BootsnAll Travel Network



Straddling Continents

June 16th, 2009

 It has felt like a long time coming but after nearly four weeks of baby steps the trans-Siberia starts now.  Technically only starting in Moscow the traditional route goes down through Nizhny Novgorod across through Perm and the Ural mountains to our current destination of Yekaterinburg and then further on out to Vladivostock.  Because of the false start out of Moscow that was the Golden Ring and then getting sidetracked to Kazan this fourteen hour overnight leg felt like the real beginning of the journey east.  Not least because Yekaterinburg is a further time zone away from Moscow.  The fourth out of eight on  the trip.  This leg also marks the point, in the form of a handy white pillar, where Europe becomes Asia and we reach the verges of Siberia.

Europe on one side, Asia the other.

Europe on one side, Asia the other. Read the rest of this entry »

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The great river.

May 19th, 2009

The thing is that, despite all previously documented troubles, Kazan is a really great place and I am really glad that the route was able to be influenced away from the usual stop in Perm to include it.  Officially the third capital of Russia and recently done up to celebrate its 1000th birthday the tone of the place starts at the Kremlin which models co-operation to all by containing both a mosque and an orthodox cathedral.  We had read that there was a strong separatist movement in Tatarstan and to expect to be asked about this.  We weren’t asked so we sought out opinion on this and found that there may have been murmurings in the 90s but it seems that money has quelled those with the resource boom making the region very wealthy.  Or maybe it is because FC Rubin Kazan is top of the league.

Following the babushkas to the Kremlin

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Faceplant (the post all-nighter bit)

May 18th, 2009

As if street urchins looking to lift our electronics weren’t enough next up was a seriously unhinged Syrian who of course was going to be joining us for the ride down to Kazan.  Just what you want at five in the morning is a babbling, red leather motorcycle jacket wearing, dreadlocked, lunatic grin sporting, babbler who within five minutes of moving from trying to attract attention from the other side of the room to plopping down next to doc (how does he attract such attention) had whipped out a bunch of family photos and trying to tell us something about them which was incomprehensible due to not being able to speak English or sentences in general.  My main query about this situation was how on earth did this guy end up in the middle of Russia with no clue or luggage? Read the rest of this entry »

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Faceplant

May 15th, 2009

It is safe to say that we are extremely close to a point of physical and emotional ruin.  Things are so bad that we have even managed to get Rdoc to enter a McDonalds, he won’t buy anything but the combined attractions of warmth, a seat and free wifi are hard to resist.  I can feel tics running around my face from tiredness and frustration.  Since leaving Suzdal nice and early with the hope of timing the bus to Vladimir would match up with a train to Nizhny Novgorod which in turn would be convenient for a transfer on down to Kazan where there would be affordable and luxurious accommodation in plentiful supply.  I need to stop daydreaming. Read the rest of this entry »

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Church overload in the Golden Ring.

May 14th, 2009

Today we leave Moscow for the Golden Ring towns.  Even though many of the stops along the way are going to be major cities it still feels as though this is the end of the easy part.  The further east we push the less chance that anyone other than my two travel partners will speak English, building language skills with a few words of the day does not really begin to encompass the myriad of situations necessary to function on a daily basis.  There are a number of planned stops that have only been open to outsiders for fifteen years and while sure to be interesting that fact alone is quite intimidating.  Similar to Helsinki the feeling was one of going from the known and manageable into the unknown maybe heightened because the past two weeks had been such a fulfilling time. Read the rest of this entry »

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