Route map

Our route in Google maps, including our campsites. Have a look! Just click on the map to open it.

Kaliningrad

Back in Russia, because we luv it. Kaliningrad was a German town and formerly known as Köningsberg. After the second world war it was almost completely destroyed. The remaining German buildings were destructed by the soviets and replaced with nice communist architectonical concrete buildings. The castle did survive the war and the first wave of soviet reconstruction but was dynamited out of existence in 1968. It were replaced with a lovely “House of the Soviets”. Money ran out before it was finished and till this very day the building is not in use.

Typical Westerners we are, we never thought much of the esthetical values and economical insights of our communist friends. Since Kaliningrad one could question the ethical values as well; the city is named after Stalin’s close friend Kalinin who ordered the Katyn massacre and was responsible for the famine in Ukraine in 1932 (Holodomor). Not the kind of person you would like your city to be named after.

Kaliningrad had more death and disaster on offer. We came across a monument for Alexander Marinesko. He was a Russian submarine commander and responsible for torpedoing the Wilhelm Gustloff a German passenger ship which carried mostly German refugees at that time. Some 9000 people died during the attack, making it the worst marine disaster ever. Alexander Marinesko never actually lived in Kaliningrad so why his monument is in this former German town one can only guess.

But summing up all the horrible facts about Kaliningrad would not do any justice to the place – it is, after all, the city of Kant. Where he was born, where he lived and where he died. And why we were impressed after all (if only to cross off another name from our dead philosophers tour we started a while ago). Some Enlightenment to the place after all then.

Also the submarine museum brought some light to our existence, although the thing was turned partly into a memorial for the Kursk submarine disaster.
We tried hard to get the bloody thing started. This without success. Russian mechanics…

Baltic Sea Impressions

More Russia

After leaving Siberia we still had a few more thousand kilometers to go.

On our way we visited Vladimir

The Pushkin house and thomb

And Pskov

More Russian Impressions

Perm-36

The story

The pictures

Balshaya Siberia

Siberia has quite a few extra-large cities, we found on our way. After Ulan-Ude and Irkutsk we pushed our Lada further west. Raving reviews about Tomsk made this city our logical next stop. Not entirely our cup of tea. Admittedly, the place does get quite lively after a Sunday afternoon football match, and also the card-eating habits of the local ATM machine added to the excitement. Still, we prefer the stylish chic of Krasnoyarsk, where old ladies proudly show us around in yet another house of art (switching on the lights as we walk to the next room, dusting off the artefacts) and where the girls are so pretty it mixes well with the paintings of Russian wanderers. Anyway, a nice place. Next pleasant surprise (especially after spending two nights folded up in our Lada at local truckstops) was Tobolsk, the former Siberian capital with a pittoresque kremlin, the last exile home of the last tsar before his trip to execution in Yekatarinburg, large merchant homes and Amstel beer.

On the way (well, not quite, but with a few hours detour as we got lost in the countryside) we visited a monastery-turned into gulag-but now monastery again, where locals splashed around in the holy waters (sorry, no pictures of that part). Intereshna.

But the highlight so far has to be Yekatarinburg in the Ural, with it’s bloody history of Romanov killings and maffia wars, our funky Soviet towerblock hotel in the shape of a hammer and sickle (visible from the sky), war memorials and military exposure dotted around, and an endless stream of Irish pubs. Uchin intereshna.

Tomorrow we head towards Perm to visit the former labour camp Perm-36 and then it’s still a long trip (crossing the Asia-Europe border) to get to Riga in Latvia…

Siberian Impressions

Driving the Siberian mud highway at night time

done

We gave our poor poor Lada a hard time again after Mongolia on these Mud Highways.

While looking for a campsite off the main road we got stuck in mud and had to digg out the Lada.

Back in the USSR – 2nd release

So we did leave Mongolia after all… After our fast food feast we travelled north (over tarmac – still hard to believe) to Russia again. That bit included a 7.5 hour wait and 500 Russian Roubles bribe at the border to jump the queue. Without the Roubles we would probably still be stuck there. But no, we took a very scenic route through Siberian forest up to Ulan-Ude. Lada was snoring happily in her green motherland and we found another perfect camping spot on the way.

Now Ulan-Ude is interesting for many reasons. One of them is Lenin’s head. From a very far distance not that impressive, but actually the world’s largest copy of Lenin’s head!

What else does a city need? Answer: Hoegaarden!

Ok, so the place was mostly special as our last stop before turning left again. No denial, the GPS points towards the west… We are now officially on our way back home. Yes, that hurts. Some 10.000 km left to go. But the first day was beautiful. More forest, a stop at Lake Baikal (it’s big! even in cloudy weather!), pretty little villages with wooden houses and locals selling the best strawberries in the world on the TARMAC road. Perfect.

Last night we arrived in Irkutsk, another friendly place with lots of churches, cathedrals, pretty sites, some more Lenins, a smelly river, car repair shops and a Subway sandwich branch. Again, just what we needed. From here on it’s further west again to Krasnoyarsk, Tomsk, Omsk etc to Moscow (admittedly the only city we ever heard of before this trip). We will keep you posted on our way. For now we can report Baltika number 8 is definitely the best in the range. Cheers!