Episode 5We plodded on eastwards on a good road that bypassed all towns and villages. After some hours we saw our first agriculture this side of St Petersburg but we didn’t see any farm animals until we turned off this road and began to make our way southwards towards Yaroslavl. Just after turning south we passed through a very large industrial city, Cherepovets. First there was a big power station then what L thinks might be an agro chemical plant, Fosagro, it was called. It was an enormous place that spread for a couple of k’s along the road. There seemed to be several more big industrial places as well before we came to the city proper. It was a weekend so it was quiet with little traffic.We headed south along the shore of a very large lake towards Ribinsk but it was rarely that we actually got as much as a glimpse of the lake itself. It was along this road that we saw our first farm animals, two cows being let home for milking in a small village. Some way further on we camped on the edge of a field over night. Next morning David got up to find the car surrounded by a herd of 100 or more mostly milking cows. Think they had been milked and were being herded off to graze for the day. Although they are mostly black and white Fresian/Holsteins, they are not purebred and have a mixture of other breeds tossed in. Perhaps they need the crossbreeds to withstand the sever winter they have in this part of the world. Far colder here than in western Europe. Logging is a big industry right across this northern region. Once it was all forest, birch spruce and larch as the main species. Each time we come there seems to be more and more open spaces where forest has recently been totally cleared. Yet only a small amount of open land is farmed. Much is just left to the native grasses and weeds that take over, then in the autumn its cut for hay or silage. We have seen crops of oats and wheat or barley, and some fields that have been ploughed but no sign of any crops yet. It almost seems as if they still haven’t worked out who owns what when it comes to the land. Things like that herd of cows, they quite possibly belong to lots of different people in the village, each owner milks his cows then sends the lot out with with a couple of people who herd them off to graze during the day. There aren’t many fences and we’ve certainly never yet seen a properly set up dairy, or anything vaguely resembling such. Yet fresh milk is available in supermarkets along with a wide variety of yogurts, buttermilks. butter and cheese. All the cattle have ear tags so they are probably TB and Brucellosis tested. I’m sure I missed a good photo opportunity with the cows but L was far too slow out of bed and grabbing the camera, the cows had been moved on.As we kept on towards Yaroslavl and even after that town we passed through village after village where there are churches in ruins. Just one of two have some sort of renovation work beginning on them. No other region of Russia have we seem so many ruined churches. David didn’t feel up to coping with the heavy traffic in Yaroslavl so we didn’t go into the city, nor Kostroma. We kept on following the course of the Volga River as it wends its way south and eastwards. We did go into the small town of Yurivets that sits on a righangled corner of the Volga River. The river here is dammed and so very wide. There is a high levee bank that separates the dam from the lower, older part of this sleepy little town. A newer modern part sits on a high ridge above the older part. In fact the town seems to be dying. Everywhere there was abandoned buildings, houses, shops and complete blocks of units. Yet we saw people hurrying off to work but couldn’t really work out where they would be working. There wasn’t even the usual amount of small business, the only supermarket was a very small one and on the edge of town. Seeing what we thought was a lookout tower on the ridge we drove up a rough cobbled street only to find that it was in someones garden, we did get a bit of a view out over the lake between the trees.Further south we crossed the dam wall. This is a very wide wall with an earthen embankment five k’s long before reaching the main wall with the flood gates and power station. There was a large shipping docks on the downstream side of the locks and a small pleasure craft marina on the dam side. We continued along the north bank of the river until we almost ran out of road. To the north of us is a very large swampy area and we drove up to one of the very few villages in this area. Most of the swamp and surrounding land has been harvested of all it timber and this small town had a big sawmill with the timber coming in on trucks from quite a long way off. The good road we drove up on ended at the bus stop, beyond that everything was very soft sand in which we saw a couple of bogged vehicles. One would expect that to be a regular occurrence as most of the locals seem to have just small 2 wheel drive cars. An amazing number of people seemed to live in this village for just one sawmill. But then L often wonder just what all these people do in the villages when we can see nothing that would employ them.Back on the river we came to the ferry and took it across to the southern bank and the main road east towards Siberia. Much of this road has been improved and widened to 4 lanes over recent years but the work is on going and we encountered about 50’s that was under construction causing traffic chaos.Our route led us into Kazan. I hadn’t been into the city before though I had passed around it a couple of times, my lot though, they had visited it back in 1998 on that trip BM (before me).As we drove towards the older part of the city we got a great view of the Kremlin (castle). We parked near it and set off to have a look inside. last time my lot were here it had been closed, in fact the whole place had seemed deserted so L seems to remember. Most of the buildings within the walls are government offices. There is the Presidential Palace, where the president of Tatarstan lives. This area is Tatarstan, a semi automous region of the Russian Federation, and quite a wealthy one because of the oil wells around here. Why it is that Oil wells and Islam seem to go together. This area has a fairly large Moslem population. Inside the walls there is also a very lovely mosque that we didn’t go into because my lot were both wearing shorts and the mosque doesn’t supply appropriate dress at the door, where as the Orthodox cathedral does supply wrap around skirts and scarves for women and didn’t object to D being in shorts. Me being naked as I am didn’t cause any alarm either, just as well, L insists she is not carrying a wardrobe of clothes just for a stuffed toy.The tower that L took a photo of probably isn’t on as much of a lean as it looks in L’s photo but is still does have a lean. It is said that Ivan the Terrible wanted to marry the deposed Khans daughter but she thought him far too ugly, still she agreed to do so if he built a tower taller than anything either of them had seen. As soon as it was finished she climbed to the top and jumped to her death. There is an alternate story far too long to mention.Kazan is quite probably the nicest city in Russia. It is clean and neat with lovely buildings and some wide streets. The same crazy Russian drivers I fear. We spent a pleasant few hours here and I made a new friend, a nice lady stall holder. She was really nice to all of us.Now we wended our way eastwards towards the Ural mountains and the divide between Europe and Asia.Travelling along near Nizjnekamsk suddenly we came across all these pipes, L took a bit of video which she will try and load onto this episode. The road was very rough hence the video wobbles a lot. We did come to what we think is an oil refinery. The town of Nezjnikamsk and the nearby larger city of Naberezjne Chelni are both mostly new oil rich towns with modern tower blocks of units, plenty of nice shops and chrome and glass new car show rooms. All the most expensive models. At odds with this are the trams, although some were new and modern, at least by Russian standards some were of the quite old and very rattly type, probably quite drafty too in the winter time in temperatures of -30 and lower. The lines were typically Russian, not offering the smoothest ride. Even though the newer trams are relatively sleek, they don’t come close to those seen in modern western European cities such as Strasbourg. On the route we were taking we didn’t see many oil wells, then suddenly we came to 22 ‘nodding donkey’ pumps all in the one spot, and most were working. Several of the little villages had small mosques, all nicely painted. It was hard to see they were mosques until we noticed the crescent on top of the pointed roof. The villages where we saw these mosques seem to be more prosperous with better quality tiny houses that are painted and well maintained. My lot speculated that they may get money from Saudi Arabia as do some of the Moslems in Greece, and other places too. We crossed another dam wall near the town of Chaikovski, named after the composer we suppose. We continued northward towards Perm then when we reached the main road eastwards south of Kungar we turned toward Ekaterinburg. We were back amongst the really heavy traffic with an endless line of trucks in both directions and even more trucks filled up the parking areas at every one of the numerous cafes, service stations, and roadside rest areas (if one dares to call them such).This trip we took the time to find the original Europe/Asia marker that is on the old road, the one my lot went looking for in 1998 and never did find. The big one on the main road is new and not in the right spot, it is just there for the tourists. Still L thinks there must be yet another marker as there is one supposedly visible from the train line and the one we saw now definitely can’t be seen from any train line.We carried on through the town of Pervouralsk heading towards Nevyansk but only go about 30k’s or so before coming to a restricted area that we couldn’t enter so we had to back track and head into Ekaterinburg along the main road. One of the first things you come to upon entering Ekaterinburg is the big shopping centre with an Obi (German hardware store, bit like Bunnings), an Auchan shopping mall, (Auchan is a french supermarket and shopping mall company) and Ikea (we all know of Ikea the Swedish furniture company). We are familiar with this shopping centre having stopped here each time we have passed this way in recent years. Years ago you could get stuff here that wasn’t easily found across the rest of the country except at other Auchen centres, however that’s not the case any more, we can get just about everything in most places. It was a Sunday and the place was extremely busy. Ekaterinburg is famous, or perhaps infamous as the place where the Russian Royal family, the Romanovs were assassinated in 1918. In the town there are a couple of churches and a little chapel around the place where they were assassinated although the actual site of the assassination Boris Yeltsin had demolished in the 1970’s when he was Governor of the region. In the basement of one of the churches there is a bit of a museum of what happened in the area in 1918, however it was all in Russian. My lot didn’t see any photos of the Royal family but there was photos of a number of priests who died the same year so quite possibly at the same time, and also photos of other groups of people.The family were buried in an old mine about 16k’s northwest of the city. L remembers hearing when the bodies were found and DNA testing has been done that confirmed their identity and that all the family are here. For many years a couple of women, one German, the other French (L thinks) claimed to be one of the daughters. Both died years before the bodies were found and DNA tested so they died with their fantasy lives intact.At the burial site that was deep in the forest but not so any more, the Orthodox church has built the Monastery of the Holy Martyrs. Boy, (L says), how things have changed, 4/5 generations ago the Royal family were the essence of all the way wrong with the country, now they are holy Martyrs. Reminds one of the Romans, they couldn’t wait to crucify Jesus, 4/5 generations later they begin to worship him. 2000 years later history almost repeats itself. My security really is a cynical b—h isn’t she: On that note I think we better end this episode and begin a new one.© Lynette Regan