Close the bow

With a heavy heart we have to realize that there is no road to Samara. The police officers were definitely wrong. “How far is it to Samara?” I ask some men in front of the gastinitsa. “650 kilometers,” they reply. “This time the information might even be correct,” I say to Tanja. We swing into the saddle in autumn weather. Today the road leads us straight north for 40 kilometers. Of course the wind has turned again and is blowing at us with full force. Obviously, he is the big test for me. The test of acceptance and tolerance. Somehow I have the feeling that it will blow towards us until I allow it from the innermost part of my being.

We follow a single-track line. A passing freight train blows its horn. The driver waves to us from the window of his cab. We wave back happily. Even according to the map, there is only one opportunity to buy food and groceries every 100 kilometers in this region. There is no doubt that the country is sparsely populated. No wonder that Tsarina Catherine the Second settled this steppe from 1763 to 1767 with settlers from Bavaria, Baden, Hesse, the Palatinate and the Rhineland in order to cultivate this steppe region. Obviously, at least the cultivation of the land has worked, because large areas have been converted into vast agricultural land.

Despite the fields, Siberia inevitably announces itself. A country where there will only be a few Gastinizas left. But there is still time until then. First of all, we are happy when we reach Samara. The road is terribly bad in places. Our bikes bump over the cracked, churned-up asphalt. Roads like those in Moldova are also commonplace off the main routes in Russia. Thank goodness we have suspension wheels. They absorb some of the eternal knocks and blows. It is an indescribable strain on the material and almost a miracle how our cameras and laptops hold out. Above all, the frame of our riese und müller has to prove whether it will get us to our destination without breaking. The thought of a rigid frame without any suspension makes my hair stand on end. Must be an endless strain on the joints and intervertebral discs. So we bump along the road. After 40 kilometers, it branches off to the west in an extreme bend. Suddenly the wind pushes us forward. “Hooray! I’ll be happy about this for as long as I ride my bike. I already know that today!” I shout.

In the early afternoon we reach our destination for today, the small town of Staraja Poltawka. The villages, like the roads, seem to be getting poorer and poorer. Some of the houses are made of wood. Nothing here is comparable to the region around the Black and Azov Seas. Many of the side streets are not asphalted. The only gastiniza is, as usual, simple and very run-down. Only the Deluxe room has hot water for showering. It ripples out of the pipe. Standing in the rickety bathtub in which the enamel has dissolved over the last 50 years, I let the warm blessing drip down my back.

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