Tailwind , desolation and garbage

It poured with rain all night. It’s even more uncomfortable than before in our run-down double east block deluxe apartment. When we wake up, it stops raining. Strong winds sweep around the prefabricated building. “I hope we don’t have him against us,” says Tanja sleepily. “I hope so too,” I reply taciturnly. Then we do our daily stretching and back exercises. We have breakfast in the room. We have the delicious tea from Sonnentor, which we cycle with in our bags, and cookies that we bought yesterday. Tanja devours a Rapunzel muesli.

After we have brought all our luggage downstairs, including our bikes and trailers, we are greeted by an unpleasantly cold and wet weather. Even before we load the bikes, we put on our windbreakers. As I still wear shorts today, I protect my knees with knee warmers. They are an excellent temporary solution in this changeable weather. “Let’s go,” I shout, and we drive our horses out of the ugly city. Just a hundred meters further on, two young men come towards us. They look at us seriously and with interest. The taller one with a bloodied nose. The night of drinking probably ended in a violent brawl. The two are a frightening sight and prompt us to leave this settlement behind us even more quickly. Thank goodness the strong wind blows at our backs and the half-ruined blocks of flats and houses quickly become smaller in our rear-view mirrors. Dark clouds gather over the land. The sun peeps through from time to time. It doesn’t take long and the blue holes in the clouds get bigger and bigger. The day gains warmth. The constant wind stays with us and drives the bikes over the rough asphalt at a fantastic 20 to 30 kilometers per hour. We feel like surfers on the sea, except that we don’t have the sails.

Desolation and garbage

We pass seemingly endless harvested fields. Dark earth stretches to the horizon. Interrupted only by the crumbling ruins of former collective farms. A lonely shepherd drives his cattle through the ruins. My legs are spinning. I turn the crank and let the strange and sad picture glide past, only to be transported to a new version of a similar picture. I look at my thighs, look at the constantly repeating landscape. My thoughts begin to move. Inspired by the monotony and the many crumbling houses and farm ruins. What has politics done here? The effects of Stalin’s rigorous implementation of collectivization, which began in 1928, can still be seen today. I read that forced collectivization led to the biggest agricultural revolution in history. Six tenths of all farms and around eleven million people fell victim to it. At that time, 242,000 collective farms were formed from 18.8 million farms with 117 million hectares of arable land. The farmer himself was only left with a residential building. He was not allowed to keep more than 0.3 hectares of garden land and a small number of farm animals. This system led to considerable supply crises for the population as early as 1950. Even the subsequent merging of the collective farms in order to mechanize them as far as possible did not bring any improvement. Communism failed miserably and did not make life easy for the generations who lived back then. In Romania, people told us: “See for yourself what communism has brought us. Everything is ruined. We have lost at least 40 to 50 years. You, on the other hand, with your free market economy, were able to develop. No obstacles were put in your way. We still need decades to reach your standards. And if we had had the same conditions, we would have come just as far. We are just as hard-working as you. We are no more stupid. It was just this terrible system that prevented us from progressing until today.”

My eyes continue to glide across the plain. The smell of urine wafts from a demolished bus stop on the side of the road. Then again the concrete slabs and stone walls that rise accusingly from the earth. Everything is left to its own devices. Most roads, even here on the beautiful Crimean peninsula, have been lined with garbage for thousands of kilometers. Everything is thrown away. Bottles, plastic, plastic bags and other garbage. Even in some fields, the stuff is simply plowed into the ground. Does this also have something to do with communism? Why do people throw away everything they can no longer use? Just like that. From the car, as a pedestrian, from the bike, moped, from the bus, everyone throws everything away here. Oil change on the road. Washing a car in a river. factories discharge untreated and unfiltered waste water into the water veins. A nightmare for our Mother Earth. And it’s not just a nightmare for our planet, but for people themselves. A nightmare made by human hands. It’s hard to believe that people who produce such enormous amounts of waste and drop it right where they are, love their country. It’s a real tragedy and almost makes you despair a little. Why do people throw everything they no longer need into nature and even onto their fields? “Of the 100 problems we have here in Ukraine, 99 remain unsolved. The politicians only think about themselves, their power and how they can get the people on their side. It’s about a functioning healthcare system, work for everyone, an apartment and, of course, a nice car. That’s what people want. They don’t think about environmental protection. That comes last. It’s down to education. It’s down to parents showing their children how to throw garbage out of the car. That’s where we need to start to get our country clean,” a young businesswoman from Kiev tells us.

Sergei from Siberia

On the straight stretch of road, we are met by a cyclist wearing a helmet. We are surprised to find an obvious long-distance cyclist here. We stop immediately. “Hello, my name is Sergei and I come from Siberia,” the agile man, who is around fifty years old, introduces himself. “From Siberia? Did you cycle all the way here from Siberia?” I ask curiously. “No, no. I started in Kerch and want to circumnavigate Crimea. I have a total of 21 days,” he explains. “Can I take your picture?” “Of course,” we answer enthusiastically. Sergei lays his bike on its side and rummages everything he owns out of his saddlebags. Then, at the very end, he finds his camera. We pose for a picture in a strong and cold wind. “If you come to Siberia, I would like to invite you. When will you be there?” he wants to know. “No idea. We don’t know what will happen to us on the long road to get there. We’ve given up making schedules and letting it put us under pressure. We’ll call you when we get there,” I say. Sergei, who also served as a major in East Germany, wants to know more about our trip. But as we are soaked with sweat and standing in the wind, we start to freeze and want to continue. Sergei has the misfortune of having to cycle against the wind today. That’s why he’s dressed warmer than we are. To explain, I have to say that the person who rides with the wind and cycles at approximately the same speed as the wind believes he is in a vacuum. You get the feeling that there is a complete calm. Only when you stop do you immediately feel the cold of the wind. Sergei understands. We say goodbye and wish each other good health, happiness and a constant tailwind.

After 55 kilometers, we take our first break today at a petrol station. One of the red and blue catering tents is also here. We get to sit down and eat one of Travellunch’s delicious ready meals. The young landlord turns his stereo up so loud that our eardrums hurt. In Ukraine, people love to have terribly loud, mostly Western music blaring out of the often oversized loudspeakers everywhere and at every opportunity. Tanja asks the 20-year-old for leniency, whereupon he turns the knob down a little.

After a record-breaking 90 kilometers, we reach our destination for today, the town of Dzhankoi. At a petrol station we ask where the hotel is located. “There are four hotels in our city. I can recommend two of them. One is fine and you’d better avoid the rooms in the city center,” we understand. At the bus station they offer us a booth for 40 ? the night. “And what’s it like there?” asks Tanja when I return from my exploratory walk. “The woman must have invented the word ‘unfriendly’,” I reply. We stop next to our bikes for a while to get advice. More and more locals come and ask where from and where to. We answer dutifully until two drunks start screwing around on our bikes. Without causing any trouble, we give them a friendly smile and say goodbye. “Go to the Hotel Woksall”, we hear more and more often now. An hour later we arrive at the station. “That’s where the Woksall is,” a woman points to a building. “Didn’t the gas station attendant tell us to avoid the hotel here?” I ask. “He did,” says Tanja. “A good opportunity to learn Russian. I didn’t know that Woksall means train station,” I joke. While Tanja lugs the equipment up to the second floor as usual and I unload the bikes and lock them in the luggage room of the accommodation, a 60-year-old prostitute comes on to me. “Oh, you’re from Germany. That’s really nice. I love Germany. And I love the men from there too,” I hear from her wrinkled mouth with its fiery red make-up. Because I don’t know what to say in response, I just smile sheepishly and carry on looking at the bikes. This seems to motivate the old lady with her water-blonde mane. “You’re a nice guy. I love meeting someone from Germany,” I hear. “Düsseldorf, Cologne, Berlin, please, yes”, she lavishes her German language skills when Tanja appears, thank goodness. The corpulent woman with her jingling chains looks at Tanja. “Your wife?” “Yes, my wife,” I reply with relief.

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