Greetings,

I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything.  - Bill Bryson

Volgograd:

Stalingrad as it was known during WWII, but as Stalin fell from grace it was renamed back to its original name.

We drove through Saratov . a medium size town between Volgograd -our next destination. Our first glimpse of Volga river. Awesome, huge river. It was so hot that people were out in their swim suits sun bathing everywhere. Feels like Europe.

Now we drive on bank of the Volgo river all the way to Volgograd. Police checks increased 10 folds. Every where, almost every 50 kms. Our first stop after that bad experience in Samara. Young police officer pulled me over and showed me his radar gun that I was clocking 90km in 70km zone. He was right. I walked to his car to talk to the officer seating in car. I explained my situation and showed him flyer of the trip and they seem to be nice and after few questions let me go. I offered him a packet of American cigarette as I saw bunch of packs in car. Wow.. it worked. The way this check points are: there is one or two cops on road with magic wands. There are other one or two seating in car. The one on road stops you and you take your papers and seat in car and negotiate. Now from here we get all bad cops. Second check point. They took me inside office where there was a computer with camera where I can see the cars coming in and they zoom on number plates. One cop asked other cop to show me my car picture on the screen. So he pulled the Suzuki coming in. I said myself so what. I was doing only 10km as the check point coming. Then they started making hand gestures that I crossed the white line and I almost screamed at them "nyet" I drove "priamo" straight. I just kept saying nyet..nyet and then I told them that I have been driving from Vladivostok and I know the drill. This calms them down. I told them I am calling American consulate and immediately they gave me my papers back and wave me to leave.. Ha .ha.. I got my confidence back and I am going to fight this. Next stop.. I asked Ami to come with me. I went on one side of the car and Ami stood on other side. Cop inside the car started making hand gesture that I illegally passed the car. He couldn't have seen that. He asked Ami to go back to car and Ami said nyet. Cop was nervous. He argued few times and I stuck to my argument as he didn't have any proof. He said he will keep my license as a last desperate effort to extract the money. I said keep it and I will call American consulate to get other one. I just sat there relaxed and finally he gave up and we drove off. I and Ami high fived and stick to this strategy. We both go out. This is first in Russia as we never saw in woman driver on these roads or they come out. It's always a man. Poor guys go the office and car and get extorted. Me and ami call this white line as "Extortion line". As we met few Russian drivers later on and they all get in to this trap. Poor folks don't know any better. They see their car in computer screen and they feel like they have done something wrong . One guy we met paid 15000 rubles. Dr. Manton Heres - our new friend - from St. Petersburg  paid $400. Wow .aren't we lucky.

Next few stops we get out in gang with "nyet" word and look straight at them. Well we made it to Volgograd without any fine. Roads were good and that explains why there are so many cops out there. I and Ami started looking for cameras now to find out from how far they can capture your car. After one or two more check points we found them . They were no high tech cameras. Just simple cameras stuck only few yards from check point on light pole. Well this is silly, as everybody comes to dead stop at check point anyway.

We arrived in Volgograd late afternoon. We could have done better but frequent police check points and cops on road stops took much time and detours "Embrace the detours".

Our plan was to see a world war II memorial and get out of the town to roadside motel. Well as it always happens, everything you want to see is always on other side of the town. We ended up driving across Volgograd. This town was rebuilt after German leveled it in WWII. Hitler's strategy was to cut supply chain to Moscow than take Moscow. River Volga is lifeline and most supply came through this town. Stalin made a treaty with Hitler to share the world, but Hitler was his own man. He surprised Stalin and Stalin made a huge mistake ignoring his generals about Hitler massing his troops in south. Finally Hitler took Volgograd and Stalin in desperate attempt to defend his country sent Marshal Zhukov, a brilliant general who came down on Hitler with 2 million red army soldieries. His strategy is not to defeat Hitler but wear him down till winter. It worked and as this battle took so long - fighting in streets, house to house - Germans were wearing out and then Russian winter sat in. Zhukov circled the German army in west and cut their supply. Almost 750,000 Germans and 2 million plus Russian -nobody knows for sure- died in this battle and it's famously called Battle of Stalingrad. We read that there is a mound where most killing happened. It's called mammy mound.  Asking petrol station attendant who directed us "priamo (straight)" across town.  As we were driving we saw this huge Mother Russia statue from distance and we aimed our car to that direction. Russian built this humongous statue of mother Russia. This is huge .. I mean huge. Windswept Lady with sward pointing to sky and mouth wide open as she screams to her army to fight. Famine body but very masculine face. Strange but extremely impressive.

This complex is huge. They have taken their time to build this. It's surrounded by water fountains and huge pools . One can have a great view of Volgograd. Both walls on side of the long stairs are carved with war scenes and huge statues of solders in different fighting poses. There another huge statue of weeping mother with her dead soldier son in her lap. Ironically Ami spotted a white dove sitting right on her head (see picture) First we thought it is part of the statue then it flew away.

The memorial itself is round hall with constant burning torch in arm coming out form ground. The walls are filled with huge banners with solders names . I don't think they are 2 million. There is constant war music playing in speakers with guns, grenades and machine guns noise. Ami thinks the memorial seemed to glorify the war. However it is a impressive site. I have seen few war memorials myself but this one takes number 1 spot. Good place to visit. By the way lots of mosquitoes. We got beaten again all over. At night we watched fireworks from this memorial as we checked in Moulin Rouge hotel. Casino and hotel. It was cheap in Russian standard, but still expensive at US standard. No window on room. We had to park car far away in secure parking.

Next morning we were heading south then west to Rostov-on-Don which is on black sea in Cyrillic spelled as POCTOB .here is little funny stuff: we translate these names in English so we can watch for signs, well we memorized so well that when we asked for directions we pronounce poctob and people say "what, who, where and get all confused. Then we pronounce it right way as Rostov-on-Don . This was funny and it happened few times to us. The drive was good. Few more pain in back, stressful and with some fear of unknown police check points. We entered outskirt of Rostov-on-don. We decided to take a ring road and avoid the town. Well we found the ring road and with all excitement of avoiding the town we entered in roundabout and got stuck in traffic. We thought everyone was bypassing this town. Well we sat there for full 3 hour and 11 minutes. I have never sat in traffic this long. It was hot, humid and painful. As we turn off the car to save the fuel and overheating. After crawling at 1 MPH for 5 miles we ended up on bridge. It turned out to be there were three lanes of traffic - in Russia 5 lanes as other two lanes driving on side walk and dirt merging in to one. On top of this there were two more lanes merging from right ramp, on top of there was this stupid police check point where people came to dead stop. I can never imagine people putting up with this kind of nonsense. Russian people take number 1 spot being the most patience people.

Eventually we got on road and headed toward Sochi. It was late evening so we decided to stay roadside motel. We spotted a nice one very next to police Check point. We inquired about the price and there was not  a single customer in there. Even the reception desk did not have anything , no chair or anything. Finally babushka showed up and the price was 3500 rubles almost $140. We declined and started back on road again. Well our road was right across the police check point which we avoided successfully. But we had to make a U turn to go back on our route. Well I forced poor Ami to make a U turn as the road was very quiet. Well it was not very smart. The police immediately looking for an opportunity whistled and stopped us. We knew we were in trouble this time, as this happened right in-front of them, let alone them making it up. We were called in this Rod Stiger in "Heat of the night" look like cop. Started asking bunch of questions and asked for our passports which I still don't understand why a traffic police will need our passports. He looked at Ami and started saying BIG PROBLEM. He showed is on his desk the hand written map and where we made a U turn. Well we know this as it happened right there. I told the chief that no harm was done and we were tired and looking for a motel. He just kept saying big problem.. big problem. I sent ami to get her passport from the car while I went for this chief. I told him that we have been driving in Russia for 20 days now all the way from Vladivostok and have been good drive all along. Then finally I said I should really call my US consulate and ask for their help as I reached for the phone he shoved back the papers and ask me to get out. I thanked him in Russian and he was furious as he couldn't get anything out of me. I rushed back to car and as ami was coming I told her to get back in car and drove off. Ami kept asking what happened in there. I explained and down the road we ended up in our first Russian bed and breakfast - well no breakfast, just the bed in this small house out of the very small hamlet in farm. I still remember that police chief face and I and Ami still laugh at his "Big Problem" stuff.

After few more police check points and mountainous scenic drive we made it to Sochi.