A wonderful and interesting day of cycling!

We leave Bolshaya Chernigovka behind us with sunshine and a tailwind. Although we are already in the month of June, the thermometer shows only 11 degrees. Shivering, we put on our windstoppers and let the wind carry us towards Kazakhstan. As we almost always had a headwind on the last stage, we are in the best of moods under these ideal conditions. “Yay! Yay! That’s great! At last, the wind is our friend!” I shout jubilantly. It blows us along at over 20 km/h. Pedaling is hardly strenuous. We take the easy hills without too much trouble. The birds chirp, the frogs croak and there are hardly any cars here. So there is even less traffic than usual on Sunday. Suddenly a green jeep overtakes us. He stops in front of us. The doors fly open and four men in uniform jump out. Two of them are armed with Kalashnikovs. At first, my heart almost slips into my trouser pocket. We stop immediately, of course. Laughing, we explain where we come from. “Paper!” asks one of them. As he doesn’t put on an unfriendly face, my concerns disappear immediately. One of the uniformed men checks Tanja’s passport while the other looks at mine. Before I can show him where the visa is, he closes the document and hands it back to me. “Can we take a photo with you?” asks Tanja kindly. The men look at each other in surprise at first, but then nod in amusement. They line up to my left and right while Tanja presses the shutter release. Then they wish us a good and safe journey, jump back into their jeep and speed off.

The road is suddenly in perfect condition. Our wheels purr over the new surface. Construction machinery appears to the left and right. Earth is moved by large bulldozers while oversized trucks haul it away. The men in their machines honk or wave at us. Others shout: “Have a good trip! Go on! Go on! Good luck!” As always, we feel spurred on by the motivating calls. In the meantime, we know that the Russians find the sight of our bikes downright fantastic, which is why the positive feedback from the population is nothing unusual for us.

The Russian border

The wind carried us to an altitude of about 190 meters today. We have thus reached the highest point since the Black and Azov Seas. Then comes the best thing a cyclist could wish for. The brand new road slopes leisurely downwards. We fly on the dark earth pitch through a dreamlike, flower-covered, lonely steppe landscape. There is nothing to be seen of people here, far and wide. We haven’t passed a village for 50 kilometers. Without a doubt, cycling is perfection. In a wide valley, in the middle of the endless green of infinity, a few little houses have gathered under the cloudy sky. “That must be the Russian border!” I shout. When we arrive at the bottom, we rush past waiting trucks and cars. In fact, it doesn’t go any further here. “It’s by far the loneliest border post of the last 7,000 kilometers,” I say, leaning my bike against a small house where a man in uniform is sitting. We hand him our passes through the slit in the window. He wants to know something. “Unfortunately, we don’t understand much Russian,” we reply. “Where is the number of your vehicles,” he then explains, speaking slowly. “They’re just bicycles. They don’t have a number,” we reply. “Please wait,” he says and reaches for the phone. “Obviously they haven’t had any or very few cyclists here yet,” says Tanja. “Looks like it,” I reply, zipping up my jacket as the cold wind makes me shiver. About 10 minutes later, the officer waves us back in. He takes the passports, takes another look and hands them back to us. Then he opens a barrier and we are allowed to pass before the waiting cars and trucks. “Customs are already waiting for us up ahead,” I guess, pointing at the men who are looking at us curiously. “Do you have anything to declare?” one of them asks, not unkindly. “No, we’re coming here from Germany on our bikes. It’s a long way,” we answer simply because it seems sensible to draw the customs officers’ attention to our journey in such circumstances. “From Germany?” the man asks, genuinely puzzled, to which we nod our heads vigorously and list the countries we are traveling to one after the other. We are immediately waved on. “Please hand in your passports there for stamping,” he says and wishes us a safe onward journey to Burma.

We push our heavily laden road trains to the aforementioned hut. People stand in front of it and wait. “Where are you from?” they ask, visibly surprised, when we have told the inquisitive people our story as usual. “You should travel via Afghanistan,” suggests a fat man with bare feet in his slippers in this cold weather. “Afghanistan? No thanks. It’s far too dangerous,” I reply, and as I imitate gunfire, the assembled crowd laughs in unison. “It’s not dangerous, certainly not for you. The only problem will be getting your heavy bikes over the passes. But we can organize that. We’ll just load them onto a truck. It’s better for you anyway,” I understand. “No, no, we want to make it with our own muscle power,” I reply, to which he laughs loudly and violently and his oversized belly arches up and down over his trouser belt like a mega wave. “We’ve heard that there are lots of Gastinizas on the other side of the border. Is that true?” I change the subject. “There’s nothing there. You can only spend the night again in Uralsk. But surely you have a tent with you?” we were startled by his answer, as the Chechen we had met raved about the many accommodations along the way. Tanja and I look at each other. “Looks like a long day,” she says. “That’s true, but the wind is at our back. With its help, we can easily make it.” “Yes, if it keeps blowing like this, we’ll make the next 50 kilometers in less than three hours,” she agrees.

We get really cold while we wait. We put on a fleece and a cap. “I hope the coming winter won’t be like the current summer,” I think to myself. Then the window opens and the man in the little house grabs our passports. The window closes again immediately. No wonder, the official probably doesn’t want to give us the warmth in his hut. “Tock! Tock!”, we hear. “The stamp sounds good,” says Tanja. “Yes,” I reply. Then the window opens again and the hand holds out the precious passports to us again.

To Kazakhstan

“Have a good journey,” the Russian guard wishes us and opens the barrier that opens the way to the Kazakh border. We pedal our super bikes back up out of the 40-meter-deep depression towards a country that largely belongs to Central Asia and is bordered to the north by Russia, to the east by China, to the south by Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and to the west by the Caspian Sea and Russia. With an area of 2,717,300 square kilometers, it is about 7.6 times the size of Germany, making it the largest state in Central Asia. With its almost 3,000 kilometers in length and 1,600 kilometers in width, we have a huge country ahead of us, which we want to explore for about 2,000 to 2,500 kilometers before leaving it again for Russia in the direction of Lake Baikal in about three months. “If you consider that there are only around 15 million people living in Kazakhstan, i.e. only 5.6 inhabitants per km², whereas here at home 235 inhabitants have to squeeze into one km², we’ll probably meet very few people!” I shout to Tanja, who is cycling close behind me. “Is the population figure of 82 million in Germany still correct?” she wants to know. “Maybe there are a few less, but that’s about right!” “I can hardly believe that we’ll soon be crossing the border between Europe and Asia with our heavily laden bikes,” I say. “Remember how some critics predicted before we started our trans-East expedition”; “You’ll never make it with that luggage!” I shout. “Yes, or the woman with us in training!”; “We’ll stab you, rob you and bury you,” Tanja replies, “And now, in a kilometer, we’ll be entering another foreign country,” I end our conversation.

A strange but not unpleasant feeling creeps up on me. We’ve already made it this far. Soon a third of the planned route. “Yes! Yes! Yes! Asia is coming! We’re going to make it, and with the equipment to document this fantastic journey while we’re still there,” I cheer cautiously, because I don’t know what’s waiting for us up ahead.

Trucks and cars wait in front of a barrier again. “Have a good trip! Good luck! Keep up the good work!”, some drivers motivate us from their windows. We raise our hands in greeting. They are people of the former nomadic and equestrian people, some of whom have Mongolian facial features. As with the Russians, a barrier stops us here too. Tanja holds my bike while I go to the little house where a man in uniform is sitting. “Dobre Djen, (good day) I say and hand the gentleman our passports. “Please wait”, he replies kindly when he realizes that I am German. “What license plates do your bikes have?” he wants to know, just like his Russian colleague earlier. “They’re bicycles. They don’t have numbers,” I reply politely. The young man with his large service cap reaches for the phone. Again he talks to a superior about how he should behave in this rare case. His face also has Asian features. “Is he a Kazakh? Or does he belong to the Russian, Ukrainian, Uzbek or perhaps even the Tatar race? I have no idea. He’s certainly not German. Although about 300,000 live in Kazakhstan,” I think, observing him unobtrusively. He definitely speaks Russian into the phone. As far as I have read, Kazakh is the official language, a Turkic language that is only spoken by around 40 percent of the population, while over three quarters of the inhabitants speak Russian.

Suddenly the guard leaves his little house, opens the barrier and, to our disappointment, allows a large coach to drive inside the border station. Then he closes the barrier again while we stand in the cold wind and freeze. It takes about 20 minutes until the guard’s phone rings and he is instructed to open the iron pipe in front of us again. “Mr. Denis!” his voice makes me look up in surprise. “Please, you can come in with your wife,” we understand as he waves us over. We get our passes back and cycle about 100 meters to another house. We return them there. The man checks our visa, takes out the emigration card and presses his stamp on the visa. “We wish them a safe and pleasant journey in our country,” he says with an encouraging smile. “Thank you, very kind,” we reply and push our bikes to the next station. “Where are they coming from? Where are you going? Do they have anything to declare?” a tall man who is almost certainly a customs officer wants to know. We answer dutifully and are told to park our bikes next to a staircase. Then the customs officer, who also looks Asian, gets a few papers for us to fill in. Baffled, I only see Cyrillic characters. Although we can read most of them, we still don’t know what they mean. “Come with me,” he says, pointing to a large, stone-built house when he realizes we’re having trouble with the document. “I’ll stick to the bikes,” Tanja replies. “No problem here,” says the officer. Tanja, however, is not persuaded and is allowed to look after our bikes while I follow the man into the house. There I am allowed to sit on an old couch and fill out the customs declarations. But as I am now looking at the papers even more awkwardly than a few minutes ago, a Kazakh helps me. Now the customs officer is here again and the three of us manage to put our two video cameras, cameras, cell phones, satellite phones, laptops and the amount of cash on paper. Satisfied, the customs officer takes the papers, hands them to his colleague in another little house and wishes us a safe journey. We say thank you and push our bikes to the exit of the border station. This time a friendly-looking guard opens the barrier for us and before we know it we are actually in Kazakhstan without having been checked once. “Let someone say that Russian and Kazakh officials are unfriendly,” says Tanja. “Yes, amazingly friendly actually,” I agree with her. “But we can’t change any money here,” says Tanja. “Yes, the Chechen was probably never here. It looks like he only wanted to gain our sympathy with his information,” I reply.

There are no words of explanation for this!

Still in a good mood, we pedal upwards out of the valley. The road is brand new and leads us straight as a die in a south-easterly direction. Yellow flowers grow to the left and right. From what I have read, two-thirds of the country is covered by deserts and semi-deserts, including rock, salt and sand deserts. Here, however, the landscape is more like a fertile green steppe. “What animals are there here?” Tanja wants to know. “Caracal, wild cat, red fox, steppe and tiger iltis, badger, otter and a remarkable ungulate, the saiga antelope,” I remember. “It would be great to see an antelope like that,” says Tanja. “Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky.”

Suddenly a car pulls up next to us. Three men, two of them in police uniform, get out and are visibly pleased to see us. While one of them speaks to me in Russian and keeps trying to invite us to his house, the other policeman unpacks 1,000 tenge and hands it to Tanja. “I can’t accept that,” she says in amazement. “Yes, absolutely. Please accept it and buy yourselves something to eat,” the man replies with a laugh. Tanja’s repeated attempts to give him the money back fail, which is why we are now suddenly and completely out of the blue. Own Kazakh money. After a while, the men drive on laughing while we continue our journey. “How much is 1,000 tenge?” asks Tanja. “I think between five and six euros,” I reply. “Unbelievable.” “That’s right. If the people are like the first impression, then the Kazakhs must be indescribably friendly,” I say.

Barely five kilometers later, one of the rare cars roars past us. It turns in front of us, comes towards us and stops. Two men and a woman wave to us from the windows. We are stopping. The three of them get out immediately and greet us as if we were stars. They already know our route from the border. As always, they are amazed. Then they bid us a warm farewell and drive off. Barely a minute passes when they come back and stop next to us again. “Please take,” they say with a laugh and hold out a bag of 20 eggs, a small pot of sour cream and a pound of butter. “But we can’t accept that,” we try to decline in a friendly manner. “Yes, yes, you have to accept that. It’s all fresh produce from the land. Please take it. You must have room in your cool box,” says the Kazakh, laughing out loud. “That’s not a fridge, it’s a box in which we transport our tent and other equipment,” I explain to him. “All the better. Please pack it up,” he asks us again. When I open the box, there are a few slits where the butter and cream can be stored. Tanja gives me a plastic bag to divide up the eggs. We hope to be able to return 10 of them. “Absolutely not. You’ll take them too,” they say. “But they might break,” I reply, pointing to two that are already cracked. Still laughing, the Kazakh grabs the two eggs and throws them in a high arc into the ditch. Then he gives me the second bag of eggs and puts them in the hanger. It is therefore impossible to refuse. “Please take,” says the indescribably friendly woman and puts an additional 1,000 tenge in Tanja’s hand. “But…” Tanja wants to refuse. “But nothing, please take it. Please buy something to eat for it,” she recommends, also laughing. “This is Kazakhstan,” says the other man, delighted with the situation. Then they wish us a safe journey and disappear into the horizon with their Audi. “What can you say to that?” says Tanja. “There’s nothing more you can say,” I reply, completely dumbfounded.

We get back on our steeds and let the heavenly wind carry us along until another car stops. The man puts his small child on the trunk and asks him to wave at us. We stop. Once again, we tell our story to astonished eyes. We take a few photos, wish each other a good and safe journey and continue our trip to a country that has already left us speechless in the first few moments. After about 90 kilometers, we stop in the lee of a rusty bus stop to replenish our dwindling energy levels with a Rapunzel muesli bar, then we continue on our way.

After 105 kilometers, we reach the outskirts of the city of Uralsk, which is home to almost 200,000 people. “Look over there!” I shout, pointing to a pretty terraced housing estate that is just being built. “And this is supposed to be a poor country?” wonders Tanja. “I don’t know either. The road up to here is perfect. Most of the cars are VW, Audi, Mercedes and some expensive Japanese brands and the roadsides are very clean. Maybe that’s because we’re on a border road here. In any case, I can’t make sense of it at the moment. I think that the urban population has more money than the people in the countryside. That will soon be the case all over the world. We’ll see what the future brings,” I say.

The twins Maxim and Roman

We reach one of the road posts that are also found in Russia on every entry and exit road of the cities. A policeman watches us approach. Suddenly he raises his dreaded stick and orders us to stop. “Where from? Where to?” are his questions. We answer. He laughs and is happy. “There’s a gastiniza not far from here. Have a good rest and a pleasant journey through our country,” he says, waving after us. We reach Uralsk on a wide road. We have to stop at the first set of traffic lights. The window of a car next to us opens. “Where from? Where to?” We answer. When the light turns green, the car stops right in front of us. Two young men get out and ask if they can help us. “My God! What kind of friendly people are these?” I wonder quietly and can’t believe what we’re experiencing. “Are you looking for a Gastiniza? Then please follow us. We’ll drive ahead and show you the way,” we hear and can’t stop wondering. Two kilometers later, we stop at the roadside and one of the two young men visits the Gastiniza to ask us how much an overnight stay costs, while the other chats with us. He speaks a little English, which makes communication a little easier. In the meantime, a few children gather around our bikes and whisper devoutly. They point to the thick bags and the modern bike technology and whisper excitedly to each other. When the young man called Roman tells them that we are from Germany, the excitement is great.

“The room costs around 55 euros,” says Maxim, Roman’s twin brother, after he returns to us. “Wow, that’s pretty expensive. Is there anything cheaper here?” I want to know. “It will probably be even more expensive in the city center. These prices are normal here in the city. We would recommend you stay. Unless you want to go further, then we’ll probably find something else,” says Maxim. After almost 112 kilometers for the day, we are relatively exhausted despite the tailwind. Now that the sun is quite low at about 19:00, it’s only about 9 degrees. We freeze and decide to stay. Tired but happy, we push our riese und müller across the busy street to the Gastiniza.

“No, you’re not allowed to store the bikes in our building,” says the woman at reception firmly. Tanja and I look at each other, sobered. “What now?” asks Tanja. “I have no idea. We can’t stay under these circumstances.” Maxim begins to discuss with the woman. “The two of them are from Germany. They’ve been allowed to leave their bikes in every country all this way, but not here. That can’t be right. Think of the advertising your house will have. Don’t be so harsh and let the bikes in. They’re just bicycles. They can stand here in the hallway without a problem. They don’t bother anyone,” he says. “No, my boss definitely doesn’t like that. He’ll only punish me. I can’t allow it. But we have a guarded parking lot opposite, they can go in there,” she recommends. “Is that safe?” doubts Tanja. “Who knows. I’ll have a look at it,” I say. “Nothing is guaranteed to happen to your bikes. The site is manned by two guards 24 hours a day. You can rely on that,” Roman reassures us. In fact, the parking lot and the guards make a respectable impression and we decide to stay here after all. While Tanja carries the equipment into the Gastiniza, I get the bikes ready. Suddenly a man in thick leather clothes comes up to me and says in perfect German: “Apparently there are more crazy people!” “I don’t believe it! A German? Where are you from?” I ask. Oh, I’m on my motorcycle,” he replies, pointing to a large, dust-encrusted BMW with a fully loaded sidecar. “There were originally three of us. One gave up, the other one’s bike broke down 1,500 kilometers ago and I’m the survivor,” he replies. I look at him in amazement. He then explains that he has only been traveling for a month and has covered the route through Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Russia and still wants to. “A bit much for such a short time?” I ask. “Yes, we made a huge mistake. I wanted to be home by the weekend. But now it’s going to take a week longer,” he explains. Then we arrange to have dinner together later and now to take a shower and relax a little. Maxim and his brother Roman help me bring the bikes to the parking lot and chain them to an iron fence. As we don’t have enough Kazakh money to pay the guestinitsa and the woman at reception will only let us check in if we pay in advance, the two nice brothers exchange their tenge for Russian roubles. Then they say goodbye to us. “If you need help, please call one of the two numbers,” Maxim says and hands me a business card. Then they are gone.

Tired, I sneak into our small room. We take a shower and go to the in-house restaurant. “I should see where the motorcyclist is,” I say and get up. The woman at reception tells me his room number. As I stand in front of it, I hear soft snoring coming through the slit in the door. “And where is he?” Tanja wants to know. “Dirk apparently had a busy day too. He’s asleep, I say, sit down and ravenously pounce on dinner.

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