Time of the homeless, drunks, stranded people and criminal creatures

(Photos of the diary entry can be found at the end of the text).

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It has been raining cats and dogs since three o’clock in the morning. The country is literally drowning after the long heatwave. In the morning, the streets, squares and sidewalks are under water. Buckets and anything else that is suitable are used for scooping. This makes it possible for some people to enter the prefabricated building, on the fourth floor of which our Gastiniza is located, without having to walk through knee-high floods. Only at 10:00 a.m. does nature show mercy, stopping the heavy rain and thus saving many residents living in the lower part of the city from drowning. We decide to take a break in the shed today to rest, although resting is certainly the wrong term. Because of our live documentation work and the many experiences that want to be recorded, I can hardly keep up with the writing. I use the morning to type up a few short notes, feed pictures into the laptop, label them and archive them. “Let’s go for something to eat,” Tanja asks me to take a break. Right next to the slab building, a Russian Chinese restaurant huddles up against the building. As is usual in simple restaurants, you have to order your food at the counter. We maneuver our way through the Russian menu because we first have to get used to the Cyrillic characters again. Vegetarians don’t have it easy as mainly dishes with meat are offered. After we think we know what we have ordered, we sit down at one of the tables. Russian pop music hammers out of a flat screen above us. One of the many music shows does its best to entertain us and the two other guests. Bowls and a pot were placed on a few tables to catch the water dripping through the ceiling. It looks like the roof of this room has been leaking for years. The ceiling cladding is swelling in many places. Some of the square, dirty plates hang halfway down, waiting for the right moment to fall on the guests’ heads or into their soup. The counter, made of pressboard, bulges like corrugated iron and tries desperately to maintain its upright position. A well-built Russian woman comes out of the kitchen, followed by a small, thin Chinese man who for some reason has ended up in this Gussinoosjorsk forgotten by Moscow. “Well, I hope the food tastes better than this team and the store looks,” I say. A little later, we are almost as hungry as before as we jump over the large puddles and holes in the ground back to our accommodation. “They’ll never see me again,” I say, rubbing my stomach and hoping that everything stays inside.

The friendly staff at the Gastiniza let me get on with it in the afternoon as I turned their café into a workshop and repaired our bikes. I have to remove the rear tires on both bikes, Tanja’s because the mudguard needs to be screwed back on and mine to replace the brake shoes. Then I examine the Brod computers and discover that different tire sizes are actually programmed in. This should solve the problem of different energy supplies. Because we can only see the luggage in our rear-view mirrors and this can only be changed by turning them, the brake levers, gears, GPS mount, camera mount and bell have to be removed. Then I inflate all four tires to 2.5 bar. A real feat of strength with the small pump. I finish at 8pm and look forward to a salad made by Tanja. A dream compared to our lunch. As Tanja walks Ajaci in the morning and during the day, I always do the night walk. That means having to go out into this ugly, largely unlit city at 10 pm. It is the time of the homeless, drunks, stranded people and criminal creatures. Armed with dog repellent spray, Ajaci and I walk through the streets and alleyways. In these moments, I am highly alert and watch out for every movement and suspicious movement. I am often approached. “What a beautiful dog? Where does he come from? Are you American?” Sometimes women are extremely friendly to me. Some of them offer themselves to me unmistakably. I laugh innocently, pretend not to understand and keep walking. Yapping dogs run towards us from some of the alleyways. Ajaci barks, I bend down for a stone. This is usually enough to send the mob fleeing. Ajaci and I now even have a lot of fun chasing these four-legged friends. We have found that a confident demeanor, bending down for stones and charging towards them together is enough to teach the pack to be afraid. Sometimes someone wants money or something to eat from me. That’s why I soon always have bread or leftovers in my pocket which I then pass on. A whole loaf of bread costs only 20 roubles (approx. 30 euro cents) and yet there are many hungry people on the street. However, I am always happy when we are back in our Gastiniza without any unpleasant incidents.

At night, we can hardly sleep a wink. Apparently guests check in and out at this time. A woman clatters up and down the 50-metre-long hotel corridor in her high heels at least seven times so that I’m sure the plaster is falling out of the cracks in the miserable building. There is screaming in the street as if someone is being murdered. Maybe that’s even true? Police sirens shrill between the shouting, then there is silence until it starts all over again. And then there’s the stomach ache, how could it be otherwise after eating at the Russian and Chinese restaurants.

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