Wild-Camp

The stay in Volgograd was very relaxing for us. With recharged batteries, we leave the 80-kilometer-long city, the longest we have ever cycled through. The women at reception send us down to the banks of the Volga. “Keep going straight on until you reach the bridge,” they explain. When we reach the banks of the Volga, which at 3,530 kilometers is the longest river in Europe, the road immediately winds upwards again. The road sign intimidates us with an 18% gradient. Our leg muscles aren’t even properly warmed up yet. Trucks loaded with building rubble overtake us on the sandy road and blow their black soot in our faces. Our overworked lungs draw the dark exhaust fumes into every last corner. Coughing and coughing, we stop, exhausted. “Whose stupid idea was it to drive down here?” asks Tanja, visibly shaken. “Not mine,” I defend myself, panting. With our lungs burning, we reach the main road again, pushing more than riding, and let the morning rush-hour traffic inhale us. The atmosphere this morning is strange. Tanja and I are lost in the noise of the traffic again. Will winter catch up with us after all? Will it be him who interrupts our journey? How much time do we have before cold rain and snow make cycling impossible? Is there really a monastery waiting for us in Samara? And what if not? Where will we be staying? Where can we store our equipment temporarily? Question after question crosses my mind, distracting me from the here and now, making me anxious, taking away my confidence and energy. “What have you learned? Are you letting yourself be boxed in by your own brain fantasies again?” I hear the familiar, friendly but somewhat admonishing voice of Mother Earth. “Yes, yes, I know. I should have more faith in ‘All That Is’, the journey and myself. But some days it’s not easy,” I defend myself for the second time this morning. “Exactly, stick to your positive resolutions. You can’t control the snow in the mountains, no matter how much you think about it. Let things come to you as they come. No matter what happens, it’s always okay for you. Never forget what you learned in the desert. Let it flow. That is life. That’s where you learn the most. Things fall into place as they should. The important thing is that you understand that. That you grasp it. That you inhale it with all your senses. Then nothing can happen to you. Then you will be happy. Even if things go differently than you had planned for you or yourselves. Everything is subject to an order. An order that is subordinate to “All That Is”, i.e. the universal, the Creator, the cosmos, infinity, God or whatever you like to call it. An order that no one can escape. If you understand this, your life will be characterized by lightness and joy. There is no doubt that grasping and understanding these connections is a major task. But don’t forget. You have time. All the time in the world to think about it and come to a positive conclusion for yourself. So enjoy your health, your strength that your bike pedals kilometer after kilometer further into this wonderful country and trust. Trust in your life, in the order that nothing in the cosmos can oppose,” I listen to the voice and I do indeed feel a little more hopeful.

In hazy and cold and wet weather, we reach the gigantic dam on the lower Volga in the south-east of European Russia. In the flow of traffic, we push as far to the right as possible against the rusty boundary posts. In some places, the road built on the embankment is torn open and my gaze falls into the yawning depths of the bubbling cold water below us. It pushes itself up from the bottom with oversized bubbles. Water that is forced out of the large turbines of one of the largest power plants of its kind at enormous pressure. Foam and an uneasy bubbling catch my eye. You wouldn’t survive in that water for long in those temperatures, I think, and a shiver runs down my spine. A roadworks site forces traffic into one lane. We take advantage of a gap and weave our way through. Despite the cloudy day, you can see the colossal size of the reservoir. From up here, you could be forgiven for thinking that an ocean is opening up to our left and right. The Volgograd Reservoir stretches around 400 kilometers north from here to the city of Marks and covers an area of 3,117 square kilometers. I would love to stop and take a few pictures. However, photographing such mighty facilities, bridges and power stations is still not without its problems in Russia. So I store the images in my head. We pass colossal crane systems. At control buildings and a lock for the ships. The entire construction looks dilapidated and in serious need of restoration. If this dam were to burst, the people living along the lower Volga would certainly be washed into the Caspian Sea.

After 3.5 kilometers we have crossed the mega dam and are now on the eastern side of the Volga in the town of Volzhsky, which was only founded in 1951 as a place of residence for the workers employed in the construction of the large Volga hydroelectric power station. We now follow the riverside road in a northerly direction and suddenly the busy traffic comes to a standstill. Suddenly we are alone again. The brittle bitumen hardly ever takes us through villages. There are no stores where you can buy something to eat and certainly no gastiniza. At just under 13 degrees plus, it’s still chilly today. The sun only occasionally peeks through one of the cracks in the clouds. Fortunately, there is virtually no wind. A rusty blue sign promises a campsite and a restaurant in 80 kilometers. If we hadn’t already covered 80 kilometers today, this would be a tempting offer. “We have no choice but to find a wild camp,” I say. Tanja is worried, afraid of drunks or other riff-raff who might attack us at night. “I don’t think you need to worry. The criminals are not in the woods or on the banks of the Volga at night, but somewhere in the city. Where there’s something to get. Look, we’ll just hide behind the thin strips of forest there. No one will ever discover us,” I reassure her. “Yes, I think you’re right. There’s no point in this fear of the indefinite. It’s a waste of energy,” Tanja replies confidently.

After another ten kilometers I find a suitable spot for a camp. We wait at the side of the road for a passing car. As it disappears into the horizon, we let our bikes roll down the embankment. Then we find ourselves on a dirt road. We push the bikes a few hundred meters further, leave the dirt track and make our way across a meadow through the bushes. It is exhausting to push the heavy bikes over the high grass, but we make it and find a peaceful-looking spot surrounded by trees. “It feels good here,” says Tanja contentedly. “Yes, I think so too,” I agree with her. We quickly set up our green Fjällräven tent and hide our bikes under a green tarpaulin. This way, there will certainly be no sign of our camp. The evening sun has now won the game of light and shadow and is forcing its way through the thin layer of cloud. Its late, bright yellow rays blink down on us through the bushes. The deciduous trees rustle their autumn-colored leaves in a light breeze. Tanja pours hot water from the thermos flask over one of our last travel lunches. We sit contentedly in the last light of day under the rising starry sky and enjoy satisfying our cycling hunger with hot food. Then, as darkness falls, we flee to our fabric dwelling, snuggle into our sleeping bags and fall into a deep sleep, soon to pass out.

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