument to the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad, Alexander Colomn and the Admiralty, the Artillery Museum and so much more. In the back streets are smaller rivers and cafes - much what we’d imagine Venice to look like. There are huge ornately decorated buildings everywhere - no window or doorway has escaped - every window is decorated with a central motif, every entrance door pillar a set of two statues holding up their concrete shelters. Even the backs and the sides of the buildings are heavily decorated, many with several statues of somethng or other lining the roof tops - the banks of the main River Neva are completely covered everywhere with such. The main shopping streets or Prospekts as they are more commonly known are similarly attired. Then there are the huge monuments and churches which stand out in their own right and when you get bored of these, there are the plentiful beautiful parks and museums.

Thunder and lightning struck in the evening while we were out and it rained heavily but it took the blistering heat out of the evening and gave us the burst of energy we were looking for. We got quite wet as did most of St Petersburg out roaming in tshirts and shorts but none of us minded - it made a welcome change. At 10.30pm on our way back to the hotel, a large firework display on the River Neva completed our evening. We eventually made it back to the hotel at around 11pm only to be greeted and invited for vodka and to share food by a family of Ukrainians visiting and staying at the hotel for 5 days. We showed them and the hotel staff our map and when they realised we had visited the Ukraine also and that we had driven all the way from the UK - that was it - the vehicle was thoroughly inspected and the chatter and vodka ensued until the early hours. We were invited for breakfast at 10am (we woke about one minute to ten! - Andrew was pushed out of the hotel room door with the kids while Anne quickly showered - we’d just made it!), photos were taken, details of our website provided and we were given best wishes for a safe journey and a great send off. Despite language differences - the power of communication is an amazing thing.

Novgorod

En-route to Moscow - on the right motorway this time, we did a small detour to Novgorod as it wasn’t too much off our route. Novgorod grew to become one of the most important political and cultural centres in the Northwest and is home to one of Russia’s oldest Kremlin’s, first built in the 9th century. It has the very pretty Volkhov river running through it . Novgorod was very tranquil, pretty and easy to navigate - a relief after the madness of St Petersburg. We had lunch in a nice cafe-restaurant which was reasonably priced and had a walk around, deliberating whether to stay the night or not. We discussed with the children about what a kremlin traditionally was and it’s original purpose in Russia. After looking around for a while, while we liked the location, we decided not to stay. We needed to rough it if we were to be able to try to afford the famously expensive Moscow city which was next on our list.

Limos are Nemos, Kremlins are Gremlins and Lenins are McCartneys

We played a game with Jessica and AJ on the streets of St Petersburg and Novgorod - ie the first one to see s particular thing had to shout out the name. We saw so many expensive cars in St Petersburg - limousines, hummers and huge range rovers - that they’re nicknames became “Nemo”. In Novgorod we saw our first Kremlin and decided to rename it a “Gremlin” (though AJ preferred to call it a “criminal” - don’t ask us why - we think he’d mis-heard us!). We’ve seen bucket loads of Lenin statues throughout our travels in Eastern Europe as well as Russia - so these are now “McCartneys”…………… Who needs T.V.?……………

Andrew Unwell

We made good time to the Narva border, our final stop in Estonia. The border between Estonia and Russia is essentially a small river division between the two countries separated by a bridge you could walk across in just 5 minutes and where very old, huge fortified castles sit astride proudly on either side - incredibly close together, you feel you can almost touch both with outstretched hands. The river itself leads south into Lake Peipsi and north to the Gulf of Finland. On the Estonian side there is lots of history including an old town, plus a small sand beach area and a lovely park on the river banks vwhere we arrived to find many people (we presumed a mixture of locals and Ivangorodians alike) enjoying themselves in the hot sunny weather.

Andrew’s ear has been troubling him greatly (he has been suffering deafness in both ears for a few days - one of his ears also began to weep and he had been in pain on and off with the other). The problem began as far back as L’viv, Ukraine where we bought painkillers and ear drops and when this didn’t subside, we tried to get him help at a Poland hospital (close by the Lithunian border) only to be turned away. From here things started to get better but problems kicked in again while travelling through Estonia. Rather than book into a campsite outside of Narva, we headed straight into town and booked into a hotel - the view being to get Andrew some rest and to see a doctor before continuing our journey further.

We stayed at the Hotel Narva and paid 70 Euros for one night for all of us which included internet, English TV and buffet breakfast.  It was also located right by the border.

Visit to Hospital

With the help of Elena at the hotel who could speak very good English, she arranged for Andrew to go to hospital the next day and also accompanied him as his narrator. Elena was brilliant - thank you Elena!

We had to pay for the hospital visit itself but it wasn’t expensive and worth every penny as Andrew finally got seen, The hospital and staff were excellent and very efficient - Andrew was diagnosed and prescribed ear drops and anti-biotics without problem for an imflammed ear infection which had somehow been triggered by his nose. A common problem apparently but he should have more detailed checks at some stage. Andrew is much better now though still recovering - a relief all round for all of us..

Narva Border Controls

Narva border is very busy with cars crossing - it can sometimes take anything from 24-hours to approx 2-3 days - mainly with Estonians taking advantage of the cheaper fuel prices on the other side. It didn’t look busy when we arrived but at around midnight, we suddenly thought given the delays that if we wanted to cross the border the following day, we’d better get our queue tickets to be able to book in properly from the Service LN station located on the other side of town without delay.

At the Service LN we could see a huge queue of lorry drivers lined up waiting to cross so no problem identifying where to find the ticket area. We discovered, since the middle of this year that a fee has been introduced - we paid approx 20 Euros for our ticket. Only 6 cars per hour can cross at a time and this may account for the lesser queue we had seen (we also read via the internet that Estonians can now check their queue time electronically via the internet if they want to avoid paying the fee - we think - not absolutely clear on this) or maybe it was just the time of night or time of year because, as soon as be bought our ticket - we were surprised to be told to ‘go now’ to the border queue i.e. midnight. After a bit of a panic and a discussion between ourselves - we even went to the border queue to hand in our ticket and prepare to cross - but then screwed our heads on and decided that it would be madness - we had booked and paid for the hotel, the children were tired (AJ had already fallen asleep in the car) and Andrew needed the doctor the next morning.  We approached the offical at the border queue and asked if we could cancel and go the following day instead.  We were cancelled off the queuing system without problem but were advised we would need to return to the Service LN station back on the other side of town also to inform them. At the Service LN we had no issues and the man in the booth made the arrangements for us for the following day, keeping our ticket valid for us without having to repay - we were cancelled off the ‘go now’ queue - phew! All we would need to do was to visit the Service LN station again the folllowing day after hospital to re-collect ticket and be booked back on again. On this note, we went to bed.

Once in the queue, the border crossing process at Narva is a slow process - anything from 2-4 hours and with Andrew the way he was and until he had been to the hospital, we decided not to rush ourselves. Andrew went to hospital around 11am and we checked out of the hotel following breakfast at the same time. We got Andrew his prescription, relaxed, ate lunch and made some car insurance enquiries on the Narva side (no luck though we later suspected a company we saw called ERGO in big bright red letters could possibly have helped us if we asked). After allowing plenty of time for Andrew’s anti-biotics and ear drops to kick-in, at 3pm we visited the Service LN station and were in the queue by 3.15pm.

Following checks on the Estonian side we were then pushed through a very robust and organised process on the Russian side. We were issued and required to fill in migration paperwork and a vehicle owner’s customs declaration form in duplicate. The Russian officials were very thorough and helpful and we didn’t have any issues. The children busied themselves chatting and having fun practising their Russian phrases on the nearest Estonian-Russian travellers they could find, even trying their luck on the officials which raised some smiles.  On crossing, we obtained car insurance from Ergo immediately on the Russian side - a small hut just to left as you pass the final customs barrier (blink and you’ll miss it - you have to look out for it as soon as you cross the barrier). By 7pm we were in Russia proper with a “woohooooo!” from all of us which quickly changed to a “no way!” as the boiling hot sunshine and clear blue skies suddenly changed to black clouds and pouring rain.

In Ivangorod, we were greeted by huge big Communist blocks of flats and a big industrial plant. We had a quick recce of our route deciding whether to head straight for historic St Petersburg or further  northward to the Solovetsky Islands (aka Solovki) near Finland for a few days to see the famous remote Gulag Archipelago - now a flourishing monastery but once one of the USSR’s cruellest and most remotest prison camps created by Stalin. Prisoners at this famous and eerie Gulag were kept in intolerable conditions and tortured or kiilled at will. Decisions, decisions but as it was getting late and pouring with rain, we headed in the general direction of St Petersburg, opting to make our minds up later……………..