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China to Europe part 2 |
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TRIP REPORT: FROM CHINA TO EUROPE PART II
by Jill & Bob Dickinson
Novosibirsk to Ekaterinburg
Novosibirsk is the third largest city in Russia (after Moscow and St Petersburg). It is a beautiful city, wide streets and large Central Square. Most cities and towns have a statue of Lenin and their main street called Lenina, They are usually modern but have an accurate flair about them. I still find smiling at people in the street never evokes a response, they stare through you. However if you can get a conversation going they are very warm and friendly people. We visited a most impressive Russian Orthodox Church and also Velkonskey’s house. He was one of the Decembrists who in 1820s wanted the eldest son of Nicholas II to be the next czar and not the second son who had a bit of military backing.
Beggars were in evidence around the church. Their Art Gallery was good, that was where I met Andrei and Jan, two Russians who posed for me when taking a photo of a poster, lots of hand shakes and hugs, even a gallant kiss on the hand!
We had the vehicles washed most successfully, the gravel roads are very dirty on the vehicles.
An 8.30am departure for 700kms to Omsk. The Ob River which runs through Novosibirsk is at least 500m wide and quite fast-flowing and the surrounding country is low-lying and swampy in parts. I saw some ducks and scaups and lots of black and white birds of varying sizes scavenging at the roadside.
Our next stop was at a small place called Tyumen after 620kms driving. A town of lovely architecture, renovated Orthodox churches, amazing development of their riverbank with marble everywhere. Tried to find the Geological Museum, but it had closed, after we had walked 2kms in the heat!
Our next big stop was Ekaterinburg, 330kms from Tyumen. It is the biggest city in Siberia, population 1.3 million, on the eastern edge of the Ural Mountains. We had a guide to show us the Cathedral-of-the-Blood, the site where the Czar, his wife and their 5 children were murdered on July 17th 1918. There is a large church now on the site with the actual site of the underground room reconstructed. We also visited a monastery sited in the forest where their bodies were thrown down a well.
Ekaterinburg has the highest temperatures for 150 years and we had to pick it !! We are now about 7,000kms from Beijing, WOW!
Ekaterinburg to Moscow
Driving through the Ural Mountains is something we were looking forward to. An area we had heard about many years ago, so it was exciting for us. They are gently rolling hills, a bit taller than other areas we have travelled through but definitely not mountains as we have in NZ. They are the oldest mountain range in the world so are fairly flat. We visited the Kungur Ice Caves walking from 27 degrees C to -5 degrees C in a few metres. They were about 2km long and had various frozen waterfalls, lakes and rock falls, even a fir tree with coloured lights which apparently lasts one year in that environment. Near Kungur we passed 2 urban prisons with barbed wire and guard towers. Driving into Perm was hazardous both from the traffic point-of-view, but also the deteriorated road surface in places. Staying in the Hilton Gardens Hotel was lovely.
Perm to Kazan, 720kms, which needed an early start. We saw 2 medium-sized combine harvesters on the road, and plenty of crops ready to harvest. From 23 degrees we progressed to 41 and then our meter had kittens! Soon stabilizing to 41 degrees. Smoke is now easily visible. Got pulled over by the Police who seemed to think I had passed on a white line (imagine!) and even his supervisor couldn’t make any sense to us so we were waved on reluctantly. Phew another success for our Information sheet. Lots of police about, even in bus shelters and bushes with their radar machines. More conifers showing in the forests, and we even saw a couple of planted shelter belts and some fences around the houses.
Breakfast at Kazan was a shallow plate of porridge with butter on it accompanied by a sausage! Not bad actually! We visited their Kremlin and their Orthodox Church requiring to wear both a wrap-around skirt and shawl and scarf! And it was very hot! We saw the usual driving, passing on crests of hills, passing even when there wasn’t a lane for them.
About every 3 days we have to fill out a registration form at the hotel as well as keeping every piece of paper we get from the hotels, so they can track where we are and where we have been.
If we had had normal conditions we would have seen the lovely Volga River in Nizhni Novgorod, but were prevented by the thick smoke. The hotel had very welcome air-conditioning.
On our way to Moscow we actually saw fires and fire engines and burnt areas, apparently 188,000 hectares were effected with, 520 fires and 48 deaths having been caused so far.
Moscow itself has smoke so we can’t see very far from our hotel but had a city tour on our first morning. Later we walked in Red Square and soaked up the atmosphere, Moscow has amazing buildings architecturally as well as the stalinesque ones giving it a rich variety. Today Bob and I went to the Tretyakov State Art Gallery which was superb.
Moscow to Vilnius, Lithuania
Near Red Square is a statue of Marshall Zukhov whom Bob has just read about. The Armoury has many treasures, golden carriages, Faberge eggs and lots of gold and silver ornaments from the era of the czars. A couple from our group who drive a Unimog have decided to stay in Moscow to get their front wheel bearing replaced. It may take some weeks and their visas will only last one week! The smoke is very thick and prevents us seeing very far from our hotel window. Reports say the carbon monoxide level is 4 times the normal level which makes life difficult!
Our last event in Moscow was to get to Red Square at 5.30am for a photo shoot! The police soon came and ordered us to “Go”, but our leader Greg managed to persuade them to let us stay. They moved a little further away and watched us. The light was not strong enough so we waited about 15 minutes and got some great footage with St. Basil’s and the GUM (biggest department store in Moscow - ed.) in the background! Superb!
From Moscow we drove to St Petersburg through countryside that didn’t seem to be farmed much at all. I did see some water birds in a small lake, the first I had seen in Russia (didn’t get a photo, travelling at speed means you can’t stop as much as you would like).
The typical russian house is still visible with their painted shutters of blue, some lived-in houses can look very dilapidated though.
Still very hot and the 8 hour days driving keeps us honest!
Staying at the Moscow Hotel in St. Petersburg sounds odd but it is an enormous hotel and central to the city. That night 6 of us saw Swan Lake in the decorative Alexandrisky theatre, we were treated to a superb performance. The Marinsky theatre is closed for renovations. The other amazing thing we did here was see the world-renowned Winter Palace and The Hermitage. It was all new to me! Rooms and rooms of gold decorations and art treasures, Rembrandt, Monet, Picasso, Rubens, etc. The czars had money! Catherine the Great in 1762 – 1764 bought 225 paintings through an agent in Europe beginning the huge collection. If you spent 1 minute in front of each painting it would take you 11 years to see them all. Big, eh? Still stiflingly hot.
Lots of water and waterways around the city as it is built on a swamp but is makes for a beautiful city. Genghis Khan reached a bit south of here, a long way from Mongolia.
Leaving Russia required lining up, again. They like to keep tabs on where you are and where you have been, so passports at every hotel and forms to prove it! As soon as we had left Russia the countryside looked different, not quite as many forests and some broad leafed trees are seen as well, farm cottages are scattered around, farming activity is seen.
We stayed 2 nights in the Old City of Tallinn, the capital on Estonia, cobbled narrow streets, city walls, Lutheran churches. A pretty place. Latvia and Lithuania gradually seemed more European in their ways with generally good roads to travel on.
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Past club trips 