Episode 6

That place where Lyn posted the last blog entry was Voronez. She couldn't think of it at the time and didn’t have the map with her. David had spotted a very large shopping centre and we had pulled it. It was an Auchan centre, this is a French company and we shopped in their supermarket in Dunkerque. This brand new centre had 100’s of shops, many leading brand names, and at one end there was WIFI available in some cafes that sold coffee for about 6 euros (au$8.30)a cup. From some seats in the mall David found that the internet worked OK so the cheapskates used it there.

It was so hot that when that when L and D got back to the car which had been left in the blazing sun in the car park I was virtually on the point of spontaneous combustion. Boy! Was I glad to see them.

The last 100k’s or so to reach this point had been on a new motorway that is also a toll way in places without any warning and with no viable alternative. We had to pay two tolls each of 55Roubles, that’s slightly less than au$2 for each toll (25-30’ks a section) This route is the main road between Moscow and Sochi where the winter Olympics are to be held in 2014. I expect that they aim to have tolls most of the way by then but they still have a lot of work to do yet as long sections of it are still only 2 lanes, one each way we discovered later. Even on the dual carriageway sections the traffic is extremely heavy. Most of the vehicles are Russian trucks which means they are slow on inclines and belch out vast amounts of black smoke.

When you come to a place where the road narrows into just one lane as we did, the traffic backed up for hours. The dual carriageway had a wide, but steep medium strip and a wide gravel verge on the other side so that the more impatient car and small truck drivers would drive along these edges and overtake the more patient ones calmly waiting. They would then force their way into the queue when a barrier or stream blocked their path.

The countryside had been fairly flat then we came into more rolling hills. We were well into the agricultural belt with large (10’s of hectares) fields of wheat, barley, rape, and sunflower mostly. The brightest yellow sunflowers Lyn’s ever seen. Not massive seed heads like on the Darling Downs: Then we came into a really dry and dusty region before reaching Rostov-on-Don which is again very flat and intensively farmed with all the above crops, along with lots of potatoes and some tomatoes in plastic greenhouses. There are several huge dams on the Don river and we crossed some irrigation canals as we drove through the rural areas after we finally got off the motorway.

We are heading in the direction of Stavropol and Kochubeevskoe where we had stayed on our last trip. David had the vague idea of trying to find some of the school teachers he’d met then; that was before both the humans realized it was the school holidays so the school won’t be open.

One night when we were camped amongst some trees beside a field of grain just after we had gone to bed we suddenly heard loud music. Upon looking out we saw a car driving through the field of grain and playing loud traditional Russian music. It circled the field once they stayed in a distant corner for a while before disappearing as suddenly as it had appeared. There were no houses within at least 800m of us.

When we reached Kochubeevskoe David found the school where the teachers D and L had met used to work. It was being used during the summer holidays as some sort of activity centre. David asked around but no-one spoke English. He then decided to try and find the house Galina used to live in. We found the area we thought was it, but couldn’t decide which house it might be so we stopped and asked a young woman with a child.

Sometimes these two are just so lucky, this woman , Luba, is her name, not only knew Galina she was also a work colleague of hers. Luba phoned Galina and found that she is away visiting her daughter in Pyatigorsk during the holidays. Luba also phoned Victoria, the younger one of the English teachers they had met previously and was told to take us along to Victoria’s home. Victoria was out but her mother was home.

It must have been the weekend for weddings; our visit with Victoria was short because she had to rush off to a wedding in Stavropol but not before treating D and L to a superb meal, I’m sure I could have enjoyed some too but L seems to think it will spoil my complexion. It sure smelt good even to a stuffed toy. I was introduced to Victoria, I like her very much.

As Pyatigorsk turned out to be not very far away we arrived there the next day and found the university where Violet works. Violet is Galina’s daughter, I like Violet, she made a fuss of me when we were introduced and she held me close, I could get used to that. I digress. D and L had met Violet briefly in Stavropol 14 years ago. It turned out that Galina was off someplace at a wedding too so that we didn’t get to see her.

Violet, D and L all went off on one of the local trams and had a look around the city during the afternoon. It was a very hot day so they didn’t try to do too much. Pyatigorsk is a spa town with some resorts and a place where you can taste the waters. L says the first one she tasted was so salty and awful that the poor plant she tipped it onto turned up its leaves in horror. Some others she tried were OK, one seemed to be quite fizzy. Both D and L remember this place from their last visit.

They had a very pleasant afternoon, me too, I enjoyed my cuddle with Violet, and it was late in the day when we left this pleasant town. The storm that had been brewing all afternoon finally broke late in the evening and we had a cooling downpour of rain to end the day.

An even hotter day followed as we drove north to the Buddhist enclave of Elista. The rain had put a stop, temporarily to the grain harvest and we passed many combine harvesters standing idle waiting for the grain and the ground to dry out.

Before reaching Elista we had run out of the agricultural belt and were in semi desert. The town is quite charming with a lovely pagoda in the centre covering a large prayer wheel. There are a few Chinese gates over the roads and small Pagodas atop some of the tall buildings. The population seem to be predominately Chinese too. Just outside town is a large Chinese Temple where we stopped and had a look. I got my photo taken in a couple of places, but oh boy! It was hot. The outside thermometer on the car read 37C

It was a hot dry drive towards Astrakan. Most of the way there was no trees just semi desert with just a little dry grass covering. A few sand dunes in one area, then further east we passed some dry salt pans before the country started to improve a little and we saw some small herds of cattle and one of sheep.

As we headed north up along the Volga towards Samara it was ultra hot, up to 40C and the air-con is not working in the car. More in the next episode.

© Lynette Regan July 2012