How privileged we are!

At 7:00 a.m. we hurry out of the mosquito-infested Schwitzburg. It’s a chilly 19 degrees outside. We quickly leave the unsightly little mining town behind us. We stop for a few photos on the outskirts of the city. “Hey! Hey! Heiiii!” shouts reach us. “One! Two! Three!”, the numbers shouted in German now echo over to us because we don’t react. We look up and see a house about two hundred meters from the road. A man jumps up and down behind the fence and waves excitedly at us while a dog chained to a post runs in circles barking wildly. We return the wave. “Tea? Do you want tea?” the wind carries the invitation to us. “No thanks, we have to keep going!” we reply. Then the man opens the gate in the fence and rushes across the stubbly field. We wait until he has reached us. “You’re from Germany?” he asks, out of breath. “Yes, by bike,” we reply. As usual, he reacts with complete astonishment. He then reports that hundreds of thousands of Volga Germans lived in the entire region. “They all moved to Germany,” he explains. “Here’s some cheese. It’s homemade and very good,” he says and hands Tanja a bag of rolls about three centimetres long and two centimetres thick, which do indeed taste delicious. We say thank you and Tanja stows the gift in her handlebar bag. “If you want to go on to Siberia, you have to be careful. No good people live there. Plocho tam”, (Bad there) he says, making a serious face. “Thanks for the warning,” we reply and say goodbye.

With the champion at your back, you ride over good asphalt with wind speeds of up to 28 KMH. Light cloud cover refreshes us with shade at regular intervals. A rider drives his sheep across the road. He raises his hand in greeting. Every now and then, a lonely, half-ruined hut huddles by the roadside. A weathered sign indicates that something to eat is on offer there. Because there is no electricity and therefore no fridge, we ask ourselves whether the food available there is even edible? Although we feel hungry, we are driven on by our common sense. After 50 kilometers we reach the outermost border of the village of Bogetsay. This time we stop at the ruined steppe rest stop. An old power cable dangles from a pole and leads under the rusty tin roof of the hut, which has been eaten away by the ravages of time. “There’s electricity,” I say succinctly, leaning my Roadtrain against the wall of the house. With a few truck drivers, we are not the only guests. Only sausages, fried eggs, white bread and tea are offered. We skip the fatty sausages and fill our stomachs with the rest. “Do they have a well?” I ask so that we can replenish our water supplies. The woman shows me a few dented buckets with water in them. “Doesn’t look good,” says Tanja. “I’ll walk around the house, maybe I’ll find the fountain,” I say and set off. Garbage, construction waste, old tires, animal waste, human excrement, a rusty pile of metal that used to be a car and many other things scare my eyes. “There’s a lot of stuff lying around, but I couldn’t find a well. I don’t know where they get the water for the tea,” I say, which is why we stock up on expensive mineral water.

Our journey continues, past poor villages. Many of the huts appear to be abandoned. A half-dried-up river meanders through one of the settlements. Women wash the laundry in the dirty water. Cows wander around, trudging through the mud not far from the washerwomen. The small gardens around the houses are all fenced in with rusty pieces of scrap metal and old wood. The sight is shocking and the poverty cries out to heaven. Children play in the river or race after us on their rickety bikes. We stop and contemplate the apocalypse. An ancient Lada rattles through a ford in the river, snorts up the embankment and comes to a clattering halt next to us. “Where did you come from?” the driver wonders, shaking his head incessantly and marveling at the bikes. “The Germans have great technology,” he says to his wife, who has remained seated in the car and smiles mildly at us. “Well then, have a good and safe journey,” he says, blowing a plume of alcohol towards me. He shakes my hand goodbye, climbs into his squeaky box and rattles away with a spitting exhaust. “I can’t imagine the conditions under which people have to live,” I mused quietly. “That’s right, the people who are born here hardly ever have the chance to leave their environment,” Tanja also says quietly. “How privileged we are! Thank you so much for that!” I suddenly shout into the sky.

A bird’s eye view of the world

Despite the miserable sight of the villages, we don’t let it spoil our mood and as soon as the settlements are behind us, the endless steppe spreads out before us in its unique beauty. We feel the wild freedom on our bikes. We feel like explorers, discoverers of unknown lands and also nooks and crannies of our own souls. We have a lot of time to think and ponder and are aware of what a luxury it is not to have to spend our lives in one of these places, but to be able to look at them with the eyes of a bird and then, if we don’t like it, to fly on. It’s like a beautiful dream to be able to lead the life of a nomad. To move on and on, to settle only briefly wherever the wind, thoughts and emotions take you. Such a life is never boring. On the contrary, we need some rest from time to time to digest everything we have experienced, encountered and seen. But even this point in time cannot be determined in advance. Hardly anything happens on this journey according to our sole will. We let ourselves drift, drift from adventure to adventure. Every plan that we have carefully thought out is simply swept away by the unforeseen. We let it happen. We are content with what Mother Earth offers us at any given moment. So far it has always been good, not always as desired but good. Even today, we are told to let our sprockets crank longer than we would like. As far as our eyes can see, there is not a single tree behind which we can pitch our tent. So we drive on even though we’ve been tired for a long time.

Missing rows of trees

We still don’t want to set up camp for the night within sight of the road. Not that we are worried that the Kazakhs might attack us, but there are still a lot of people in the country who drink out of frustration or desire. Drunk people are not always pleasant anywhere on earth. We also had some bad experiences with them when traveling. We want to avoid a repetition at all costs. So we kick our bucks up the next hill and let them slide back down into the valley on the other side, always on the lookout for a suitable place to camp for the night. “It looks like a row of trees up ahead!” I shout with relief after we’ve been on the road for over eight hours and 100 kilometers again today. In fact, the row of trees turns out to be usable. Trees have been planted in three rows next to the road. Behind the third row, we are invisible to drivers. We wait a moment until there are no vehicles to be seen, turn around again to avoid being spotted by any shepherds and let our bikes bump down the embankment into the tall grass. Then, in a great effort, we push our weight on wheels over mounds of earth, excavator tracks, past thick branches and bushes until we stop to catch our breath just before collapsing behind the first row of trees. “There’s a car coming!” warns Tanja. I immediately push my 130 kilograms further and slip through the second row of trees with all my equipment. Tanja puffs after me. Birds are startled and leave their nests. An eagle circles overhead, sending its bright warning call into the sky. “Come on, we can still do it!” I motivate and push my Interconinental through a small gap in the third row of trees. “No one can see us here anymore,” I breathe out in relief. We lean the load trains against a tree and look out over the treeless prairie that opens up before us. Storm clouds gather on the horizon. Lightning flashes through them from time to time. Light thunder rumbles over to us. Hills sweep through the grassland in harmonious arcs. Insects buzz by the thousands. As soon as we come to rest, tiny little mosquitoes pounce on us. They bite for all they’re worth due to the thunderstorm atmosphere. We immediately spray ourselves with Jaico anti-mosquito milk. Then I search the uneven ground for a suitable spot for our tent. It takes me a while to find a place where we can both lie reasonably straight. We kick the tall grass flat, lay a sheet over it and erect our tent. As it’s only about 27 degrees today, we don’t have to sweat as much at work as usual. Tanja quickly puts the sleeping mats and sleeping bags in our fabric dwelling while I look for a place to write down our day’s experiences. The tasks are routinely distributed between us so that there is no unnecessary absenteeism. Although it stays light until after 10 p.m., we must have eaten, done our work and saved ourselves from the increasing mosquito attacks in the tent.

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!