Monastery as a stage destination

On what we expect to be the last day of stage two, it rains non-stop. At eight degrees plus, it’s not very cold. The traffic is simply awful, as befits a city of millions. Fish and schnapps vendors stand by the roadside under simple shelters. They offer their goods. Sometimes the shashlik, which is popular in Russia, is also grilled. Smoke rises from the individual grill stations. Hungry drivers stand under a plastic tarpaulin and eat their shashlik. They also wave to us. We cycle carefully through the foggy soup. Here we are only a few kilometers away from the Volga. Is that why it’s so terribly wet again? The edge of the carriageway, especially the white verge, is slippery as hell. “Just make sure you don’t slip on it!” I shout to Tanja to drown out the traffic noise. We have to pay attention to our emotions over the last few kilometers. We don’t want them to slip through our fingers just before the finish and make a mistake out of sheer exuberance. Despite the bad weather, we speed along at the edge of the traffic flow in high spirits. I could cheer in one go and shout my joy to the heavens. Cold, rain, traffic, it doesn’t matter to us anymore. Suddenly, the town sign of Samara emerges from the wall of fog. The lettering is displayed in meter-sized white letters on a huge wall. “We’re here!” I shout. “Yes, we made it!” I hear Tanja’s voice.

“Let’s go to the other side of the road. We can take our arrival photo there at the petrol station under the cover of the roof,” I suggest. Then we set up the tripod, attach our Leica to it, press the shutter release and laugh happily into the flash. The gas station attendant watches us and laughs too. Then it’s off into the city. We follow the Armenian’s hand-drawn map of our last accommodation and reach the Iwerekiie monastery without any incidents. It is located directly on the Volga not far from the old city center. A few passing children help us to push the bikes over the threshold of the wooden gate and suddenly we have really arrived where we wanted to go. Because it is a women’s monastery, Tanja sets off to report our arrival. I stand in the rain in joyful anticipation and clean the dirt off my bags. Because today is the worst day of rain on this stage, our bikes are covered in dirt. While I’m cleaning, a couple of nuns come by and ask where we’re from. I answer. None of them seem to have ever heard of us. I’m starting to get cold. Then I stop cleaning. It could be that we have to move on and everything gets dirty again. Besides, my fingers soon freeze off. To keep warm, I start walking up and down.

Finally, after half an hour, Tanja comes back. “I haven’t achieved anything. No one knows,” I don’t think I’m hearing it right. Disappointment is about to spread through me. Then the thought of a nice warm hotel room comes to mind. Actually not so bad either. I would prefer to stay here and let our journey come to an end in such a tranquil place, but if it has to be any other way? At this moment, a monk accompanied by a nun and a man dressed in civilian clothes walks past. “Do you speak English?” the man in civilian clothes wants to know. “Yes,” I answer happily and explain that we are friends of the Marta si Maria monastery in Moldova. “A cousin of a nun in Moldova is a singer here. We’ve been invited to stay here to organize our flight home and leave a few things here,” I explain. The man immediately translates. A short conversation begins. “Please wait a moment. We’ll find out if you can stay and where we can put you up,” says the man, who is about 40 years old and has a long gray beard and braid. “What religion do you belong to?” the priest suddenly wants to know. “We are Protestants.” “Protestants?” he says and closes his eyes. Tanja and I look at each other. It looks like he doesn’t like Martin Luther very much. “Please follow the nun and the two gentlemen,” says the man, pointing to an elderly nun dressed in black and two young men standing next to Tanja. I find out that Tanja has already spoken to the two men in search of a responsible person. One is called Michael and is a photographer and the other is a wood carver called Maxim. While Tanja looks after our bikes, the nun shows me a simple room with two beds and a bunk bed. “You can stay there,” translates Michael, who also speaks good English. Then she shows me where we can store the bikes and trailers. Maxim and Michael help us bring the equipment to the nuns’ house.

“When you’re ready, we’d like to welcome you to the dining room,” we and Michael are invited to eat by the nun. Meanwhile, Maxim says goodbye to us because he is currently carving a pew. It looks like we arrived here at just the right time. Again, we can hardly believe our luck. A moment ago we were soaking wet and freezing on the street, in a foreign Russian city, and now we are sitting in a warm dining room with other nuns from the convent and an English-speaking photographer. So we have a roof over our heads, something warm to eat and a translator. “Hurray! Simply fantastic how Fortuna is playing us here. But it probably has nothing to do with luck and everything to do with the wave of energy we’re surfing at the moment. A wave of positive energy. A wave that unites us with ‘all that is’,” I say quietly to Tanja.

Hungry, we eat with the nuns and sisters, just as we did in the Moldavian monastery, and are happy to finally not have food from the microwave in our stomachs. There is a real bortsch with fish and cream, mashed potatoes and baked fish. Served with fresh milk. Afterwards, we devour pound cake with honey and small pieces of fruit cake. All very tasty again. During the banquet, we learn from Michael that today is his first time in the monastery. “I was just looking at my friend Maxim’s carvings. I’m supposed to photograph them for his website next week,” he explains quietly, because you’re not allowed to talk much in the monastery while you’re eating.

“If you want, I can drive you to a ticket office in my car after lunch,” Michael offers us. “You must have fallen from the sky to help us at the right time,” I joke. “It gives me great pleasure to be able to help such interesting people like you. It’s not every day that you meet cyclists who ride here from Germany,” he replies with a grin.

A little later, we find ourselves in a large office. None of those present speak a word of English. Michael asks around and it doesn’t take long before we’re sitting in front of the right woman. We reserve two return flight tickets from Samara to Nuremberg. Tomorrow the resolute lady behind her desk will find out whether Lufthansa is transporting our bikes, how much they cost and whether they need to be packed. “I’ll call here in the morning and sort it out for you,” says our angel.

Back at the monastery, I shower off all our equipment, the trailers and the bikes, which are completely soiled by the rain, in the bathtub and get them ready for transportation. In the evening we sit in our simple but clean room and wonder what fantastic experiences today has brought. At 9 p.m. there is a knock on the door. A nun called Katja stands in front of it and hands us a kettle, a fine blend of tea and a delicious bar of chocolate. “Please come in,” says Tanja, thanking us warmly for the gifts. Katja joins us at the small table and asks us lots of interesting questions. We tell her part of our story and she listens in amazement. Then she has to go. “Please come to my room tomorrow. I’d like to invite you in for a cup of tea and cake,” she says shyly and says goodbye.

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