All gone! All dead! Died of tuberculosis!

A terribly loud cockcrow rouses me from a deep sleep. “How can there be a rooster here in the steppe, far away from any civilization?” I think to myself. The rooster screams again, this time even louder than before. Only now do I remember that Tanja thought it would be a good idea to use her cell phone, which has no function in the steppe, as an alarm clock and set a rooster as a wake-up call. We both get up and look at each other as if we’re exhausted. “Another 15 minutes?” Tanja says quietly. “Another 15 minutes,” I reply and sink back onto the sleeping mat. As soon as I close my eyes, this horrible bird screams at me again. We shoot up again. This time we decide not to give in to our tiredness and are already on our bikes an hour later. At 5:15 a.m., the master is still asleep. There is almost no wind. The first faint rays of sunshine are hiding behind a thick cloud front. We are making good progress. After 30 kilometers we can make out a settlement at the end of the road. “Looks big,” says Tanja. “Yes,” I answer curtly. When we reach the town a little later, like many others it looks like an abandoned and dilapidated ghost town. We ask a truck driver who is taking a break at the side of the road. “Is there a steppe rest stop in the village?” “Ha! Ha! Ha! A rest stop? I haven’t seen one for 300 kilometers,” we are sobered by his strange fit of amusement. “Is there a rest stop up ahead?” he asks, pointing in the direction we came from. “Ha! Ha! Ha! A rest stop? We haven’t seen one for 300 kilometers,” we reply. “Ha! Ha! Ha! It’s all steppe. I’m getting hungry,” he replies. “What do you think? We’re ravenous too. We have to supply our machines with energy,” we reply, pointing to our thighs and now we have to laugh together at the unconventional comedy of the situation. “Is there a magazine in this town?” I want to know. “I don’t know, but I saw a café about 30 kilometers away. You might be able to get something there,” he suggests. We say thank you and drive on.

We stop in front of the village entrance and think: “And if there’s no magazine, we’ll drive in for nothing,” I ponder. “We don’t have much to lose,” Tanja replies. While we are still undecided, an old jeep rattles up to us. After the usual exchange of conversation, we learn that there is a magazine after all. “I’ll drive ahead of you,” the man kindly offers. “That’s it,” he says a few hundred meters further on, pointing to a dilapidated residential building. I have to take my shoes off in front of the house, only then can I enter. I walk through a neat and tidy little anteroom. A washbasin cabinet with a small water container behind the mirror is used for washing hands and face. A clean towel hangs on the hook next to it. The next small room looks like a toy store. A girl about 12 years old shyly shows me her wares. There is quiet giggling in the next room. Again and again I hear the word tourist and German. Although there is not much space for the goods, I get everything we need. I even manage to get hold of a few fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, which guarantee us a wonderful snack for lunch today. I say goodbye to the girl and step outside again.

An old Lada comes coughing up. Five men, who are much older than their car, get out. They give us the impression that they have just stepped out of a puppet theater. An approximately 70-year-old man hobbles hectically towards us, leaning on a stick. As he begins to fire off his questions, he is constantly interrupted by another face covered in large warts. “It’s not an engine, he explained,” interjects another passenger, who is up to his ears in dungarees that have been patched in various places and are at least as old as the Lada. “Oh no, that’s an engine.” “No, no, it’s not an engine.” “And yet it is,” he insists, pointing incessantly at the crude oil hub. “I have two daughters in Germany,” an old, grey-haired man interjects, looking at me with importance. “That’s very nice,” I reply. “The road is broken, by the way. You’ll have a hard time there. It’s all torn up. Only gravel and clay for at least 20 kilometers,” interrupts the man with the many warts on his face. “Yes, and then it doesn’t get much better. A strip of holes all the way to Kustanai,” says the man in his dungarees. “Oh look. It looks so bad here. You don’t have anything like this in Germany. Why are you coming here? It’s not nice,” says the man with his crutches, forgetting the engine of our bike. “The people in Kazakhstan are very nice. That’s what matters,” we reply. “Oh no. Look at this village. It’s fallen apart. All gone. All dead. Died of tuberculosis. And? What is the president doing about it? Nothing at all! Look how the villages are all collapsing and the cities are getting richer,” he rages, waving his stick in the air. “Come on now! Come on!” shout his friends, who are back in the rickety Lada and want to get going. We say goodbye to the old men and leave the miserable village.

A few hundred meters behind the settlement, a roadblock blocks the onward journey. We push our bikes around the outside and decide to continue on the brand new tarred road as usual. At least until he stops too. After about five kilometers, the comfortable asphalt strip ends in a mound of earth. I climb over it to see what it looks like on the other side. “Nothing but clay and gravel!” I shout to Tanja. “Come on, let’s use the space to have our lunch. At least it’s sheltered from the wind behind the earth wall,” I suggest. So we spread out our tarpaulin in the middle of the road and use the rest of the tarpaulin as our table.

After a tasty but simple meal, we continue for 30 kilometers on clay and gravel roads. Then we reach another stretch of potholed asphalt. It is exactly as the old men predicted. We are not deterred and pedal ahead on our bikes. Always towards the town of Kustanai, where we will hopefully be able to rest for a few days. On the way we pass the rest stop that the funny truck driver had recommended to us. It is closed. As we’ve had a good meal first, we don’t mind. Then, towards evening, after almost 100 kilometers, we reach a small village. At the petrol station on the outskirts we ask if there is a gastiniza in the village. “There isn’t one. The nearest Gastiniza is 77 kilometers from here,” explains the elderly lady sitting behind a window secured with iron bars.

It’s suddenly very warm again. We are both exhausted and tired. “Why don’t you ask if we can pitch our tent behind the petrol station?” I suggest. “Do you think that’s a good idea?” “Well, look at the landscape. It’s as flat as a board. Not a tree for miles. For the last 100 kilometers there wasn’t a single opportunity to pitch a tent without it being visible from the road. Where should we go? I think it’s still best here,” I say with conviction. A jeep stops next to us while we deliberate. A nice man greets us. He is the owner of the gas station. “But you are welcome to pitch your tent here,” he says. “Is it safe. I mean, do people steal here?” I want to know. The man looks at us thoughtfully. Then he tells us to wait a moment and drives off. For the time being, we sit down in the shade behind the petrol station. “What do you think? Will he ask his wife?” says Tanja, stretching tiredly on the grass. “You think he wants to organize a place for us to stay?” “Well, maybe. Why else would he go away?” “Hm, to be honest, I’d rather we could hole up in our tent. I just don’t have the energy to communicate anymore,” I groan. “Do you mean me? I could fall asleep on the spot,” Tanja replies. “How’s your tendon? Does it hurt?” “It’s fine. It’s swollen but I’ll get it under control again,” Tanja replies as the jeep reappears. A man called Nurlan introduces himself and tells us to follow the jeep with the wheels. We immediately get back into the saddles and pedal after the vehicle. As expected, the village makes a good impression on us. The houses are old but well maintained. Even the larger buildings do not look like a ghost town. We stop in front of a two-story house. In the garden, the lawn is mowed with a sickle. A neat fence surrounds the building. “They can stay here tonight,” says Nurlan and leads me into the building. I can hardly believe my eyes when I enter a clean room measuring around 50 square meters. There is a seating area in the corner, otherwise there is no furniture. Nurlan opens the door to an adjoining room. “Is that good for you?” he wants to know. “But yes. Perfect. Better than most of the Gastinzas we’ve stayed in over the last few weeks,” I say enthusiastically, looking into a room that has also been cleaned and in which there are only a few chairs and a table. “We can spread out our sleeping mats here,” I suggest and go back to Tanja to tell her about our lucky strike.

As we carry the first items of equipment into the room, two workers from next door put two beds in the room so that we don’t even need our sleeping mats. “You can take your bikes to the vestibule. They are safe there. The outhouse is outside. If you want to wash yourselves, you’ll find a water tank in front of the house. It’s clean water. You can also drink it,” explains Nurlan, a man who seems like an angel to us at this moment. “How much does the room cost?” I want to know. “Well, it doesn’t cost anything. Make yourselves at home. You are our guests. This is a community center and is not being used tonight,” he explains.

Before the petrol station owner and Nurlan leave us alone again, we give them each a cigar that we have brought from Germany for such occasions. Because cigars are something special here, they don’t want to accept them at first. However, we insist and thank you very much. Then they get back into their jeep and disappear. We can hardly believe it. Just a moment ago we were on the street and wanted to pitch our tent behind the village petrol station and now we are sitting here in a clean community center and are better accommodated than in most places. I let my tired body sink into one of the armchairs in the large anteroom, unpack my laptop and write these lines. The sun is leaning towards the horizon and casts its glowing red light through the window. A rider brings his horses from the pasture and a boy drives his sheep past not far from the window. “It’s strange where fate leads the traveler,” I think aloud and rejoice in life and this wonderful journey.

Dear reader of our diary!!!

We are happy to write down our experiences here. We are happy to share our experiences with you. However, our journey also has a meaning for us, a deeper meaning. We no longer expose ourselves to such efforts just for the pleasure of it. We have experienced too much for that. Of course, our motivation is still to experience peoples, cultures, their customs and traditions. We are still exploring the unknown corners of our mother earth with an unquenched thirst for knowledge. It gives us energy and purpose in life. However, despite all the positives, we have also experienced many of the downsides of human civilization. We have seen with our own eyes a tremendous amount of human suffering and environmental destruction. It hurts us as if a knife were penetrating deep into our own skin. Our life project “The Great Journey” has taken on a different dimension for us for years now. During the trip, during our travel life, we also want to do something to balance things out. Giving something back to the troubled planet. Not out of selfishness or gratification or self-aggrandizement, but to really do something sustainable. To do something for us humans. For our children. So that they too can breathe fresh air tomorrow. So that they too can play in the sandpit in the open air and swim in clean rivers. We wish all beings on this wonderful, fantastic planet a future worth living. So we urge you to plant at least one tree a month for the Green Vein. You can find more information on our website. (One tree 5,- Euro) We can’t do it alone. We don’t have the financial means. Not yet. Only together can we make a difference. Our motivation lies not only in knowing that our texts are currently read by between 40,000 and 50,000 (forty thousand and fifty thousand) people a month. Our motivation is to work together to create something sustainable for our human future. Together means together with all of you. That’s why we write, that’s why you can read the texts without any financial investment. So we ask for a donation to the mountain forest project. A project that works without profit. A project we have been looking for years to give our name to. A project we trust. We ask you to donate trees. Trees that give us air to breathe. Habitat for insects and birds. Living space for the earth’s population in future years. The donations do not benefit us financially in the slightest. Everything you give goes to Mother Earth!!! We guarantee this with our life project and our name.

Donations are very welcome at:
Bergwaldprojekt e.V.
Keyword:Green vein
GLS Community Bank
SORT CODE 43060967
Account number 8022916200

Mother Earth is alive!

We look forward to your comments!