The decision is taken from us!

At 6:00 a.m. there is a knock on the window. “Who’s that?” asks Tanja, snapped out of her deep sleep. “I think the staff will be back,” I reply and hurry to the front door to open it. It’s pitch dark outside and a cold wind is blowing into the house with a handful of people. “Dobre utra” (good morning) is how I greet the four women and two men. “Dobre utra”, they reply. As it only gets light at 7:30 a.m., I use the time to lie down for a while. However, it doesn’t take long for the hustle and bustle in the house to become hectic and loud. We pack everything together. The clothes and the tent are dry. Then we have breakfast soup with rice, a few cookies and tea. “You don’t want to go out, do you?” asks Tanja because I’m taking my time eating. “That’s right, and Mariinsk is only 80 kilometers from here. According to the map, there are few mountains on this route. We should easily make it. So there’s no need to rush,” I reply, sipping my cup of tea with relish.

We don’t push our bikes out of the service station yard until 9:30 am. At around two degrees above zero and in light rain, we wave to the hospitable people hanging around the window and watching our departure. Two mechanics, who are trying to get a generator engine going with the fire of a Bunsen burner, also raise their hands to the gray, wet sky. We swing our legs over the saddle and step into the seemingly endless, contourless wall of cloud. It only takes a few moments and the house behind us has disappeared. The road is getting noticeably worse. We pass a miserable village. A man steers his horse-drawn cart past with hay piled up on the loading area. He slowly returns our greeting. Suddenly the asphalt stops and is replaced by water-filled potholes, mud and dirt. Cars and trucks are often forced to drive at walking pace. “Ha, ha, ha. Where are you going?” asks the driver of a minibus, amused. “To Burma!” we shout. “Shall I take you all the way to Mariinsk? I have plenty of room on the loading area.” “No thanks. We want to cover the whole distance under our own steam,” I reply, whereupon the man accelerates and disappears from our field of vision.

We steer our bikes in serpentines and zigzags past the roughest mud holes. Once again, we have an unforeseen challenge ahead of us. All of a sudden, my thoughts start to spiral again. “Will we be able to master the mountains, which are up to 900 meters high and are supposed to intertwine along the entire route from Krasnoyarsk to Irkutsk? Will we have enough time? Or will winter catch us there?” No sooner have these questions popped into my head than I’m already annoyed with myself for dawdling this morning. If the road stays this bad, we’ll never make it to Mariinsk today. That means another night in a wet tent. “At least we’re not alone,” I say. “What do you mean?” Tanja snorts close behind me. “Well, we get to share our camp for the night with an endless number of snails.” “Ha, ha, very funny,” I hear. As my thoughts continue to take on a life of their own, I ask for peace in my head. “Please dear Mother Earth, please All That Is, help me to stop my thoughts. Help me to make the right decision where and when to end this stage. Please send me a clear sign when and where we should stop. But please without pain and above all unspectacularly. It should be an unmistakable sign and an end that doesn’t harm us in any way,” I pray and suddenly I feel a certain calm return to my active brain

I stop there at the front. I have to put on my winter gloves. Apart from that, I’ll try to capture this wet world here on film,” I say and pull out my Magura. While I dig my gloves out of the saddlebag, Tanja continues slowly so as not to get cold. I quickly swing myself into the saddle and pedal after her as my brakes suddenly start to scrape. “What’s that?” I curse quietly, stop and try to find the cause of the error. Because I don’t notice anything, I turn the adjusting screw on the brake lever to slightly increase the distance between the brake shoes and the rim. That helps. I swing myself back into the saddle to follow Tanja when suddenly there is an unspectacular crack and I feel as if something has pushed me. I look behind me in amazement and see my trailer standing all alone on the road. “Oh no! That can’t be good!” I shout, brake and turn. I park my sumo bike next to the trailer. When my gaze falls on the broken coupling piece, I freeze for a moment. “Not again,” it goes through my head. I put my bike on the stand and wave to Tanja. She understands and comes back. “What’s wrong?” she asks when she reaches me. “The connection between the trailer and the wheel is broken,” I say as if in shock. “What?” “The connection between the hanger and the wheel is broken,” I repeat. “Not again.” “I’m amazed the roads here seem to break everything. Anyway, that’s it.” “What’s that?” asks Tanja a little uncertainly. “Well, this is the end of our journey. We can’t get a single meter further. It looks like we now need transportation to Mariinsk. From there we have to see how we can get to Krasnoyarsk. There’s an airport there that we can use for our flight home,” I explain and am amazed at how relaxed I feel.

“You mean we really can’t repair this damage?” “We could do it. We’d have to have another replacement part sent from Germany. But that would take at least 10 days. We know that.” “Will the time be tight?” “Yes. Then we’re already at the end of September. We’ll never have enough time to reach Irkutsk. Firstly, it will be too cold and secondly, our visa will expire,” I mused, hearing my own voice as if I were standing outside my body. “All right, then. So be it. Even though I was prepared to drive through this fog soup for another six weeks, I accept this end. Somehow I have the feeling that the break didn’t happen by chance,” says Tanja and I look at her intensely. “What’s wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?” “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve had a motivation problem for days and am struggling with the wet and cold. I even communicated with Mother Earth again. But I didn’t want to tell you because it was about the old topic of letting things flow, living in the moment and trust. Thought I had actually understood it. Still the same old story. Well, about half an hour ago I asked Mother Earth for an unspectacular sign. A sign that tells me when and where we should end this stage. And? Just a little later, this one. Amazing coincidence, isn’t it?” “Coincidence?” Tanja wonders aloud. “Well, that’s the question. In any case, it’s exactly how I wanted it to be. Clear, unspectacular and painless for us and everyone involved.” “Yes, it is indeed. Well, let’s take it easy and try to stop a car. It’s not the end of our journey, just the end of this stage. We’ll continue next year. The only difference is that the cycling stage will be a bit longer. I like it better anyway. Then we can enjoy Siberia better,” says Tanja, also amazingly cool for such an abrupt end.

I unload my tripod from the luggage rack, set it up on the other side of the road, lock the camera onto it and walk back to Tanja and the bikes. “Now!”, I shout and release the camera shutter with the radio-controlled remote control. Despite the realization that we are here by divine providence rather than chance, we find it difficult to laugh into the camera. Finally, I give an interview into the movie camera. Then we pack everything up again and think about how to get out of here. “Cars don’t do us any good,” says Tanja. “That’s right. We need a van. I don’t think it makes sense to stop the big road trains. They’re probably always full,” I say. “Too bad we didn’t take up the offer of the van,” Tanja reflects. “That’s a shame,” I say, pacing up and down to avoid getting even colder. Tanja also jumps from one foot to the other to keep warm. There is little traffic on the road here. All the minibuses and trucks meandering through the strip of holes are either full or have an open loading area. We’ve been standing in the rainy Siberian pampas for 40 minutes now and are getting colder and colder despite the movement. “Do we have to pitch a tent here?” I ask myself. “There’s still enough time to find a suitable ride,” Tanja replies.

Sergei the angel on wheels! Suddenly a convoy arrives. Four huge road trains with trailers thunder past. Tanja and I raise our hands in greeting. The drivers wave back in a friendly manner and honk their horns as their heavy machines roll past us. The fourth of them stops unexpectedly. “He’s stopping because of us!” I say a little incredulously. “Yes. Look at the driver waving. I think you should come to him,” says Tanja. I hurry off immediately. The passenger window of the large driver’s cab goes down electrically. “Do you need help?” the man asks. “Yes. We’ve broken down and can’t get another meter,” I reply. The driver climbs out of his cab and inspects the damage. “Bolshoi problem,” he agrees. Can they take us to Mariinsk?” I ask cautiously. “But yes! Bes problem!”, (No problem) he says, downright delighted. Now everything happens in no time at all. Although Sergei is very slim, he has the strength of a bear. As if my 50-kilogram trailer had wings, we lift the thing onto the huge loading area. Only minutes later, all our belongings are stowed in the belly of the road train, which could easily move five houses at once. We climb up the stairs into the high driver’s cab of the truck. As soon as we are seated, Sergei steps on the gas. In the rear-view mirror, the place where we had just been standing and freezing becomes smaller until it disappears. Tanja and I can hardly believe our luck. Sergei seems to be a very nice man. He chats and talks incessantly. “We don’t speak Russian very well. You have to speak slowly,” we say, but he doesn’t let this slow down his narrative flow. “So you want to go to Mariinsk?” he then asks. “Yes, we are. Where are you going?” I ask. I’m coming from Novosibirsk. I delivered a whole load of chicks there and am now heading back to Krasnoyarsk,” he explains. “Krasnoyarsk? Today?” “Yes.” You’re still going to Krasnoyarsk today?” “Yes, to Krasnoyarsk.” Tanja and I give each other a hopeful look. “Uh, is it possible to go there with you?” I ask cautiously. “But of course. It’s a pleasure to take you to Krasnoyarsk!” he shouts, which is why Tanja and I can no longer stay in our seats. “Yes, yes! Yes! Fantastic! Hooray!” we shout, jumping up and down. “Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!”, laughs our angel on wheels Sergei. “You were pretty cold out there, weren’t you?” “Yes, it was getting uncomfortable,” says Tanja. “I could see from afar that you were cold. I thought the poor woman was standing there in the puddles and freezing. I just had to stop and ask what you were doing out in the middle of the wilderness by the side of the road in this awful weather,” he explains.

All the windows in the cabin fog up because of the wet clothes. Sergei switches on the ventilation and whenever we take off an item of clothing because we’re getting too warm, he laughs heartily and is delighted. After cycling almost 11,000 kilometers through many countries in the East and having become very familiar with the sight of the great kings of the road, we still can’t quite believe we’re sitting in one of these cabs ourselves. “A fantastic view from up here,” laughs Tanja freely. “Yes, you can see a lot and far,” confirms Sergei, steering with one hand and opening a soft drink bottle with the other. Suddenly the cap falls off the bottle between Sergei’s feet. When he bends down during the ride and looks for it, we feel queasy for a moment. “How long have you been a truck driver?” I ask. “Oh, for 30 years,” he replies, closing the bottle again. Sergei is undoubtedly capable of multitasking. While he steers his big machine over the bad road and talks to us, he talks on his cell phone, looks for notes from a shelf, writes his phone number on them and warns his colleagues about speed cameras and police stations via CB radio. I sweat a little at first. Think about having come this far only to crash in such a monster machine. But Sergei proves that he has everything under control. His left foot rests on the dashboard while the other accelerates and engages the clutch. Everything is completely relaxed and three meters above the road.

Suddenly the unpleasant sound of a siren is heard. A police car overtakes us and asks us to stop. “What’s that all about?” Sergei wonders aloud. “Oh man, oh man! That’s a buddy of mine!” he shouts, sounding the mighty horn of his road train. The little police car responds with another wailing siren and disappears. As it’s a good 440 kilometers to Krasnoyarsk, we have plenty of time to talk. Sergei tells us about bears that are actually at home in this area. “As a rule, they are not dangerous. It’s only in the villages that the occasional accident occurs,” he explains. “What kind of accident?” “Well, the humans throw their garbage away. The bear gets too lazy to go hunting and rummages around in people’s garbage. It no longer has any respect for humans. Sometimes this leads to a bear not running away when it encounters a human and killing and eating them. But you don’t need to be afraid of them. Bears don’t like the road. It’s too noisy for them there,” he explains.

“Will we be staying in the Krasnoyarsk monastery?” I ask Tanja thoughtfully. “It will be late by the time we get there. It could be difficult,” she says. “I think we should call our friend Michael in Samara and explain the situation to him. Maybe he can call the nun Katja from the monastery in Samara. They should then call the monastery in Krasnoyarsk and ask if we are welcome,” I think. “Good idea,” Tanja confirms my plan. We actually reach Michael on his cell phone. “I’ll call you back as soon as I hear from Katja,” he promises. Just an hour later, our stay in the Krasnoyarsk monastery is booked. “Show the head of the monastery the letter that the head of Samara gave you and they will give you a room,” says Michael.

Even though our stage of the journey ended so unprepared, we feel happy in these moments. Everything seems to work like clockwork. Everything comes together. It soon gets scary. As if someone had planned this entire action down to the last detail. In the late afternoon, we stop at Sergei’s favorite roadside rest stop. We satisfy our hunger and continue our journey. As we cross the border into the Krasnoyarsk region, Sergei is delighted and sounds his horn three times. “Home again!” exclaims the happy father of two.

We reach the city with its 1 ½ million inhabitants at 21:00. We are glad not to have to conquer such a juggernaut on our little bikes this time, because the traffic is heavy, the lighting is poor and the roads are drowning in rainwater. “I’m not allowed to drive my tractor into the city center. I’ll get you a minibus to take you to the monastery,” Sergei explains, parking his truck at the side of the road.

While we sit in the pleasantly heated driver’s cabin, Sergei jumps around on the rain-soaked road to arrange a minibus for us, but there hardly seem to be any available at this late hour of the evening. Sergei spots a Russian minibus at the gas station on the other side of the road. The fifty-year-old sprints over like a young hare. He actually convinces the young driver of the minibus. “My name is Jenya,” the young man introduces himself in a friendly manner as he parks his bus next to the truck. Again, it doesn’t take long for us to carry the bikes, trailers and all the saddlebags from the truck into the minibus. “Take this,” says Sergei and gives Jenya 300 roubles. “No, I won’t take it,” he refuses the money. “But, but you can’t want to pay for the cab ride for us too,” I interject in the same breath. Sergei just replies with a nice laugh and hands me a large, beautiful hunting knife with both hands. “Here’s a reminder, please,” he says, still laughing. “Segei! You’ve already done enough for us. You’re our angel on wheels. You rescued us from the Siberian pampas and brought us all the way here. That’s more than we could wish for,” I try to refuse. “Take it,” he says in a tone that brooks no argument. “Thank you,” I say, hugging him with all my heart. “I have to thank you,” he replies. We get into Jenya’s run-down minibus. Before we know it, Sergei has also disappeared into the night. A brief pain jolts through me. Once again we have met a wonderful person who has helped us selflessly and once again he disappears from our lives faster than we want him to.

Accommodation different than expected!

Jenya also meets us with harmonious facial features. His presence radiates good-naturedness. Later we learn from him that he just happened to be at this petrol station. “I actually wanted to go with my girlfriend to my father’s banya (sauna) 50 kilometers away from here. However, there was a misunderstanding and my father had already promised her to friends of his that evening. Then my friend Katya and I wanted to use the evening to go to the movies. I was suddenly short of gas. That’s why I quickly drove to the gas station when suddenly a man with disheveled hair stood in front of my bus and waved his hands around wildly. At first I thought he was a crazy beggar. When he then asked if I wanted to earn some money, I wanted to drive on. “I picked up a couple of cyclists from Germany. They had a breakdown. They’re sitting over there in my road train,” he explained. I became aware and actually saw you sitting in the big truck. I was immediately interested and wanted to help you. I called my girlfriend to explain that I would be late.”

The young man drives us through Krasnoyarsk at night in his bus and can’t find the monastery. We end up in an inner courtyard. “That’s not true. We’re looking for the monastery,” I explain. “Why don’t you call Michael? He can explain to the driver where we need to go,” Tanja suggests. “Michael?” “Yes,” it answers. “Oh, very good that you’re still awake,” I say and explain that we can’t find the monastery. “Give me the driver. I’ll tell him where you have to go,” he says, whereupon I hand the cell phone to Jenya. “Where is this street?” he asks. “How am I supposed to know that? I live in Samara and have never been to Krasnoyarsk,” replies Michael. “What, Samara?” “Yes.” “That’s 3,500 kilometers away from here,” we hear Jenya say, almost dropping his phone in surprise. Thank goodness Michael can at least explain the name of the monastery and roughly where it must be. A little later, Jenya finds the monastery.

We stand in front of a locked door and knock. The doorman opens the door and looks at us somewhat skeptically at first. “Wait. I need to speak to Matuschka (matron). It only takes minutes before we are let in. An old nun comes creeping across the dark, unlit, rain-soaked courtyard. She greets us formally. As the rules dictate, we hold our hands open upwards and receive their blessing. I hand her the letter of recommendation we received from the monastery in Samara. She tucks it under her black costume to protect it from the rain.

The porter shows us the accommodation. It is a windowless cellar room directly below the monastery’s public toilets. According to the head of the monastery, we are allowed to stay for a week to take care of everything for our journey home. Above all, we are given permission to store our trailers and important equipment here until we return next year. Although the sight of the dirty, run-down cellar rooms is rather shocking, we are delighted to have been welcomed here. Jenya helps us drag the equipment and trailers downstairs, which are covered in mud and dirt, while the gatekeeper Valleri clears his home for us. “But we don’t want to displace them,” says Tanja to Valleri. “You’re not crowding me out. I also have a room at the gate where I can sleep very well,” he replies.

“What are you getting for the trip here?” I ask Jenya after we have stowed everything in the cellar. “Excuse me?” “What do you get for the ride?” “I don’t understand?” “It was a cab ride. You get paid for it,” I explain. “It wasn’t a cab ride and I don’t get paid. I was very happy to do it. It was a pleasure to be able to help you. Who meets cyclists from Germany in Siberia,” we understand. “My friend will call you tomorrow and ask if you need our help. She is an interpreter and speaks perfect English and German. Maybe we can show you our city,” he says and says goodbye with a mild smile on his lips. “See you tomorrow and thank you for everything!” we call after him. “See you tomorrow and no thanks,” he replies and steers his ancient bus out of the monastery courtyard.

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