Tuesday, 17 June 2008 15:15 by
arunp
May 27, Chita.Chita is fine Westernized, good size town. Bowling alley, casino, shops and tram. All Russian cities have trams. I noticed there are not too many statues in towns I have visited so far. Couple of Lenin statues.Talking to young Russian. They don’t like Lenin and his Bolshevik party. They think Lenin put back Russia behind. Putin is very popular. Stalin is a hated guy here. They want to forget about that part of history. Lenin’s agenda to give power to people from ruling rich nobles did not work out well and people suffered more. Town like Chita is typical towns. Survive on one or two big ugly looking factories supporting locals, right on entrance of town –totally eye shore puking the black smoke nonstop. People tend to tolerate more than their share. They don’t believe in system. They do whatever they can to survive. They still think militias are corrupt and bad Slovak style. You can tell from the road we passed. That road was on agenda to be built in 2002 and finished in 2008. We saw lots of road work ahead sign but nothing no person, no equipment nothing. Road work sign are rusted and feel like they have been left there since 2002. Occasionally we see couple of guys with leveling equipments and looking in the glass, letting passing people know that they are working. Ami kept counting them we saw more people with leveling glass than anything else. Nothing else. I think people have given up and do whatever to survive. All the power has been concentrated in Moscow and this side of the Russia is not touched. I and Ami still looking for an answer that what Russia is famous for. People argue that they have great army and no one has conquered them. Both Hitler and Napoleon failed to win Russia. My argument is that it’s not due to the strong red army they lost. They lost because Russia is huge, weather and meager population towns way far off each other. There is a hope that Putin and his petro dollars will make Russian an European standard country.By the way someone ask me in email about toilets in this part of Russia. Well on the route there are no toilets. It’s wooden hut with hole in ground which is surrounded by crap. One couldn’t even use it for pee, let alone seating there and picking your nose. They are absolutely filthy. We used forest under the trees. It’s a good idea to eat first before you go and use the toilet if you must. Ami used once as we were in small village. How she managed that I don’t know. I am proud of her. I have a great gift from nature. Whenever I travel my body seems to switch on travel mode, where I don’t require to go to nature’s calls so often. On one occasion we stopped at café to spend a night in car. I was going to woods. It was slightly dark and I didn’t see him but all of sudden this huge black dog leaped at me. Fortunately he was on chain and all of sudden there were 6 other wondering dogs surrounded me. Luckily I was not too desperate to go to toilet or it could have been right there. I stood still couldn’t move and started making affectionate noise to calm them down. Finally after few minutes they started making room for me to go. I ran to the car and locked myself in. Panama city hotel is expensive. Marriot price but had great upscale restaurant. Brushed teeth which we have not for last 4 days. We were able to get a dinner at 12AM. Couldn’t understand the menu. Made some sign language for chicken. it was lovely meal, and that beer tested so good. Back to room and took a long deep shower till water ran clear. We were proud of ourselves. We did this journey in 4 and half days. Ami washed clothes in sink and hit the bed. Next morning rain and cold greeted us. We looked for car wash, which we found down the corner. They washed it good. Suzi came back to life. Now we can read the logos on a car and started our journey to Ulan-Ude. Just about 40 Km in trip it started snowing and before we knew we were surrounded by snow and pure white miles and miles. This is exactly the Siberia I imagined. But not in end of May. It was 32F outside. Single lane road was covered with snow. Again Russian public service not working. We were scared. One line was completely covered with snow. Single line has to handle two way traffic. So for oncoming traffic one has to go on unknown pile of snow. This is not good. We just got rid of the damn dust and rocks and now we dealing with snow. Siberia has to be the toughest place. At about 300Km in our route we hit the traffic jam huge line of cars, kamaz and samurai’s fleet. After waiting in traffic for 3 hours we found out that big kamaz has turned over and blocked the road both ways. We had two choices: wait out here with these guys in cold or go back 300km to Chita. Finally police showed up in lada. And told everybody to turn back. It’s already 6PM and I didn’t want to take a chance to drive back through that blizzard. But Ami is not feeling well she decided that we should go back. We arrived in Chita 1AM . that was hard tough drive. I hate snow. That’s why I left England. Andrei insisted day before that we should drive to Ulan-Ude with him but we didn’t take him on that. We will make that trip next day.Yet another expensive dinner and hotel room in Chita.