On the road in the taiga

As breakfast is included in the room rate, we sit in the breakfast room and eat the simple and unpretentious meal before setting off. Tanja eats buckwheat semolina and fried eggs. I, on the other hand, prefer blinis (pancakes). I heat them in the pan because of the microwave. In this case, unfortunately, not a particularly good idea either. The corpulent cook pours sunflower oil into the pan and before it has a chance to get hot she immediately throws the frozen blins on top. As a result, they are now dripping with fat and are undoubtedly inedible. Disgusted, I push the fatty flaps aside. To give my high-performance machine some food to burn off, I bake white bread in my tea. Better with a little sugar and milk than nothing at all.

Bureaucratism at the post office

Then we carry our belongings to the first floor as usual. While I get the bikes ready, tighten the screws that have become loose and carry out the odd small repair, Tanja goes to the post office. She wants to send home two kilos of equipment that we can’t use and a few picture CDs. Only after 1 ½ hours does it appear completely dissolved again. “Well, I was already worried. What happened?” I ask. “You can’t imagine that. The young woman at the post office initially didn’t know how to send a parcel to Germany. She first worked her way through several lists and checked whether it was even possible and what costs would be involved. Then I had to open the already packed parcel again. She wanted to see every single item. I then had to describe each individual item and write its weight on a list. In Cyrillic, of course, and in multiple copies. Then she wouldn’t let me go through the CDs. I had assured her that I would always send CDs to Germany. I then had to pack them in an extra envelope. But that wasn’t enough. I wrote a letter to your mother. I also had to put it in a specially labeled envelope. I then simply crumpled it up. She accepted it completely emotionlessly. I know I should have reacted more calmly. I was also sorry to crumple up the letter in front of her. Especially for your mom. But I just lost it. Among other things, this action perhaps saved me from further bureaucracy. She didn’t let up about the CDs, but in the end she didn’t ask any more questions. Finally, she put everything on the letter scales. It showed 3 grams too much. “Oh no”, I thought and moved it back and forth a little. Then it worked and the officer was satisfied.”

Villages that spring from an optical paradise

Because of the postal campaign, we will be late again. It’s 12:20 when our pedals are spinning and our bikes leave the small town of Tayshet behind them. There are still 655 kilometers to Irkutsk, a sign on the side of the road tells us. At the end of the village, we are greeted by potholes, gravel and a brutal 15% gradient that we have to push up. Trucks can only manage them with a long run-up. Some of them simply stop in the last third. Their huge wheels spin on the loose ground. The drivers carefully let their 38-ton trains roll back and try again. There is dust, stones and gravel are whirled up and with the last gasp they come up. I stand at the bottom and record the scenes with the film camera while Tanja, completely dusty, works her way up meter by meter next to one of the trucks.

Once we reach the top, one of the many forest cemeteries is on our left. In Siberia, it is apparently customary to bury the dead in the forest. Understandable, because there is only forest as far as the eye can see. All villages and small towns are surrounded by tree life. Like islands in an infinite ocean, the human settlements seem to float in a vast sea of forest. It must have looked like this here in Europe perhaps 1000 or 2000 years ago. Forest was the domain and man has pinched off a piece of living space from it. Unfortunately, the pinching turned into grabbing and we ended up putting our forests in a lot of trouble.

A small milk truck overtakes us in a village. As soon as he stops next to a wooden house, he honks briefly, whereupon some people come out with glass and plastic bottles to buy a few liters of milk. Russian tourists passing through on their way to Lake Baikal also stop briefly to fill an empty water bottle with some of it. Milk is drunk here with pleasure and as much as possible. I slow down my ride to take a few photos of the villagers. “Moschna fotografirowat?” (“May I take a photo?”) I ask politely. “Moschna”, (“they may”) the old people usually answer somewhat shyly. I tell them where we come from and where we are going. The ice is broken and many questions are asked. As far as I understand it, I answer every one of your questions. Tanja watches from a few meters away as she holds my bike. She is also included in the conversation without further ado. “Trudna Puteschestwiee?” (“Tedious journey?”) she is asked. “Oh, otschin trudna i otschin krasiwie. Russia Jeloweyeckiee otschin Charoscho”, “Oh, very laborious and very beautiful at the same time. Russian people are very good”) she replies with a laugh, to which the villagers also laugh heartily. We say goodbye to the friendly people and cycle on through the pretty village with its wooden houses, which look like something out of a fairy tale in the Siberian summer. Soon every little house or hut will look different. Many of them have become crooked from wind and weather. Most of them must be more than a hundred years old. The heavy snow in winter has literally bent and twisted their roofs. The walls are made of solid tree trunks. The slits between the trunks are sealed with moss. This prevents water, snow or cold wind from penetrating inside. Again and again we discover wooden huts that have been destroyed by fire. Without a doubt, the old dry wood burns well. It is heated with wood and is usually still cooked on a wood stove today. The daily use of open fires obviously takes its toll. Sometimes there is an ancient motorcycle in front of the door. Old farming equipment rusts in the yard. The fences around the houses, which are sometimes lovingly painted in blue, yellow and green, are also crooked and badly worn by the ravages of time. Some of the poor farmers own a horse, which is resting in the shade of a fruit tree. Everyone who lives here has a large supply of wood stacked up in front of the hut or in a shed for the winter that will soon be here again. Everyone knows that the Siberian summer is very short. Without exception, the inhabitants of the taiga are now forced to prepare for the cold that is sure to come. A large part of the energy goes into cutting wood, tilling the gardens, harvesting crops in good time, preserving fruit and vegetables, etc. The first night frosts occur again in August. In September, the thermometer will often fall below zero during the day. Now, with the glorious sunshine and temperatures of 30 degrees in the shade, it’s hard for me to imagine that this visual paradise will change. “But what should I be thinking about the coming winter at this hour? At the moment, the weather is perfect for cycling. At the moment we feel very comfortable here in the taiga despite the effort, the bad roads and the dust. It’s often the people that make a country. It is the hospitality, friendliness and openness of the people that turn a trip into a journey of the heart. The people play a major role in making a country unforgettable. To imprint it on your mind. They are responsible for the fact that a traveler may remember it positively for the rest of his life. That they speak positively of their stay. There is no doubt that most Siberians leave a lasting impression on their visitors. At least that is our experience so far. Perhaps it is also the positive wave of energy that we have been surfing for several years. Perhaps the saying “As you call into the forest, so it sounds out” also applies here.

Today, too, the asphalt alternates incessantly with gravel and grit. Some parts of the road are in such a bad condition that the passing cars rattle and clatter like crazy. The trailers and trailers of the trucks and articulated lorries groan, scrape and crash so that you could think they would break apart at any moment. Cars speeding past seem to be trying to fly over the potholes. A riding technique that may work but is extremely risky for everyone involved. For us, such kamikazes are a disaster because their frenzy causes stones to be hurled through the air at crazy speeds. It’s a good thing we wear Uvex helmets and our eyes are protected by shatterproof goggles.

My little steering wheel computer shows that I have covered 3211 meters in altitude since Krasnoyarsk. All in all, a considerable mountain up which we were now pushing our luggage. At the moment we are pushing again. The gradient is too extreme to be able to ride up our riese und müller. During the last 11,342 kilometers of our Trans-East expedition, we have never had to push so much and for so long. Although we have conquered the Swabian Alb in Germany, the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in Romania, the endless vineyards of Moldova and the foothills of the Ural Mountains in Kazakhstan, the South Siberian Mountains are a particular challenge here. Even if we are only in its foothills at the moment, we are constantly moving between 200 and 600 meters in altitude. However, it looks like a few meters of altitude are added every day, which suggests that the mountains around Irkutsk must indeed be much higher than here. Even before starting this cycle tour, I planned to avoid any hills as much as possible. One reason for the route along the Danube and the mighty Volga. Nevertheless, our Mother Earth is made up of mountain ranges, mountains and valleys. At some point, every traveler has to overcome the wrinkles, cracks, trenches and jags on the skin of our earth. Normally no problem, but I knew what a challenge it would be for us to move the documentation equipment up there using our own muscle power. But that is also part of the special charm of our trip. This is also a learning task for us, which we solve more and more calmly and joyfully every day.

The stony ground forces us to keep our bikes at an almost right angle. As soon as we put them at an angle while pushing, the tires lose their grip. This means even more effort and concentration for us. In the meantime, we have developed a real pushing technique. While I bend my left arm to a 90 degree angle, my elbow pressed against my chest and my hand against the left handlebar grip, I usually stretch my right arm and push against the right handlebar grip with my right hand. As the arm muscles are not overly strained in this way, both arms can exert a great deal of force over a longer period of time. I bend my body forwards and use all my strength to push the bike and hanger upwards. The leg work should not be disregarded, because without well-trained muscles, we would be exhausted after just a few meters. But this is how we actually get up each mountain bit by bit. So far at least.

There are no cafés on the rest of the route. Only villages whose houses huddle close to the road. Since the city of Kansk, traffic has slowed down considerably, as initially hoped. In places, we are now experiencing the Siberia of our imagination. Nevertheless, a certain amount of traffic remains with us. Sometimes, at certain times of the day, it even gets crowded and one truck follows another.

We stop for our belated lunch break at a roadside café at around 18:30. Strangely enough, it’s closed, although we can clearly hear the fridge humming through the wooden door. We sit down on the wooden steps of the house. Tanja unpacks a ready meal from Travellunch, pours hot water from the thermos over it and our tasty, energy-rich food is ready. “It’s a good thing there aren’t many mosquitoes here,” I say, enjoying my meal. “That’s right, it’s a fantastic place for a break,” Tanja replies, also concentrating on her food. Then we hear engine noises. A car stops next to the hut and spits out two women. They are the owners of the café. We clear the stairs so that they can enter their store. “Why don’t you stay seated,” they say kindly. “Funiba”, (thank you) we reply and sink back onto the stairs with tired bones. “Shall we have a cup of tea before we continue our journey?” I ask Tanja. “Why not,” she replies, already packing her kitchen bag. “Njet, Chai njeto jest”, (“No, there is no tea”) says the woman. I say goodbye and leave the store.

The seemingly endless forests glow in the late sunlight. Massive tree trunks tower their crowns into the steel-blue sky. Purple flowers line the path. It is 20:30 as we approach the small town of Alzamay. At the end of a hill, we recognize a large motel sign on the side of the road. An unusual sight for us. Motivated to finally reach today’s destination, we puff up the mountain in a good mood and let our little road trains roll into the dusty parking lot of their big brothers. “Hello, hello, where did you come from? What, that’s incredible. This is a nice place to rest,” say some travelers and friendly truck drivers. “Can we take a photo of her?” she asks excitedly. “Moschna”, (“May they”) we reply, pleased with the pleasant reception. The mood after the wonderful day is therefore perfect. It’s 8:50 pm and about 40 degrees in the sun. We lean our faithful companions against the wall of the motel and ask for accommodation. “Bes Problem” (“No problem”) says the nice woman behind her counter. We get a nice four-bed room at a price of 1760 roubles (40 euros). At 23:00, the day’s data is logged in the laptop. Hugging each other, Tanja and I then stroll into the restaurant next door, where we are served a tasty meal, without a microwave at our request.

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