The beggar woman and another surprise!

We spend the day packing our equipment. Because the nuns have invited us to eat with them several times, I go to the dining room at lunchtime. “Very good. Hm, really good,” I praise an old toothless nun who places another plate of rice vegetable soup in front of me and smiles kindly at me. For the main course, I satisfy my cycling cravings with bread, mashed potatoes and delicious fish. “Where’s your wife?” asks one of the nuns at a table behind me. “She’s already eaten and is packing our equipment,” I reply as a woman opens the door to the dining room, stops in the doorway, crosses herself vigorously and begins to pray. I pour myself a second cup of tea and indulge in a home-baked cake, which a kitchen nun keeps offering me with the words “Kuscht! Kuschet” (“Eat! Eat it!”). I notice that the woman is still standing in the doorway and continues to cross herself incessantly. “Strange,” I think, watching her out of the corner of my eye. The nuns around me seem to completely ignore the visitor. Only now do I notice the poor condition of her thick winter clothes. “No doubt about it. The woman is a beggar and tries to soften the nuns with her prayers.” I look around in amazement, but none of those present makes any effort to give the beggar woman something to eat. Suddenly the cake sticks in my throat and I’ve lost my appetite. I realize how unfair the world can be sometimes. While I have the opportunity to quell my hunger with a delicious Travellunch in our basement room, go out for a meal in one of the nearby restaurants or let myself be pampered here in the monastery, the woman stands there and is obviously starving. Strange, one person gets everything while another, for whatever reason, has to beg.

Five minutes later, the beggar woman is given half a loaf of bread by the kitchen maid. She thanks me and as she is about to leave I jump up, tell the nuns present that I will be right back and leave the dining room with the poor woman. “One moment please,” I ask them to wait here and hurry into our basement rooms. “Quick Tanja. There’s a woman waiting outside who’s hungry. Gather all the food we have,” I call out. A little later, I sprint back up the stairs with a bag full of goodies, run across the monastery courtyard and hand the woman about 5 kilograms of high-quality food. “Give me some money,” she says, holding out her hand without looking in the bag. “You’ve got several days’ worth of good food here,” I reply, a little bewildered. “Give me some money,” she says a little bossily without smiling or showing her gratitude. “No,” I reply apologetically. As I make my way back to the dining room, she runs after me with open hands and asks me again to give her roubles. I sat down at the table with the nuns again. None of them noticed why I was gone. I sip my cup of tea thoughtfully and in those seconds I realize why the nuns reacted so coolly. From time to time, beggars manage to get into the monastery courtyard, which is sealed off from the outside. They obviously know their way around and head for the dining room. If it were to become common practice for every beggar in Krasnoyarsk to be cared for here, it would have fatal consequences for such a small monastery. It would never be able to feed all the needy people in a city of millions. Disillusioned, I return to our catacombs. Tanja is not there. A few minutes later, she comes running down the steep stairs. “Where have you been?” I ask. “Oh, I gave the beggar woman the rest of our food. Oil, cookies, curd; kefir but she wanted more.” “Yes, I know. That woman probably wouldn’t have been satisfied with anything.”

In the late afternoon, a news team from the Krasnoyarsk television station comes to the monastery. We give an interview and report on our experiences. “How did you know about us?” Tanja asks. “Katya told us about you. Of course we’re interested. It’s not every day that we have cyclists riding from Germany to Siberia,” says the editor. No sooner have we answered all the questions than we have to move on again. Katya tries to get another registration for us. As we are here for more than three days, the law requires us to register. Unfortunately, the relevant police stations are closed at the weekend. Today, Monday, is a public holiday, so the police station is closed again. “We only have one option left and that’s the post office,” says Tanja, as we have found out that we can also register there. Unfortunately, the post office also refuses to give us a registration. “Well, let’s just go to the airport without registering,” I say resolutely. “Not a good idea. As far as I know, the penalties are now very high. You might even be denied entry next time despite a fine. You need to register,” warns Katya. “But what if we can’t get a registration? The authorities must at least give you the opportunity to get such a stamp,” I grumble. “The officials at the airport don’t care. Don’t forget. You’re here in Russia. Everything works a bit differently there,” we hear, which is why we shake our heads in disbelief.

Shortly before closing time, at 7 p.m., we reach a post office in another part of the city which actually gives us the important stamp for a fee of 300 roubles (8.60 euros). Motivated, we use the rest of the evening to chat in a café when Jenya’s cell phone rings again. “So, was it the matron again?” I ask as a joke. “Yes.” “What, really? What’s going on now?” I want to know. “You can’t leave your equipment and trailers in the monastery after all. She’s afraid someone might steal your things from the cellar. She doesn’t want to take responsibility. She is an old woman. “Who knows if I’ll still be alive when the two of them come back,” she has just said,” reports Jenya. “And that eight hours before departure? Well, she could have told us that beforehand. Where are we supposed to store our luggage at this late hour?” I soon ask, somewhat exasperated. “My place. I’ll pick everything up tonight. We’ll put it on my bus and then I’ll keep it in my apartment until you’re back in Krasnoyarsk,” Jenya offers, saving the delicate situation.

Since everything that happens in life makes sense, even if we don’t want to accept it at the moment of the low blow, the mishap, the accident or even the illness, we have learned that it is better and easier to take things as they come. Who knows? Maybe our material in the monastery cellar really isn’t safe? At least anyone can get into the monastery courtyard if they really want to. There is also no key to lock the door to the guest rooms in the basement. What good is it that the headmistress only told us a few hours before our departure that we couldn’t store our equipment in the monastery after all? Well, we can leave our valuable belongings with Jenja and don’t have to store them in a hotel. That would probably have been expensive and it certainly wouldn’t have been safe in an anonymous hotel where nobody knows us.

We are repeatedly made aware of how important it is to accept the course of life as it is. Our entire trip has shown it again. It was not unusual for us to be delighted by the various strokes of luck. Luck that can also be called providence. It was a fantastic trip from start to finish. A journey that led us safely thousands of kilometers through dry, lonely steppe landscapes, which took us over beautiful hilly landscapes to the densely forested Siberia. She brought us closer to the way of thinking and living of the Kazakhs and Russians. People whose hospitality, helpfulness and warmth of heart soon became legendary.

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