The Pan-Eurasian Bike Trip

No Idea: Posing At The Marker Of The Last Russian Province We Entered Just Hours Before Being Thrown in Jail

"Leave your stuff here," the police officer says in Russian pointing to my tent and bicycle panniers laying next to a jail cell.

"Do you have any weapons?" he asks.

"No," I reply as he frisks me.

"Do you smoke?" he inquires.

"Of course not," I say in my best Russian, "we're athletes."

The officer leads my friend Ellery and I to a prison cell and unlocks the door. It slams shut behind us as we step inside. We have just been jailed for cycling across Russia.

My trip to Russia technically began on a gray morning last February taking an AIDS test in West Harlem and ended in a cold prison cell in Eastern Europe seven months later. Nobody said cycling across Russia would be easy, but the feat requires more than just overcoming physical obstacles.

Foreigners cannot enter Russia as tourists for more than three months. Traveling across the country is at least a 6,000 mile trip on rough and often unpaved roads. With such time constraints, the trip is impossible on bicycle.

A response to an email Ellery wrote last year to the Russian Cycling Federation in Moscow changed that.

"You can legally cycle across our country on year long business visas," a member of the Cycling Federation wrote. "Even if you aren't conducting business in Russia, you can get the visas if your papers are in order. We can help you by writing the letter of invitation you need from a Russian organization in your visa application."

Ellery and I arrived at the Russian Consulate in New York City to apply for our visas on a cold winter's day. To our surprise, a sign outside informed us that we also had to submit an AIDS tests with our paperwork.

With no time to waste, we ran wildly through New York looking for a place to get tested. Fifteen blocks later, we arrived breathless at an STD clinic in West Harlem, took a blood test, and returned to the Consulate with papers proving we had tested negative for AIDS.

Standing outside the Russian Consulate of New York is like stumbling across a slice of Moscow jettisoned in Manhattan Island. It is a tradition that babushkas, or old Russian women, are allowed to cut in lines throughout Russia. Outside the Consulate, a seething mass of babushka immigrants requesting consular services push against each other for the right of way.

As the Consulate reopened for the afternoon, a meek consular worker peeked through the door .

"Admitting visa applicants!" he yelled.

The babushka mob pushed against him like a horde of vikings attacking the Consulate with a battering ram. Ellery and I slowly made our way through the chaotic milieu and submitted our applications and passports to the Consulate staff.

We returned to the Consulate the following morning and received our passports complete with year long Russian business visas. But to our dismay, the words, "valid for only 90 of every 180 days," were printed on the visa.

"Don't worry, that won't be a problem," a consular worker responded when we voiced concern that our visas might not let us stay in the country long enough to cycle across it.

There was no turning back now.

Eight months have passed and we've cycled 6,000 miles across Russia, experienced few problems, and met many helpful and friendly people. On a chilly afternoon, we gleefully ride into the city of Kursk. The Ukrainian border is now only 50 miles away. Tomorrow we will enter a new country.

Today is a celebration. It is Kursk Day, the holiday which celebrates Kursk's founding centuries ago. Crowds fill the streets, musicians perform in city parks, and merrymakers scream in the air.

Desperate for a shower after camping for five days, we enter Kursk's central hotel to get a room before partaking in the festivities.

"Can I see your migration cards?" The hotel receptionist asks as we check in.

Migration cards are small pieces of paper foreigners receive when entering Russia. Last summer, a Siberian hotel lost Ellery's card.

"You can't stay here without it," the receptionist says flatly. "Please sit down," she insists while reaching for the phone.

The situation is not uncommon. Often the simplest things in Russia require alarming amounts of paperwork and we assume she has called the hotel manager who will come to sign a waiver to let us stay here.

"Soon, I'll be taking a hot shower," I think.

Suddenly, Russian immigration officials in uniform enter the hotel, approach the receptionist, and inspect our documents. Police officers soon arrive followed by a tall man dressed in slacks and a suit jacket. The immigration officers hand him our documents. He reviews them with a scowl and approaches us.

"90 out of every 180 days," he says waving our passports at us, "what part of that don't you understand?"

The man takes us to Kursk's police station for questioning. Immigration officials there interrogate us, speaking Russian so fast we barely understand.

"Are you agents?" one asks frustratedly, "you know, like James Bond?"

Soon an English translator arrives and we explain why we have overstayed our visas. The translator relates our story to the immigration officials and everyone soon warms up to us.

"A bicycle across Russia!" they exclaim. "Where do you sleep?" they ask, echoing the questions people typically have about cycle touring.

The interrogation lasts late into the night. We rode 85 miles today in the rain and still haven't eaten or changed out of our bike shorts. The translator explains that we have been detained, not arrested. Police officers lock us in a freezing cold jail cell for the night. I lay on a concrete bench barely wide enough for my body to fit on. Exhaustion overtakes me and I quickly fall asleep awaking frequently to toss and turn and shiver.

The harsh grinding noise of the jail cell's door opening the next morning awakens me. Ellery and I are both sick with colds from a night locked in jail with no blankets. Policemen follow protocol by taking our mug shots and fingerprints. We spend all day with immigration workers who file reports about us. Finally, they take us to Kursk's courthouse and the translator arrives.

"A judge is reviewing your case," he tells us.

"What will happen to us?" we ask.

"I think they are going to deport you to America for overstaying your visa," he replies.

'So this is how it ends,' I think to myself while sitting outside Kursk's courthouse with Ellery and the translator that afternoon, 'our bike trip is over.'

"What we did was amazing," I say to Ellery consolingly, "we're lucky that we made it so far."

Suddenly, an immigration official arrives.

"He just talked to his superior," the translator says, "they have agreed to let you go providing that you each pay a $130 fine for overstaying your visas."

I almost cheer with happiness. We are free.

The road from Kursk to the Ukrainian border passes through desolate wheat fields long since harvested and put to bed for winter. Harsh wind whips against me as I struggle to pedal forward. Former hardships of bike travel now seem nonexistent; I feel lucky just to be here, to see this, to continue. With a big goofy smile, I wave at a babushka selling potatoes by the roadside as I ride by. She smiles back.

Russia has been my home for seven months and a deep feeling of transience overtakes me while nearing the border. The theme song for the national evening news, colloquialisms I use when talking to young people, letting old women cut in line: the intimate details of this strange land which have made this place feel like home are about to fade behind me instantaneously as I cross the border.

But there is no turning back.

We arrive at the Russian border with signed documents from immigration officials giving us clearance into Ukraine. The border guards glance at our papers, smirk at our bicycles, and wave us through.

I take one glance back at the windswept Russian hills behind me and feel a mixed sense of triumph and nostalgia. We have accomplished something which, until yesterday, seemed impossible. We are some of the few people who have cycled across the world's largest country.

Suddenly, a border guard hands me my passport and breaks my reverie.

"Welcome to Ukraine," he says.

Beams of flaxen early morning sunlight peak through the window of the Moscow hostal I'm staying in and shine on my face. Outside my room, the conversation of other travelers awakens me.

"Isn't Russia marvelous!" an English architect on sabbatical exclaims to several tourists, "I just love the buildings here," she says with a smitten voice.

'I would call Moscow marvelous too,' I think while laying in bed, "a place which can enamor artists and cyclists alike."

Moscow is both Russia's capital and an almost 900-year-old city where over 10 million people live. We cycled 5,800 miles across Russia to finally arrive in the administrative center of a country over twice as big as the U.S. Like many foreign capitals, Moscow is a jarring juxtaposition of the old and new where 19th century mansions and old world history are often overshadowed by high rise buildings and whirling traffic.

We are resting here for eight days, our longest break since the trip began last April. Nearly half a year of traveling every day has left me road weary and yearning for an ephemeral dose of sedentary living. My short break in Moscow feels like flirting with my desired sense of having a home, and makes me view the city with love-at-first-sight eyes.

I have felt this way before. Several years ago, I was living in Mexico City, often considered the oldest and biggest city in the Americas. The immensity of the city's size, history, and culture enchanted me upon arrival. As months passed, I felt a deeply personal bond, forged from the experiences I had there, form between myself and the chaotic city I called home. The ending feeling was more meaningful than the curious attraction I felt initially.

In reference to this urban exaltation, French writer Albert Camus wrote, "the loves we share with a city are often secret loves," in an essay about his native city of Algiers in north Africa. While wandering Mexico City, I often recalled those words. One grows close to cities overtime. You live together forming an odd relationship as the events of your life become played out in its streets. The moments one shares with cities become intimate exchanges, which, like a lover's touch, become dear to us and distinguishable from another.

Spending just one week exploring Moscow is like embarking on a series of first dates when everything seems magical and anything is possible. Like Mexico City, Moscow's history and lengthy development are nearly unfathomable. Traipsing through Moscow's streets, you can become overwhelmed imagining the infinite number of people's lives that have been lived out here.

The first mention of a settlement here was in 1147. The outpost's favorable location on the Moskva river proved to be an excellent defensive location, and, in the 13th century, Moscow was named capital of the principality.

The city's first residents faced constant risks of invasion from nomadic peoples and Lithuanian and Polish conquerors. The city was burnt to the ground time and again, by Mongol invaders and during the Napoleonic wars, but was always successfully rebuilt. Moscow remained intact during the course of both World Wars, became capital of the USSR, and was the first place to witness the changes of the collapsing Soviet Union in the early 1990's. For nearly nine centuries, Moscow's residents have both protected their city and witnessed some of the most important events in world history.

Each day here, I have been torn between the need to rest my weary body and the urge to explore this fascinating place. Today, I follow the latter desire, and rise early to visit the Lenin Mausoleum, where the embalmed body of Vladimir Lenin, the Soviet Union's first head of state, still remains on public display.

Unlike many major cities, navigating Moscow is a treat. The city's metro, or underground subway, makes the train systems in London and New York look like debacles. Entering the metro one descends down a long escalator deep within the earth. The stations underground where one catches a train are like subterranean palaces where massive halls are lit by sumptuous chandeliers. Stained glass windows, bronze statues, and rich mosaics decorate the walls. Riding the Moscow metro often feels like touring a museum.

I get off the train in Red Square, Moscow's famous center. Strolling into the square, the Kremlin, a massive walled citadel which contains impressive churches and the buildings which the presidential administration works in rises before me. The original towers and brick walls of the Kremlin, designed by Russian and Italian architects in the 15th century, still survive to this day. The walled citadel is a lavish display of palatial architecture that appears like a scene from a children's fantasy story about knights and dragons.

To the Kremlin's left, St. Basil's cathedral, the iconic image of Moscow, and Russia, appears on the horizon. From a distance, its multi-colored spires appear like a magnificent gingerbread house glazed in sugary frosting.  The cathedral's disorder of shapes hides a comprehensible plan of nine chapels: one tall one in the center surrounded by eight smaller ones.

Completed in 1561, the cathedral's history mirrors the city; fires which devastated Moscow destroyed the cathedral several times and it was restored and redecorated in accordance with the artistic traditions of the times. Napoleon himself ordered the cathedral to be destroyed when French troops invaded Moscow, but they lacked enough time to complete the task. The cathedral became a museum in 1923. Ever since, extensive work has been done to restore St. Basil's original appearance.

Entering the cathedral is like stepping into a different era. A rickety wooden staircase leads up to the central chapel. From there, you can tour the adjoining chapels connected by small hallways that lead to large open rooms with high ceilings covered in paintings and golden icons.

Strolling past St. Basil's, I step in line between throngs of Asian tourists who await their turn to pass through a metal detector and enter the Lenin Mausoleum, a small stone building where the former Soviet leader lays in rest.

Lenin died of a stroke in the winter of 1924; mourners gathered in droves during the cold winter to view his body before its burial. The Soviet Union's second leader, Joseph Stalin, proposed to preserve Lenin's corpse forever. Two scientists were issued a political order to stop the body's natural decomposition, and, after months of lab work, they stumbled upon a secret formula. Today, Lenin's body can still be viewed in the mausoleum several times each week.

I pass through a metal detector and armed guards rush me and a small group down a stone staircase into the mausoleum's depths. We are allowed just thirty seconds to glimpse the mummified remains of arguably one of the most influential men of the 20th century who lays in a glass case under fluorescent lights. I can barely account for what I've seen before the guards rush us out and up into the sunlight again.

My brief time in Moscow leaves me fantastically intrigued and desiring to know this city better. During my last day here, I take a long walk around the city center as the sun sets. In an alleyway near Red Square, I stand awestruck staring at the golden domes of churches rising from the Kremlin walls. The sight catches my eye like the furtive glance of a lover across a crowded room. As often happens in cities, the impressive buildings exhibit the marvelous genius of man, serving as a testament to the lofty things humans are capable of achieving.

A city wordlessly communicates these ideas. It is this silent dialogue that makes our love affairs, however brief, with different cities a secret. Perhaps it is that wordless exchange, a perfect understanding, that makes us fall in love with them in the first place.

Everyone Included: Matryoshka Dolls Of Everyone From Harry Potter To Joseph Stalin Adorn Moscow Streets

The rumbling of a big rig flying down the highway sounds like a collapsing building destroyed by a demolition team. A thundering truck can be heard long before it passes. I am riding on a cramped two lane road with no shoulder and heavy traffic. Holding the handlebars steady, I hug the white line on the road's edge to give traffic enough space to go around me.

In seconds, the freight truck roars by like an avalanche flowing down the crest of a hoary mountain peak. The truck's rear bumper nearly grazes my cheek as the craft's end sails past.

'Another close one,' I think.

We have traveled nearly 5,800 miles across Russia on bicycles. Nearly five months ago, we left from the Russian port city Vladivostok on the Sea of Japan. We departed on a cold April morning before the trees had even begun to bud. Now it is late September and the leaves of Russian birches have bronzed to a soft yellow like the fruit inside a mango. 

While riding, I sink into a deep reverie recalling the places we have been. Chita, Khabarovsk, Omsk, and Kazan, they are all former destinations, cities we once rode through. Now, they are once again names on a map, words which, like the names of grade school teachers, make you recall vague memories from long ago.

 "Beeeeeeep!"

A blaring horn breaks my silent soliloquy, the wandering thoughts, which overtake one's mind while riding a bicycle. I ride along the road's edge, which narrowly separates asphalt from soft dirt, like a drop of dew tenuously sliding down a blade of grass. When trucks do not have space to pass, they beep signaling for me to get off the road. Hearing the blaring horn, I turn the bike sharply off the asphalt and onto the rough dirt shoulder, gently pumping the brakes to avoid losing control. The enormous truck barrels past as I come to a stop.

Two days ago, we merged onto a central highway leading to Moscow, Russia's largest city and capital. We always imagined the roads near Moscow would be smooth with wide shoulders. But here there is little space to ride on save the white line on the road's edge. We face a constant battle with traffic for space. This is one of the most developed parts of Russia and the most treacherous road we have ridden on to date.

One encounters many difficulties on a bicycle trip. Each day, myriad possibilities for things to go wrong hang somewhere in the future like glimmering stars obscured by a cloudy sky.

The quickly fading sunlight shines brightly on the road by late afternoon. Suddenly, my rear tire bursts. A shard of metal or glass I ran over punctured my tire and inner tube. I stop to change them with spares. My riding partner Ellery rolls ahead, oblivious to what happened. If I ever have a major problem, I can send him a text message on the cell phones we communicate with.

I change the tire and continue. Soon the second tube goes flat. I instantly remember how several days ago, Ellery received several successive flat tires from glass lodged in the tire rubber. I lent him my spare tubes to fix the flats. We repair busted tubes with a patch kit for reuse, but that night we foolishly forgot to mend them.

I stop riding. Ellery is now miles ahead with the patch kit and tubes.

My Russian cell phone works like a U.S. track phone, you buy minutes as you go. I send Ellery a message explaining my predicament, and, to my dismay, discover that I am out of minutes.

I have a spare tube for a different size tire in my backpack. It barely fits in the smaller tire currently on my bicycle, but I inflate the tire and try riding it. The tube bursts before I make it two miles and I am stranded on the busy road again.

Just then, Ellery sends me a text message. 'A woman at a gas station told me you broke down,' it read, 'am riding back to help.'

A rosy sun lingers near the horizon. Darkness is approaching. I try hitchhiking to Ellery, but a bicycle greatly decreases your odds of getting a ride.

Soon a police car spots me and pulls over. Throughout Russia, people have warned us about corrupt cops, especially near Moscow. Thus far, we have only had positive interactions with Russian law officials. As the police car rolls up and the window goes down revealing two men in uniform, I'm not sure what to expect.

"I have ridden here from Vladivostok on bicycle," I say before explaining my problem.

The cops offer to take me to Ellery, but, after examining their car's trunk, decide my bicycle won't fit. With no hesitation, the cop puts on his policeman's hat and removes a billy club from the car. Loudly blowing his whistle, he pulls over the first flat bed truck which passes by signaling with the billy club. Minutes later, I'm riding in the truck with an old Russian man, my bicycle in the back, the cops following in tow.

The road goes down a long hill. We drive no more than half a mile before we see Ellery huffing and puffing up the steep incline.

"Pull over please," I say.

Ellery and me quickly change the tire. The police drive away. It is nearly dark now. We ride seven dangerous miles to the next town at dusk. Cars turn their lights on and beep their horns at us. Bumps fill the road. Riding here is dangerous, and, as darkness sets in, I feel that being here is not worth the risk.

The next day, we arrive in Nizhny Novgorod, one of the most beautiful cities in Russia. From here Moscow lies just several hundred miles southwards. We get a hotel and clean up. Although we both want to ride, that night we seriously talk about bypassing the dangerous roads by taking the train into Moscow.

By morning we decide that taking public transportation, just this once, is better than getting hurt on dangerous roads and not finishing the trip. For months we have talked about resting for a week somewhere. Now we plan to tak the train into Moscow, stay seven days, and then ride the train back to a place near Nizhny. From there we will cycle just five days and cross the border into the country of Ukraine.

Stepping off the train in Moscow with my fully loaded bike seems strange, but feels like a good decision. The past few months have been tiresome. Soon a very different section of this trip will begin as we leave Russia and hop between various European countries.

We still have far to go before our trip ends on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. I remain excited to see what happens next. But for now, I need to rest.

Moscow chef Oleg Porotikov called cooking, "the culture of people," in a Guardian newspaper of London article about Russian food. Many factors, like flavor and the availability of certain ingredients, lead to the development of national cuisines. Cultivation of corn in Latin America, from which tortillas are made, sparked the creation of tacos that sizzle in Tijuana street food stalls. And fresh seafood caught in U.S. coastal communities once inspired a creamy concoction called New England clam chowder. Likewise, Slavic peoples of Eastern Europe have made a well-known soup called borscht from beets and potatoes for centuries.  

Recipes become exchanged over time liberally as hugs between relatives. The movement of people, or ebb and flow of an empire, leaves culinary influences behind; Today, Chinese restaraunts are found worldwide and Tex-Mex restaurants serve tacos throughout the U.S.    

After riding a bicycle 5,500 miles across Russia, I have discovered that Russian foods behave similarly.

Most people answer, 'borscht,' when asked what food they associate with Russia. Borscht is a hearty soup usually made of meat stock, beets, potatoes, and cabbage. A sprinkling of dill often tops the soup along with a generous dollop of sour cream.   Borscht is still served throughout the former Soviet Union, from chic Moscow restaurants, roughneck cafeterias on the Siberian plains, to bubbling pots on warm hearths inside the log cabins of coastal villages along the Sea of Japan. From the Tsarist days to the Soviet era, borscht followed the footsteps of the expanding Russian empire and today graces tables and menus from Europe to eastern Asia.  

After cycling on a cool fall morning, nothing feels so good as pulling into a Russian village, leaning my bicycle against a small cafe, and retreating within a warm building to eat. The interior of Russian cafes are almost identical: a wide room filled with chairs around small card tables meets your eyes as you open the door. A woman wearing a blue apron stands behind a large wooden counter. She is either a stern Babushka who jots down your order on a scrap of paper and adds up the sum of your bill with an abacus on the counter, a smiling and inquisitive Russian girl, or a friendly immigrant from a nearby country like Azerbaijan.    

The menu is printed on paper or handwritten. Russian, a complicated language, becomes more difficult because many handwritten letters take a completely different form than they do in print. I rarely see or use the handwritten alphabet and have trouble remembering it. The cursive script on a menu in a rustic cafe swirls insignificantly before my eyes like cumulus clouds. When I cannot quickly decipher the menu, I order a trusty favorite which I always know steams away within the kitchen.  

"Adin borscht, One borscht," I tell the woman before me.

"Hleb skolka? How much bread?" she asks.

Sliced bread holds such a significant place upon the Russian table, the question is simply, 'How much?', not, 'Do you want bread?'   The second question invariably concerns tea, often served with lemon, and considered the final accessory to a full meal.  

"Piat hleb e adin chai sa limonom, five bread and one tea with lemon," I say.

The steaming borscht and tea are served with thick slices of fresh bread. A spoonful of sour cream rests in the soup's center like a shipwrecked sailor. The best borscht, in my opinion, is made chiefly with beets, giving the soup a deep plum hue expanding around the bowl's edges like a burgundy skyline where chopped cabbage and potatoes appear like dark storm clouds submerged within the broth. You begin by stirring the sour cream, watching as the white nucleus of borscht melts away reducing the deep mauve tones of the broth to a light cherry red. I stir the cream and broth together fully; like a master artist mixing two paints, I know just how to blend the colors to get the desired effect.

Russian food is more than just cabbage, meat, and potatoes. The breadth of Russian cuisine is as diverse as the landscape, cultures, and people contained within this massive country. I recently learned how much Russian food is an amalgamation of dishes from Eastern Europe and Central Asia while dining with an American named Chris who works for the U.S. Consulate in Ekaterinaburg, Russia. Chris suggested we try an Uzbekistani restaurant, an eatery serving food from the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan.   "Have you ever eaten Uzbek food?" he asked on the way there.  

"No," I replied, "what is it like?"

"Well, have you eaten laghman?" Chris asked.

"Yes," I replied with instant recognition.

Laghman is a delicious soup of meat, vegetables, and long thick noodles served in a rich broth often made from tomatoes.

"I love laghman," I confirmed. "I first tried it thousands of miles away from here at a small cafe in Far Eastern Russia."

"Really?" Chris replied. "Well, do you know what plov is?"

I smiled. Plov is a dish of fried rice, meat, and vegetables, which in appearance almost resembles Spanish paella. I had eaten countless plates of plov all across Russia.

While most bicycle tourer's camp in fields and cook with small camp stoves, my cycling partner Ellery and I almost exclusively dine (and sleep!) at Russian cafes. After consuming a big meal, we tell the owners about our trip and ask if we can pitch tents outside. Often the family who owns the cafe lives nearby. Cafe camping allows us to meet interesting people, try new foods, be safe, and save time. One can rise at daybreak, pack up the tent, and order a heaping plate of blini, small Russian pancakes which resemble crepes, from the cafe before hitting the road.  

Russian cafes have become the lifeblood of our bike trip. They are also often the best place for us to find nutritious food. Because most Russian villagers grow their own vegetables and raise livestock, stores in small Russian towns have little to offer a traveler wanting to cook a full meal. On the road, cafes are the best place for us to acquire foods like vegetables, although they often come in salads covered in mayonnaise.  

"Adin salat bez maionesa, one salad without mayonnaise,"

I routinely tell the cafe waitress.  

Russia is not the land of meagre food resources many foreigners imagine it to be; Small cafes dot the roadside and supermarkets now abound in cities and towns. I easily satisfy the dominating hunger that overtakes one after cycling 80-100 miles each day here. Russia has slowly altered my taste buds. Rich broths and dill now replace my affinity for spices and hot sauce. The appreciation of new foods and flavors seems more easily acquired than foreign languages and customs. Perhaps cooking really is the culture of people, the appreciation of good food something universal you can share with others anywhere.  

As time passes, I feel more at home here. My ability to read handwritten Russian has slowly improved allowing me to order almost perfectly from any cafe. Seeing someone in a restaraunt eating a particularly good batch of plov or rich beety borscht now excites me. But my appreciation for Russian cuisine makes me feel estranged from my own culture and former tastes. Like I am losing my identity and becoming someone else. The food I eat and language I use to order it now are both Russian. And an ambiguous example that you are what you eat.