Omsk'ed 08/23/2009
Author's Note:
We recently did a talk at an American Corner to a group of english speaking Russians, and although on the whole it did go well, many people felt that it came off anti-Russia, or at least didn't make Russia sound to appealing. This is in no way my objective or at all how I feel about Russia and it scares me to think that this might be how people are interpreting my blogs. I will continue to write about the silly incidents and absurd aspects of travelling through Russia as I would travelling through the US that is just my way of writing, but hopefully you will understand that these are isolated incidents and that we overall have had an amazing time here and the Russian people have been more generous and welcoming and the landscape has been more beautiful and interesting than we possible could have imagined while we poured over maps 8 months ago. Thank you Russia, and no offence meant.
Ellski
We left Novosibirsk with a little tinge of dread, not only leaving our comfy penthouse suite, but heading out into a part of Russia that in some ways we were dreading, the plains. It had always rather held our interest, from Novosibirsk to the Ural Mountains you cross a huge steppe, and at the end you are in Europe. Looking at in my room back home Levi and I saw a larger version of the US Midwest and drifted into revery about the truck stops and wide open spaces, riding into a city called Omsk, and the speed with which we would dispense with the plains. "Omsk! That's going to be a wild night, maybe more than one, god I can't wait to get to Omsk." Levi had said on more than one occasion.
But slowly along our trip we had gotten a different impression of what it might be like, Denis in Vladivostok said "It's just a huge swamp, millions of huge mosquitoes", Baikal, Alexei, pointing at the stretch from Novosibirsk to Yekaterinaburg, said "Here it is going to get really remote again, worse than the off road" and of course there was always the stern warning we had gotten at the beginning of the trip from Mark Jenkins, telling us that the headwinds he experienced, especially on the flats were nearly catastrophic for their trip.
So standing at the edge of Novosibirsk looking at a limitless horizon on a windy and rainy day we found ourselves once again saying "God, I can't wait to get to Omsk!"
It wasn't perhaps so bad the first day, we went slower than usual, but the wind was more of a cross than a full on headwind, and it came kind of in waves, it would gust and then almost retreat into a tailwind, like an under toe on the beach, so you would be pulled for a few seconds, get your momentum up for just a few seconds before you got pounded by the next gust. By the end of the day we really felt pretty good about our chances of accomplishing our new and ambitious route plan, we wanted to spend the next month travelling big distances without stopping much, riding north instead of south, heading to Moscow and then on to St. Petersburg before turning west and heading through Europe. It would require a month of hard riding to avoid the bad weather, being on a very strict schedule of long days and short nights, but it was very feasible, and the first day of facing the plains left us thinking it was in fact possible. We camped that night and indeed found more bugs than before, but nothing too bad, we still had not gotten out our bug nets, and in fact they were facing deportation in the next package to home.
The next day the wind was almost behind us, and we rode for a personal best 220km, but even with a slight advantage from the wind, cracks were beginning to show, especially after a month of very scheduled riding. I had for months been thinking, and we had been joking, about the concept that we were too young and inexperienced to be bike tourers, we are once again the youngest guys out here and overall bike touring seems to be for mostly newly weds and retirees (two groups you might not think perfectly matched for cycle touring but it is true). For us we get up exhausted and think of only one thing, getting through the day as quickly as possible so that we can get back to bed and get some rest again, we live for our days off and are striving to get to a point where we can just slow down and ride less km. But when you meet other riders out here, they are invariably older and they just spend the entire day on the bicycle, 10 or so hours, just cruising along, going at a much slower rate than us, but never taking days off, in the end they have inevitably gone twice as far in half the time as us. It's an old man (and woman)'s game patience is the name of the game. Although in our defence, our main goal is to see the country of Russia, the one we are most interested in, they are going through it as fast as possible in an attempt to make it to Mongolia, the country that everyone else on a bicycle in the world seems to be most interested in. At one point during our trip to Omsk we were actually made fun of by a 60+ year old Frenchman when we told him how far and how long we had come.
It is this lack of zen that often caused problems on Team Idiot on the flats, the whole trip so far has not tested your mental stamina in the way one day out in the flats did, even on the off road where you went through fewer towns and went at a much slower pace so that you might only see one or two towns or settlements a day at least had hills and mountains to focus your attention and enthusiasm on. Here on the flats you just keep your legs moving and watch the horizon for something to strive for, going through a town every few hours. Song lyrics race through your head again and again, the same little snippet over and over to the rhythm of your legs turning, slowly the lyrics change inevitably into some sort of verbal attack on the wind or the flats. Levi is a master at this art, be it because he suffers even more frustration because he wasn't a cyclist before and is more unused to the frustration of the wind slowing you down and howling in your ear or because he is losing his mind, he never fails to have a new one when break time comes. There are some wonderful things about the flats as well though, there is something magical about riding through the endless fields sunflowers or golden wheat that one comes across every few hours, often they are filled with hundreds of crows that give you a feeling of a living Van Gogh painting, you can stare off at the limitless sunflowers for hours just wondering how far off they go.
By the end of the 220km ride we were exhausted, we had planned to ride only about 180, but we really wanted a hotel as the weather looked threatening and it is better to just get a hotel room, that way in the morning you don't have to hang around trying to dry the tents. Unfortunately by the 180km marker there wasn't a hotel just waiting for us, so we trudged on another 40km, watching the ominous sky. It was one of those moments right out of a comedy, we finally made it to the hotel, I could barely climb the stairs my legs were so sore, but I went in and ordered a room for 2. "Nyet" was the curt reply I received "why?" I asked, thinking "could this place really be filled? I'm in the middle of nowhere and there are about 2 cars in the parking lot."
"No foreigners"
Perfect. We wound up negotiating to sleep in the parking lot, and luckily it didn't rain. However the next morning we could barely move, and as it turned out, it was the first headwind day. It didn't take long, it was lunch break when it happened, " Aw ##$@# this, I am not going to get up every day at 6am for the next month and ride 150km until 9 at night, this is my bike trip and I am going to relax and just chill out and ride." And just like that it was over, we are going north still, to Moscow, because quite frankly the photo of us with the bikes in front of the Kremlin is simply to tempting, then we will meander through Europe at our own speed, going where we please.
Things calmed down after that moment, we decided not to worry about these things, we had, after all, finally caught back up and then some with where we wanted to be at this time on the trip, and really things had been going splendidly, our flats had decreased to almost non-existent, the way it should be, we were strong enough to go 200km if need be and go 160 for days on end, but we didn't need to according to the numbers, we now can (and will) just ride about 140km a day and make our way to Moscow, snap a picture and continue on into Europe. It sounded to heavenly to even imagine. We went only a few more kilometers that day before we found another roadside hotel and said, "yeah we're worth it, let's stay in another hotel tonight"
"Nyet" was the response again, we are beginning to consider Russian brides just so that we can stay in the hotels again, but luckily the attendant directed us down the street to another hotel that does accept foreigners (or more accurately doesn't ask too many questions)
We were woken up the next morning by the howl of the wind, but we didn't let that bother the new zen Idiots, had a leisurely breakfast and packed up, hopped on the bikes and did a leisurely 80km (okay I'm exaggerating a bit, when the wind is blowing that hard it is difficult to describe anyone' attitude as zen, but there was a more casual attitude towards the shouting at the wind, less desperation) It was at some point during that day that we met the 60+ year old Frenchmen who started every sentence with "foooooh!" and proceeded to make fun of us "Foooh! very slow. Fooooh! maybe too much gear. Fooooh I must be off now I go to Australia, Fooooh" I guess no one told him there isn't a road.
Finally the next day we cruised into Omsk, we have noticed that with every Russian city we ride into there are about three things that happen about 100 to 150km outside of them without fail, it becomes incredibly remote, the road gets so bad you can hardly ride on it, and the traffic becomes unbearable, Omsk was no exception, in fact in terms of remoteness it took the cake, when we reached the sign there wasn't a house to be seen, as far as I could see we were still out on the flats.
Omsk held special significance for me not only because it was a strangely named four letter city in the middle of the map in my room, but also because it was here that Dostoevsky was imprisoned for 4 years. My obsession with Dostoevsky is what partially drives this trip and so it was a great treat to finally make it to a city of significance in his life. Our first impressions of Omsk, were very positive, the outskirts seemed to have a very mixed population, not just Russians, but people seeming to hail from all over the former Soviet Union which was interesting to see. It is also a major industrial city, where many of the factories from Western Russia were evacuated to during WWII, which is a very strange thing to see, factories rather forced into any open spaces in the region. We found ourselves overcome with the west in Omsk, we stayed in the Hotel Omsk (creative name) which featured an all you can eat Russian breakfast buffet (not really sure if it was all you can eat, but no one seemed to mind when we did). On our way down to meet Maria, a girl who had kindly offered to show us around the city after seeing our site, we discovered a TGI Fridays in downtown Omsk, which conveniently had the cheapest business lunch in town, we couldn't resist.
We spent the afternoon relaxing and walking around Omsk with Maria, she took us to the Dostoevsky Museum and showed us around the city of Omsk which we really took to. We spent 3 full days in Omsk, avoiding any sort of work at all (I am writing this blog from Yekaterinburg), letting ourselves heal mentally and physically.
Of course by the third day we were feeling pretty good again, strong and happy, we knew that the wind, at least according to weather.com, would be behind us for the next 6 or so days. We did have to set a date to give a talk at the American Corner in Yekaterinaburg before we left Omsk, so when the director told us we could either give the talk in 7 days or 11, we looked at each other as only two complete idiots can and said "well with the wind behind us we can probably do 950km in 6 days, it'll be a challenge."
"yeah and I like a challenge"
"Maybe we can even do it in 5 if we do just straight 200's"
we texted the director back, "we'll be there in 6 days"
it's almost as if we learned nothing
ellski
We recently did a talk at an American Corner to a group of english speaking Russians, and although on the whole it did go well, many people felt that it came off anti-Russia, or at least didn't make Russia sound to appealing. This is in no way my objective or at all how I feel about Russia and it scares me to think that this might be how people are interpreting my blogs. I will continue to write about the silly incidents and absurd aspects of travelling through Russia as I would travelling through the US that is just my way of writing, but hopefully you will understand that these are isolated incidents and that we overall have had an amazing time here and the Russian people have been more generous and welcoming and the landscape has been more beautiful and interesting than we possible could have imagined while we poured over maps 8 months ago. Thank you Russia, and no offence meant.
Ellski
We left Novosibirsk with a little tinge of dread, not only leaving our comfy penthouse suite, but heading out into a part of Russia that in some ways we were dreading, the plains. It had always rather held our interest, from Novosibirsk to the Ural Mountains you cross a huge steppe, and at the end you are in Europe. Looking at in my room back home Levi and I saw a larger version of the US Midwest and drifted into revery about the truck stops and wide open spaces, riding into a city called Omsk, and the speed with which we would dispense with the plains. "Omsk! That's going to be a wild night, maybe more than one, god I can't wait to get to Omsk." Levi had said on more than one occasion.
But slowly along our trip we had gotten a different impression of what it might be like, Denis in Vladivostok said "It's just a huge swamp, millions of huge mosquitoes", Baikal, Alexei, pointing at the stretch from Novosibirsk to Yekaterinaburg, said "Here it is going to get really remote again, worse than the off road" and of course there was always the stern warning we had gotten at the beginning of the trip from Mark Jenkins, telling us that the headwinds he experienced, especially on the flats were nearly catastrophic for their trip.
So standing at the edge of Novosibirsk looking at a limitless horizon on a windy and rainy day we found ourselves once again saying "God, I can't wait to get to Omsk!"
It wasn't perhaps so bad the first day, we went slower than usual, but the wind was more of a cross than a full on headwind, and it came kind of in waves, it would gust and then almost retreat into a tailwind, like an under toe on the beach, so you would be pulled for a few seconds, get your momentum up for just a few seconds before you got pounded by the next gust. By the end of the day we really felt pretty good about our chances of accomplishing our new and ambitious route plan, we wanted to spend the next month travelling big distances without stopping much, riding north instead of south, heading to Moscow and then on to St. Petersburg before turning west and heading through Europe. It would require a month of hard riding to avoid the bad weather, being on a very strict schedule of long days and short nights, but it was very feasible, and the first day of facing the plains left us thinking it was in fact possible. We camped that night and indeed found more bugs than before, but nothing too bad, we still had not gotten out our bug nets, and in fact they were facing deportation in the next package to home.
The next day the wind was almost behind us, and we rode for a personal best 220km, but even with a slight advantage from the wind, cracks were beginning to show, especially after a month of very scheduled riding. I had for months been thinking, and we had been joking, about the concept that we were too young and inexperienced to be bike tourers, we are once again the youngest guys out here and overall bike touring seems to be for mostly newly weds and retirees (two groups you might not think perfectly matched for cycle touring but it is true). For us we get up exhausted and think of only one thing, getting through the day as quickly as possible so that we can get back to bed and get some rest again, we live for our days off and are striving to get to a point where we can just slow down and ride less km. But when you meet other riders out here, they are invariably older and they just spend the entire day on the bicycle, 10 or so hours, just cruising along, going at a much slower rate than us, but never taking days off, in the end they have inevitably gone twice as far in half the time as us. It's an old man (and woman)'s game patience is the name of the game. Although in our defence, our main goal is to see the country of Russia, the one we are most interested in, they are going through it as fast as possible in an attempt to make it to Mongolia, the country that everyone else on a bicycle in the world seems to be most interested in. At one point during our trip to Omsk we were actually made fun of by a 60+ year old Frenchman when we told him how far and how long we had come.
It is this lack of zen that often caused problems on Team Idiot on the flats, the whole trip so far has not tested your mental stamina in the way one day out in the flats did, even on the off road where you went through fewer towns and went at a much slower pace so that you might only see one or two towns or settlements a day at least had hills and mountains to focus your attention and enthusiasm on. Here on the flats you just keep your legs moving and watch the horizon for something to strive for, going through a town every few hours. Song lyrics race through your head again and again, the same little snippet over and over to the rhythm of your legs turning, slowly the lyrics change inevitably into some sort of verbal attack on the wind or the flats. Levi is a master at this art, be it because he suffers even more frustration because he wasn't a cyclist before and is more unused to the frustration of the wind slowing you down and howling in your ear or because he is losing his mind, he never fails to have a new one when break time comes. There are some wonderful things about the flats as well though, there is something magical about riding through the endless fields sunflowers or golden wheat that one comes across every few hours, often they are filled with hundreds of crows that give you a feeling of a living Van Gogh painting, you can stare off at the limitless sunflowers for hours just wondering how far off they go.
By the end of the 220km ride we were exhausted, we had planned to ride only about 180, but we really wanted a hotel as the weather looked threatening and it is better to just get a hotel room, that way in the morning you don't have to hang around trying to dry the tents. Unfortunately by the 180km marker there wasn't a hotel just waiting for us, so we trudged on another 40km, watching the ominous sky. It was one of those moments right out of a comedy, we finally made it to the hotel, I could barely climb the stairs my legs were so sore, but I went in and ordered a room for 2. "Nyet" was the curt reply I received "why?" I asked, thinking "could this place really be filled? I'm in the middle of nowhere and there are about 2 cars in the parking lot."
"No foreigners"
Perfect. We wound up negotiating to sleep in the parking lot, and luckily it didn't rain. However the next morning we could barely move, and as it turned out, it was the first headwind day. It didn't take long, it was lunch break when it happened, " Aw ##$@# this, I am not going to get up every day at 6am for the next month and ride 150km until 9 at night, this is my bike trip and I am going to relax and just chill out and ride." And just like that it was over, we are going north still, to Moscow, because quite frankly the photo of us with the bikes in front of the Kremlin is simply to tempting, then we will meander through Europe at our own speed, going where we please.
Things calmed down after that moment, we decided not to worry about these things, we had, after all, finally caught back up and then some with where we wanted to be at this time on the trip, and really things had been going splendidly, our flats had decreased to almost non-existent, the way it should be, we were strong enough to go 200km if need be and go 160 for days on end, but we didn't need to according to the numbers, we now can (and will) just ride about 140km a day and make our way to Moscow, snap a picture and continue on into Europe. It sounded to heavenly to even imagine. We went only a few more kilometers that day before we found another roadside hotel and said, "yeah we're worth it, let's stay in another hotel tonight"
"Nyet" was the response again, we are beginning to consider Russian brides just so that we can stay in the hotels again, but luckily the attendant directed us down the street to another hotel that does accept foreigners (or more accurately doesn't ask too many questions)
We were woken up the next morning by the howl of the wind, but we didn't let that bother the new zen Idiots, had a leisurely breakfast and packed up, hopped on the bikes and did a leisurely 80km (okay I'm exaggerating a bit, when the wind is blowing that hard it is difficult to describe anyone' attitude as zen, but there was a more casual attitude towards the shouting at the wind, less desperation) It was at some point during that day that we met the 60+ year old Frenchmen who started every sentence with "foooooh!" and proceeded to make fun of us "Foooh! very slow. Fooooh! maybe too much gear. Fooooh I must be off now I go to Australia, Fooooh" I guess no one told him there isn't a road.
Finally the next day we cruised into Omsk, we have noticed that with every Russian city we ride into there are about three things that happen about 100 to 150km outside of them without fail, it becomes incredibly remote, the road gets so bad you can hardly ride on it, and the traffic becomes unbearable, Omsk was no exception, in fact in terms of remoteness it took the cake, when we reached the sign there wasn't a house to be seen, as far as I could see we were still out on the flats.
Omsk held special significance for me not only because it was a strangely named four letter city in the middle of the map in my room, but also because it was here that Dostoevsky was imprisoned for 4 years. My obsession with Dostoevsky is what partially drives this trip and so it was a great treat to finally make it to a city of significance in his life. Our first impressions of Omsk, were very positive, the outskirts seemed to have a very mixed population, not just Russians, but people seeming to hail from all over the former Soviet Union which was interesting to see. It is also a major industrial city, where many of the factories from Western Russia were evacuated to during WWII, which is a very strange thing to see, factories rather forced into any open spaces in the region. We found ourselves overcome with the west in Omsk, we stayed in the Hotel Omsk (creative name) which featured an all you can eat Russian breakfast buffet (not really sure if it was all you can eat, but no one seemed to mind when we did). On our way down to meet Maria, a girl who had kindly offered to show us around the city after seeing our site, we discovered a TGI Fridays in downtown Omsk, which conveniently had the cheapest business lunch in town, we couldn't resist.
We spent the afternoon relaxing and walking around Omsk with Maria, she took us to the Dostoevsky Museum and showed us around the city of Omsk which we really took to. We spent 3 full days in Omsk, avoiding any sort of work at all (I am writing this blog from Yekaterinburg), letting ourselves heal mentally and physically.
Of course by the third day we were feeling pretty good again, strong and happy, we knew that the wind, at least according to weather.com, would be behind us for the next 6 or so days. We did have to set a date to give a talk at the American Corner in Yekaterinaburg before we left Omsk, so when the director told us we could either give the talk in 7 days or 11, we looked at each other as only two complete idiots can and said "well with the wind behind us we can probably do 950km in 6 days, it'll be a challenge."
"yeah and I like a challenge"
"Maybe we can even do it in 5 if we do just straight 200's"
we texted the director back, "we'll be there in 6 days"
it's almost as if we learned nothing
ellski
