The Pan-Eurasian Bike Trip

A rugged dirt path before me runs beside a wide river and disappears in the shadow of a massive gorge. I ride following the rough trail's serpentine twists.

Another cyclist suddenly rounds an upcoming turn and waves as he passes by. A small yellow sign reading 'Route 2 bicycle trail' stands by the path with an arrow pointing ahead.  

I am riding on a rough bicycle trail outside of Prague in the northern Czech Republic. After riding 7,300 miles, this is the first bike path we have found outside of a big city. From Prague, we will ride into northern Germany on flat lands skirting around the already snow-covered Alps.  

After several days riding, the bike path meets the mighty Elba river. From there, we've been told a nicer bike path follows the Elba's shores all the way to the North Sea.  

The bike path begins near a central square in Prague and follows a river outside the city into the woods. We have spent grueling months riding along central highways in Russia and Ukraine where bikes are permitted because secondary roads are often unpaved. Following the paved bike trail outside Prague, I delight in thinking that my days of riding next to speeding vehicles have ended.  

It is peaceful riding beside this river. I feel deliciously alone. The trail runs along flat land near the river and passes under steep clefts of rock leading up the gorge wall. I ride through wooded lanes and pass between thick copses of overhanging trees whose leaves blaze red in late autumn and form an auburn canopy above.  

Cycling along this path is amazing, but its drawbacks soon become evident.

Fifteen miles from Prague, the paved bike trail becomes interspersed with segments of rough dirt track or old cobblestone walkways along the river. Our heavily loaded bikes, better geared for road use, don't fare well here.    

Once, I take a wrong turn, and accidentally follow a hiking trail up a steep mountain with beautiful views of small German river towns below. Stairs on the trail descended down the mountain forcing me to carry my bike down. Another time we had to cross the river to meet the trail, but the only bridge nearby was a set of stairs built around a massive gas line which lead up to a concrete platform that supported the gas line over the river. We hauled our bikes up and down six flights of stairs on either side of the bridge. Ellery ripped his pants coming down the stairs.

For nearly three days we follow the trail from the Czech Republic into Germany. The experience is slow but rewarding. The shape-shifting bike path follows the Elba through a wide river valley where old castles adorn the crests of rolling mountains.  

We arrive in Dresden, Germany on a bumpy cobblestone path. I move onto a small patch of mud along the cobblestone's edges, hoping for a smoother ride, but my bike just slips and slides.  

That night Ellery and I decide to take a main road north in hopes of saving time. Winter is approaching and we need to move quickly.   

We ride hard for two days through East Germany and discover that small paved bike paths beside most main roads also link German towns together. They are so numerous that we can almost ride on them exclusively.    

Astounding levels of cycle-specific infrastructure in Germany make bicycle travel easy and safe. Separate stoplights for cars and bicycles hover near most intersections. Unlike the small stoplightless town in Maine where I grew up, small German towns of 1,000 people or less often have at least two or three stoplights for drivers and cyclists.   

On this trip, we rode nearly 5,000 miles before seeing a stoplight outside of a major city. It consisted of a small blinking caution light in a Western Siberian town.  

 In Russia, I often worried about riding on roads with a large percentage of drunk drivers. But here it is the higher number of people on the road in newer faster cars that worries me. I am not accustomed to sharing the road with so many other people.  

The high number of cyclists on German roads and bike paths also forces us to remain alert. I learn that lesson quickly. On a bike path in Dresden, I absentmindedly drifted into the opposite lane and nearly ran into another cyclist. 

On our fourth day in Germany, we make a big push to the city Uelzin. A strong rain storm is expected, so we plan to cover a large distance today and ride less tomorrow.   

That morning our bike path ends when the road it follows turns into a major highway for a mile with exits leading into a small city. At the end, the highway becomes a small road again with a bike path running parallel to it. We don't see a 'no bikes' sign, so we ride on the road's shoulder.   

Cars beep signaling we aren't wanted here. A siren blares behind me and a police car zooms past. Just before the highway ends, I spot Ellery speaking with a police officer on the road.  

"Highway, no bikes!" the officer says in a thick German accent as I stop beside them.    

We have been pulled over for riding off the bike path. The officer takes our documents and returns to his car. We wait expecting to be fined. Instead he returns, smiles, and escorts us off the highway. We don't speak German, so he explains how to find the bike path using hand signals.    

Today quickly becomes one of those rare and impossibly hard days that sometimes happen on the road. They all end the same: trying to cover a huge distance in pouring rain before it becomes dark.  

We spend the day getting rained on, fixing flat tires, and becoming separated when a police officer pulled over Ellery, who was riding behind me, after we lost the bike path and again momentarily proceeded on a big road through a small city.  

By mid-afternoon we lose the path and ride on the shoulder of a lonely road toward Uelzin. We have ridden so far north that there is scarcely 9 hours of daylight. It is dark by 4:30 PM. I want to stop and eat, but I am racing daylight. It starts raining heavily as it becomes dark. Cars switch on their headlights. The road becomes dangerous, but I deliriously pedal onwards.   

Just when I consider giving up, a small bike path appears on the left and I turn onto it. I have ridden nearly 100 miles hardly stopping and I am nearly too exhausted to continue. I slowly ride past harvested fields of corn and turnips in freezing cold rain through the darkness. The bike path leads all the way to Uelzin where I later meet Ellery.  

Today we have moved into West Germany. From here, bike paths are so good, that we almost never ride on normal German roads again.  

With the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 2009 now just several days away, I could not help but scan the horizons of East and West Germany and analyze the differences. To a traveler, one of the biggest dissimilarities on either side of Germany today seems to be bike paths. In West Germany, the system of good bike paths is more developed than in East Germany where many are still being built.  

You can still become lost on good German bike paths when well marked signs sometimes show directions for towns which are so small they don't appear on our map. One morning we lose the bike path near a city and nervously continue on a big road for several minutes. Soon our bike path snakes out of the woods and runs alongside the road again. We leave the road and rejoin it just seconds before a cop drives by. Ellery looks back at me.  

"Phew, that was a close one!" he says. 

The first snow fell in mid-October. Through the cold window pane of my hotel in Krakow, Poland I watched hoary snow flurries pour from the grey sky with a sense of dread. In six months, we have cycled 7,100 miles on one of the world's longest and most northerly bicycle trips. In ten weeks, we hope to arrive in Portugal and complete our trip from the Pacific to Atlantic Ocean. Watching the snow fall, a subtle feeling of trepidation overtakes me.

Three days ago, we arrived at the border between Ukraine and Poland. After briefly waiting in line at the first checkpoint, a Ukrainian military officer approached us with upsetting news.

"You cannot cross this border on bicycles," he said. "Only motor vehicles are permitted over this border post," he explained, "you must cross in a car."

Fifty miles south lay another border crossing that allowed all types of transit. To spare ourselves from riding there, we searched for a truck driver to smuggle us across. But the infrequent passage of small hatchbacks and sedans driving into Poland proved disappointing.

Frustrated by our misfortune, I began chatting with a young Ukrainian man who sells copies of DVD's to passing motorists. After explaining our problem, he offered to speak with the officer guarding the entrance into the passport control zone.

"Okay," he said returning with a beaming smile. "The guard will ask drivers in small trucks to take you across. When someone agrees, remember to give them a bit of money," he added. "No more than $10. You know, it is little tradition in our country," he said in reference to Russian and Ukrainian officials commonly known to request bribes.

Soon a small truck with a wide bed in the back arrived at the check point. The guard spoke briefly with the driver before motioning for us to wheel over the bikes. We shake hands with the driver, a short dark haired Ukrainian man, who makes a living transporting goods from Poland to Ukraine.

Crossing the border takes several hours. We wait in a line of cars slowly edging through checkpoints. Officials on both the Ukrainian and Polish sides inspect the car for contraband. They stamp our passports and laugh when they see our bicycles and we tell them our story.

This is an important border. Poland marks the point where we will enter the European Union (EU), the group of 27 European member states united by a common set of laws, policies, and open borders.

At last we get our entrance stamps into Poland and I unsuccessfully try to pay our driver.

"Ukrainian money is useless to me here," he says.

We agree to drive with him to a nearby town to find an ATM. The experience of riding in a car, after months of bicycle travel, is always peculiar. Outside it is chilly and overcast, but the truck's heater fills the cab with rich warm air. I now associate movement with making constant adjustments to the weather, putting on thermal tights for cold mornings or changing into rain gear when a storm overtakes us. When it starts raining, the Ukrainian merely turns on the windshield wipers and we continue. Riding in a car is comfortable. I have forgotten that travel doesn't have to be wet or cold.

The road we drive on into Poland nearly makes my jaw drop. Seemingly infinite signs marking speed limits, warnings, and route numbers line the roadside. We have spent so much time in Russia and Ukraine, where important signs that help drivers are almost non-existent, that the sense of order and development here overwhelms me.

The houses by the road are striking too. They each look newly constructed or refurbished. Unlike the homes of rural villagers in Siberia, houses here have decorative gardens and backyards surrounding them instead of simple vegetable gardens grown for subsistence use. The backyards of each Polish home, filled with flowers and shrubs, seem like lavish gardens to my eyes. The new world over the border may resemble my home in Maine more than the places I've been, but I have been gone so long it now looks foreign.

Soon we arrive in a small town with an ATM and pay the driver. Our new friend leads us to an affordable hotel where we thank him and say goodbye.

That night a trip to a small supermarket is a wonderful surprise. For months, I have shopped in small stores in Russia filled mainly with sausages and canned goods; the variety of foods I find on my first visit to a small Polish market astounds me. A diverse and mouthwatering expanse of fruits, vegetables, cheeses, and pastries meets my eyes.

 I cycle an average of seventy miles each day and my appetite is gigantic. The amount of good affordable food here is a dream come true. I grab groceries from the aisles like a mad man to make an incredible feast in the hotel. Before falling asleep, I think that smooth roads and good food in the EU will make this physically intensive bike trip easier.

A massive storm system slides over Europe that night. For two days, we ride through pouring rain wearing waterproof pants, jacket, and booties to keep our feet dry. Riding in cold rain seems more tolerable if you break infrequently. Once you stop, remaining motivated to continue is hard, so we ride continuously just stopping for lunch.

After two wet and stormy days we arrive in Krakow, one of Poland's oldest cities. During our first day there, the temperature drops to near freezing and it begins snowing. We take an extra day off hoping conditions will improve. 

On an unseasonably cold morning, we strike out again. The rolling hills outside of Krakow lay under a blanket of white snow. I inhale freezing air in my lungs and exhale steaming breaths while dodging patches of ice on the road's shoulder. We stop in gas stations to warm up our feet. That afternoon we quit early enjoy the luxury of warm bed in a roadside hotel.

With great frequency on this trip, one problem arises after another. As we prepare to leave the following morning, I discover that my crank, the circular component of a bicycle which the chain and pedals attach to, has become so loose it is nearly detached from the bike's axle. My bicycle cannot be ridden.

"I've called bike shops in all the major Polish cities and nobody has the parts to fix your bicycle," the owner of a nearby bike shop tells us. "We could order the parts from abroad, but it is Saturday and I can't do that until Monday. It could take four days or more to fix your bike."

Although one problem is often met with another on this trip, creative solutions, kind people, and a lot of luck often help us continue.

"The problem with your bike is the axle," the bike mechanic says after inspecting it again. "I can try making a small plastic piece to fit inside your bike frame which should keep the crank on."

In a half hour the job is done. I take my bike on a test ride. It seems good as new.

"This is just a quick fix," the bike mechanic cautions before we leave. "It might last 2,000 kilometers, maybe just two."

We continue down the road with a renewed sense of feeling fortunate just to continue. But the temperature is still freezing and today we discover that coal is still burnt as a heat source in many Polish homes. The thick smoke fills the air making us cough when we ride through towns.

By day's end, I discover that the crank on my bicycle has come loose again. If I continue riding, I could damage the inside of my bike frame so badly that I will have to buy a new one, something which I don't have money for. We have battled wind, rain, snow, countless bike problems and logistical challenges on this trip, but it seems that a small metal part in my bike is the biggest obstacle we have encountered yet.

With no better option, we ride back to the Polish city of Katowice and take a train 200 miles to Prague, the capital of the nearby Czech Republic, where I can have my bike fixed quickly. We set out six months ago to complete a lengthy trip only on bicycles. Getting on a train feels like being defeated.

There is no support vehicle on this trip to help when problems arise and no major sponsor that can replace my bicycle. Everything we do on this trip is up to us. Although I want to continue riding, I can't take the chance that it will ruin my bicycle.

One learns many lessons on such a tough journey. Remaining patient in difficult situations and developing a new appreciation of having a home are just some of the things I have acquired. But as I load my bike on the train to Prague, I think that perhaps one of the hardest things I must learn to do is accept my limitations. To realize there are some things that you just cannot do no matter how hard you try.

'I'm not going to let this bum me out,' I think as the train leaves the station, 'I would rather sit back and enjoy the ride.'

I'm sure that anyone who has been following this website regularly has noticed that I have completely neglected my blog for some time now. I'm sorry about that. We have long since moved out of Ukraine and are now slowly making our way towards southern France. The headwinds here have been so bad that some days it is almost impossible to even ride a bicycle. In many ways, the end of this trip has been the hardest part; as we get closer to the final leg (now just one month away!) it seems that each aspect of this journey has just become more challenging. But that is all part of the adventure.

My time on the internet has been limited recently and it is really expensive. Consequently, I use most of my time online getting the articles that i write each week for a newspaper back home finished and in on time. I haven't had the time in awhile to update my blog, so I am posting a link below that will lead you to the newspaper's website where you can read about some of what has happened to us in the last trying month. You should be able to access the last last pieces I wrote about cycling through Europe at the following link:
www.bangordailynews.com/topic/1386/browse.html

Let me know if that doesn't work! Enjoy and check back for more soon.

-Levi

"I can't believe you're eating that!" My friend Ellery exclaims as he walks out from a gas station and finds me eating a big juicy pear. "Remember how close we are to Chernobyl?"

My hand holding the delicious pear falls to my lap. I chew the fruit in my mouth with distaste and swallow.

The word Chernobyl resonates worldwide. In April, 1986 the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in northern Ukraine, then part of the former Soviet Union, was the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster.

The tragic accident began when one of Chernobyl's four nuclear reactors blew up. Further explosions released at least 100 times more radioactive material into the air than the atomic bombs dropped in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The worst fallout, or radioactive dust, was blown by prevailing winds into the nearby country of Belarus, but increased radiation levels were recorded as far away as Scandinavia and Ireland.

This afternoon I bought some pears from an old Ukrainian woman. Throughout Eastern Europe, people sell home grown fruits and vegetables by the road. The tantalizing sight of ripe pears in a wooden basket, and my fondness for fresh produce, made me forget that Chernobyl is approximately 70 miles northward.
Harmful nuclear radiation can be spread to humans through air we breathe and the food chain by plants grown in contaminated soil.

Over 350,000 people living in the Soviet Union near Chernobyl were resettled to avoid radiation contamination, yet 5 million still live in the areas considered worst affected. Although eating fruit grown in eastern Ukraine years after Chernobyl might be fine, I don't want to take unnecessary risks. I throw the pears away in the woods.

Radiation released by Chernobyl was disbursed on the earth unequally. Wind and rain contaminated some areas more than others which makes determining the adverse health effects on people living near Chernobyl a difficult and controversial subject. Just 56 people, mainly workers in the nuclear plant, were killed directly by the accident. But today increased instances of thyroid cancer among those living near the contaminated area is evidence that Chernobyl caused many long term health problems.

After disposing of the pears, I recall speaking with Dr. Norma Iglesias, a professor of Chicano Studies I met while studying in Mexico City during college. "Chernobyl made the world accept that one country's actions don't just affect citizens within its own borders, but people worldwide," she told me. "I mention Chernobyl in my introductory classes because it helps students understand how issues like American immigration policy affect the lives of people abroad."

Today I am far removed from the time and place where that conversation in Mexico occurred. Cycling down the road, I futilely try to fathom the tragic accident which happened just 70 miles away. We ride through small towns where Ukrainians sit by the road selling locally grown potatoes to passing motorists. There is no overt evidence of the Chernobyl accident here.

Issues like environmental disasters occurring abroad can rarely be observed in our own backyards. But while traveling, every aspect of a foreign country's reality affects our lives making us live and think differently. Arriving in Russia last winter, I learned that thirty-five rubles were worth one dollar. In days, I had mastered the 35 times table, and could speedily calculate how much thousands of rubles were worth in dollars with the speed of a mad scientist.

Humans become very adaptive in foreign countries. Accepting the strange ideas that fruit is deadly and one dollar is really thirty-five can quickly be accepted as fact.

Cycling 6,500 miles across Asia and Eastern Europe into Ukraine, my friend Ellery and I have constantly adapted to different ways of life around us. In Central Asia, running water and indoor plumbing were nonexistent outside of major cities. Using wooden outhouses and makeshift sinks consisting of basins of water with spigots hanging over small basins soon seemed normal.

Experiencing new ways of living is the alluring aspect of travel and part of the adventure. Nevertheless, even if I don't like to admit it, I have recently found myself wanting to be somewhere that feels more like home, a place where indoor plumbing is something you take for granted. After traveling so long, we are no longer sure when we will reach this point.

"Is it possible they use outhouses in Poland too?" We often wonder.

In Ukraine, we have finally noticed subtle changes. Unlike the small wooden houses we saw for so long in Russia, most Ukrainian houses are constructed from bricks. The houses may look more modern, but people here still live simply by raising livestock and growing vegetables to sell by the road for money.
The road itself is also changing. We now enjoy the luxury of a wide shoulder to ride on away from passing traffic. Gas stations containing small stores and bathrooms with running water line the highway. Oftentimes, a dilapidated outhouse, long since abandoned, sinks into the earth behind them.

But in Ukraine, the dogs stand out most. In Siberia, The Asian part of Russia, dogs don't bark  when they see strangers; they calmly walk by or approach you hoping for a belly rub. Strays do not exist. Each dog has a home, even if that means just a doorstep to sleep on and a bone to chew. The mentality of Siberian people belongs to another time when animals were valuable creatures, not just pets.

In Ukraine, I fight an urge to turn back when I pass the first gated house and hear a small dog bark. I stop and watch it lunging at me against its leash, teeth gnashing at the fence that separates us.
As the days pass, dogs begin barking at us routinely. Over time, we have slowly passed an invisible border from a more lawless world into one with boundaries and property lines.

We are nearing civilization. Even the dogs can feel it.

I feel stuck between two places right now. The best example of this statement is illustrated by a break we took at a gas station in western Ukraine the other day. Every gas station in the former Soviet Union contains one or two resident dogs. Pulling into this one, we met a charming mutt, tale wagging, who wanted his back scratched. Soon another more combative cur appeared and loudly barked at the intruders who arrived on strange bicycles. I wondered if my days of making furry gas station buddies had just ended.

Like a painters brush stroke blending two colors together, the real changes you see traveling on a bicycle sometimes appear difficult to see. I often feel myopic on this trip passing through places so quickly. We have cycled near one of the world's worst disaster sites, yet we did not spend enough time there to understand what life is really like for those who still live there. I leave feeling like I have seen nothing; the presence of Chernobyl is barely palpable.

The more sociable hound follows us as we leave the gas station, but we are too fast for our friend to keep up. It suddenly seems to me now that the world contains many invisible borders and details that  you can only see on a bicycle seat.

Riding away the image of the friendly dog behind me sticks in my mind; the barking of the other resonates in my ear drums. We are slowly edging closer to a different world. It amazes me how much you can see by seeing so little.

French novelist Honoré de Balzac died after crossing the country of Ukraine in 1850. Following a torrid seventeen year love affair with a wealthy Ukrainian countess, Balzac finally married his lover in Ukraine and the two traveled by carriage to Paris. The arduous journey on muddy spring roads lasted one month and took a toll on the writer's poor health. Balzac died in France just months later.
 
Today modern transportation expedites travel; a plane can take you from Ukraine to France in an hour. After already covering 6,200 miles on bicycles, my friend Ellery and I will travel even slower than Balzac, hoping to reach France in six weeks.
 
Many consider Ukraine to be the original home of the same Eastern Slavic peoples who migrated east and founded the Russian empire. For centuries, Ukraine was controlled by various European powers. In 1922, the country fell back into the Russian sphere of influence when it was incorporated into the Soviet Union. Ukraine gained independence in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed.
 
Today the cultural boundaries between Russia and Ukraine blend together seamless as tendrils of smoke fading into a bright sky. The Ukrainian language is so similar to Russian that I can ask strangers for directions and read restaurant menus. Ukrainian cuisine resembles Russian fare too. All Ukrainian cafes serve the Russian staple borscht, a soup of beets and potatoes. Borscht is commonly believed to be Russian, but the soup actually originated in Ukraine. Russia may be Ukraine's big brother, but like any sibling rivalry, the countries have influenced each other's identity regardless of whether they like to admit it.
 
Crossing from Russia into Ukraine, the first thing which strikes the traveler as different are the animals. Everywhere cows meander down country lanes, chickens peck at the roadside, and bearded billy goats munch grass outside of nearly every family home. Farm animals graze anywhere in Ukraine, appearing like the roaming vagabonds of the earth they once were.

If Ukraine were to choose a national bird, it would undoubtedly be the goose. The villages and waterways of eastern Ukraine are mined with fowl tempered geese. They roam in packs waddling to and fro like edgy jewel thieves pockets so stuffed full of riches they walk bowlegged. Rivalries emerge when two gangs of geese cross paths. They stick their necks out unnervingly and hiss like serpents.
 
I take a break from my bike one afternoon, and observe an aggressive gaggle. They swagger towards me and hiss. 
 
“Listen you,” I imagine them saying. 

“What are you doing on my turf with that stupid bike?” 
I back off right away.

We spend two days cycling on back roads to a more central highway that leads to Kiev, Ukraine's capital. Free range chickens scavenging for food near the road flutter away as I speed past and startle them. I wave at poor villagers harvesting crops in their gardens. Rural Ukraine looks like how I envision the Europe Balzac saw on his arduous trip to Paris.
 
Several days after entering Ukraine, my friend Ellery falls sick with flu symptoms. Luckily we arrive in the small town of Romny and find a hotel. He gets into bed as a fever overtakes him. 

While Ellery recovers, I explore Romny. The differences between here and Russia are subtle. A sign above Romny's post office reads 'Poshta' instead of "Pochta' the Russian word for post office. A borscht that I order in a small cafe is served 'Ukrainian style' with beans instead of beets. 
 
Some things never change. One sunny afternoon, I leave the hotel and sit outside on the sidewalk with a book enjoying the pleasant fall weather. Suddenly, an old woman sticks her head from the hotel door.
 
"Young man, come right back inside," she says commandingly. "You'll catch a death of cold sitting there."
 
A widely believed superstition persists in Russia, and Ukraine, that sitting upon the ground on your rear end causes sickness, and, even infertility. I have been reprimanded for this before. If Russians see foreigners sitting on a stone wall for example, even in the heat of summer, it is not uncommon for them to look at you in horror before offering you a newspaper to sit on for protection.
 
"Please," I beg in Russian, "it is so nice in the sun. I don't want to leave."
 
"But you'll get sick," the woman yells frustratedly, and, realizing the ignorant foreigner won't budge, retreats inside, and brings me a chair.

The following day, Ellery feels better and we decide to take it easy and do a short day. By mid-morning we realize that we took a wrong turn 25 miles out from Romny. Like Russia, some road signs in Ukraine are misplaced and can lead you in the wrong direction. We have no food, and the next town is 50 miles away. Not wanting to backtrack, we decide to push onwards.
 
Ukraine is often called the breadbasket of Europe. Fields of corn and wheat here fill flat land that resembles the American Midwest. We set off down a lonely road. Infinite dry stalks of corn basked in the autumnal light of early October cover flat plains that stretch before me like an interminable Illinois.
 
Ellery quickly grows weak trying to cover the long distance. He continually stops to rest, collapsing on the ground in exhaustion. I feel helpless while watching him lay there. Daylight quickly fades. We must hurry before night falls and it becomes too dangerous to ride on the pothole-riddled roads.
 
Continuing up a small hill, my chain suddenly breaks. I unload my bike and we fix the chain by inserting a spare link in it. The setting sun dips into the horizon. We are running out of time.
 
As twilight falls, we reach the town and check into an old Soviet hotel. Most hotels in the former Soviet Union were built during the communist era and they each look identical. Entering our room, the sight of concrete walls and two beds on either side of an imitation Afghan rug familiarly meets my eyes. The bathroom's shower, about the size of a telephone booth and equipped with a small hose to wash yourself, is the exact same type of shower I have cleaned up in from here to small towns in the Russian Far East near China. Soviet hotels stir a sense of familiarity within me now; like my parents farm house in Maine, I know just what to expect before entering.
 
The next day, we ride through Kiev and continue onwards. Soon, we will exit Ukraine and enter the European Union where better roads and more developed infrastructure await. 

 Leaving Kiev, a brutal headwind billows against us from across the plains slowing our progress. Balzac must have experienced the same anticipatory yearning for Western Europe I feel when he traversed these roads on a horse-drawn carriage. With each mile, we are nearing the European Union. Traveling towards the faster paced modern world at the speed of another century.

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.

Honalee, Sumeria, Shiraz, and Andalucia, they are distant places whose names tickle our curiosities. The very arrangement of letters on a map can signify exoticism. Often a delicious arrangement of syllables or particular resonance of a vocal chord seems to divide the Regina’s of the world from the Montreal’s, the Pittsburgh’s from the Prague’s.

Names can enchant us long before we understand the reality which alluring words describe. Each part of the earth possesses an individual history that adorns a city or region with architectural accoutrements that mark the passage of time and shape the lives of those who breathe life into them. It is this intrinsic quality of places, and those who inhabit them, that intrigues us initially.

Still, the names of some locales attract us more than others. Kazan, a city in western Russia, is one of those places.

Riding toward Kazan from the Ural Mountains, the earth becomes a series of steep hills that curve sharply like the arched backs of pilgrims praying before a prophet’s remains. On top of one, you can see for miles. Fields of golden wheat and groves of yellow-leafed birch trees undulate before me.

Cool fall weather, that magical time of year where one can work outside comfortably all day without breaking a sweat, overtakes the hill country on our first day of riding. But as late afternoon wanes, an Arctic cold front moves in, chasing the pleasant weather away like a rodent fleeing a starving cat. We camp in a field. I can feel the temperature plummet as I fall asleep.

By daybreak, it is near freezing. Heavy dew formed on my tent overnight. It is soaking wet. I pack it up with quivering fingers that quickly go numb in the raw cold. It feels like December. The beaming sun does not affect the temperature today. I wear a wool pullover and pants to stay warm on my bicycle.

Today, for the first time, we turn off the federal highway onto a secondary road for 200 miles that will lead us to Kazan quicker. We have never done this before. In Siberia, even the main roads were in such poor condition, we would never have tried this. But we are in Europe now. Our map suddenly abounds with a web of criss-crossing main roads that could save us time.

After several hours on this secondary road, I feel like I have returned to Siberia. There is no traffic. Large distances separate small towns. We are near areas of Russia with large fuel reserves. Occasionally, oil wells line the roadside.

We travel more than 100 miles to Celti, a small outpost of simple log cabin-style homes far from civilization. At a small cafe in town, we gorge ourselves on food. While finishing our meal, two older women who work in Celti’s town hall invite us to their table. They have been drinking heavily. A nearly empty vodka bottle sits between them.

“Our town is poor,” they tell us, “because there happens to be no oil in our district. There is no money here.”

That night we camp by the local police station. The cold front lifts overnight, gliding back to the frigid Arctic. Warm sunlight basks Celti in the luminous glow of Indian summer as we ride out of town the next day.

The road quality decreases as we continue. Giant potholes and cracked pavement destroy the vestiges of navigable road. We quit early in the afternoon and sleep in a small village. We already know the bad road will bring us to Kazan a day later than planned.

The next morning, pavement disappears entirely. The earth is sandy here. The passage of cars overtime has churned the dirt road into a fine dust resembling beach sand. Riding a road bike here is like driving a car downhill on an icy road. I fall frequently when I hit a deep patch of sand and slip. Oftentimes the sand is so deep I must stop and push my bike.

Towns on this road rarely have a post office or even a small store. People here grow crops, raise animals, and chop firewood to survive. In some villages old ways of life persist; in others, they seem abandoned. In a small village called Gorky, log cabins are boarded up, their dilapidated frames sinking into the foundations. A nearby mine, or whatever industry once brought people here, dried up. Only several families remain.

After Gorky, the road ends at a large river with a fierce current. There is no bridge. We must wait with cars and ferry across on an old barge. On the other side, we meet with a paved road leading to Kazan. That afternoon, we enter Tatarstan, an independent republic in Russia of the Tatar people, where Kazan is the capital city.

Kazan rests on the banks of the mighty Volga river, which for centuries has marked the point where eastern and western culture collides. The more than 10,000 Tatar people worldwide, over half of whom live in Russia, reflect this statement. Tatars descend from a mix of Turkic ethnic groups who settled along the Volga and in-termixed with Eastern European peoples long ago. Tatars were once nomadic, and, even today, significant Tatar communities exist as far away as Finland, China, Uzbekistan, and New York City.

More than 1,000 years ago, missionaries from the Middle East converted people along the Volga to Islam. Most Tatars today still practice Sunni Islam despite the Russian conquest of Kazan in the 16th century. The Islamic faith in Tatarstan evolved differently due to its distance from the Islamic world. Tatars have traditionally practiced tolerance for other religions and given Tatar women the same rights as men.

Riding into Tatarstan, the minarets of mosques, instead of Christian churches, rise from the centers of small Russian villages. I feel like I have been whisked away to Turkey.

Arriving in Kazan really feels like stepping into another country. Strolling toward the town center, the Kazan Kremlin, a walled citadel within the city based on the design of Moscow’s Kremlin, comes into view. The towers of the massive Kol Sharif Mosque rise from within the Kremlin’s white walls looking over the Volga like silent sentries. The Kazan Kremlin is a visual tour of the city’s diverse history; towering mosques stand between the colorful onion domes of Christian churches.

Tatarstan’s history follows a bumpy road of clashing empires and religions. The winding path of Tartar culture today ends in a vibrant Russian city where Muslims and Christians live peacefully together. Kazan’s diverse architecture represents how the past influences the present, and rushes forward into an exciting future. Walking through undeveloped Russian villages feels like just looking into the past. The future is uncertain there.

“Russia is at a juncture,” I think while walking along Kazan’s shaded alleyways, “The road I’m standing on seems to link the past and the future. Perhaps that is the answer to further developing Russia,” I think to myself smirking, “build better roads.”

I stop to rest by the water. Behind me, the call to prayer emanates from a mosque and echoes over the Volga. “This is Kazan,” I think. An interesting name on the map that for so long wordlessly enticed me to visit.

For a moment, I recall the beach sand road we traveled on to get here. Exotic sounding names can beckon one to travel to new and interesting places. But oftentimes, just getting there is the biggest adventure.