Next morning is warm with a light rain. While Mike makes coffee I walk out to the road to look around. A cluster of women around the gate breaks up as I approach, and one of them intercepts me. She's about 50 years old with several gold teeth and a long brown coat. She speaks a few words of English and German, and she carries a basket of sausages for sale.
I'm tempted, but worried. I like sausage and I would like something to nibble as we drive, but I have no idea what's in these. I say no, and the woman turns away.
Kiosks around the entrance to the TIR park offer cigarettes and liquor. One promises coffee and food, but it's not open. I walk down the road to look at a roadside vendor's display of glass chandeliers.
As I walk I think about the sausage. I once lived with Terroba Indians in Costa Rica and half the time I had no idea what was in the food I ate, but I came to no harm. I decide to buy a sausage.
As I head back to the TIR park I expect the peddlers to intercept me again, but they don't. I have to wave to the sausage woman to bring her back. She asks 19,000 rubles -- about $5 -- for a two-foot ring of garlic sausage about two inches in diameter. It's probably a small fortune to her, but not much for me.
When I get back to the truck Mick won't eat the sausage but Mike tries a bit. It's bland, but not bad. Over the next few days Mike and I eat the whole thing, and neither of us suffer any ill effects.
When we get on the road everything here looks gray and gritty. The temperature is warmer now and the trees and bushes beside the road still have leaves. We will pass through at least a dozen mini-climate zones on this trip, but we don't think of it that way.
It's warm today -- about as warm as it was in Belgium, a bit warmer than Warsaw and much warmer than Moscow. When I look at the map I can see that we are moving from one climate zone to another but on the road we just notice that some days are warmer than others.
The road is paved but the top coating is polished tar and very slippery. It's dry, but Mike can spin our wheels as we climb hills -- and loaded trucks don't spin drive wheels on normal dry pavement. For a while we drive through fog, and can't see much. I think the road here would be pretty in nice weather, and I can see rows of what look like nut trees on each side.
The Volga River is one of Russia's main waterways. We will cross on a power dam and I wind down my window and get my camera ready, but Mike warns me not to take any pictures. There will be troops here, he says, and they will probably worry about spies.
Would they arrest me? I don't know, but I don't want to find out. As we approach the dam I see a big eight-wheeled armored car parked beside the police post, and I'm glad they don't see my camera. This is the same kind of armored car I've seen in newsreels of the war in Chechnia, and if they really need one here they must have problems.
We cross the dam and continue past a shipyard or docks. The Volga has no natural connection with the major oceans of the world because it flows into the Caspian Sea, which is 92 feet below sea level, but near the source it's connected to the Baltic sea by canal.
At 2,300 miles long it's the longest river in Europe. Huge dams along the Volga generate lots of electric power, and with locks to take boats around the dams the Volga carries about half of all the river freight in Russia. It's also famous for it's fish, and caviar from Volga River sturgeon is some of the best in the world.
The river makes a big loop here, and we travel roughly parallel to it on a four-lane road for about 100 km to Samara. Where the road parallels the river vendors offer fish, which dangle from a rod propped at an angle by the side of the road. Some of the fish are more than two feet long.
Samara, with 1.2 million people now, was the capital of Russia from 1941 to 1943. This is where Lada cars are made, in a factory built by Italy's Fiat company. Aside from the Kalashnikov rifle, they are probably Russia's best-known manufactured export to the west.
They also export Ladas to the east and from now on we will see fleets of brand-new Lada cars and Niva 4x4's on the road. We also see fleets of used cars, and even one fleet of used German city buses, with the German advertisements still on them.
Traders on the old Silk Road must have seen dealers with herds of horses, mules, asses and camels going back and forth. Mike says that many of the western used cars we see have been stolen, but it's also a fair bet that some stolen horses were traded in the old days.
As we approach Samara we see dozens of new Lada bodies heading north. Big trucks carry five or six bodies each but some light trucks carry only one body and some cars pull two light trailers which carry one body each.
It looks as though the Lada company sells brand-new car bodies. That makes sense, when you think of it. The most expensive parts of car and truck engines and transmissions are the castings, which never wear out. As a matter of fact they improve with age, because cast steel hardens as it ages and an old casting is usually stronger than a new one.
The parts that do wear can be easily replaced to make an engine better than new. North American truckers rebuild engines, transmissions, drive axles and other parts every day, and all North American truck makers sell what they call a "glider kit".
A glider is a brand-new truck cab, frame, front axle and front suspension. These are about the only parts of a truck that wear out and cannot be efficiently rebuilt, and a trucker with a glider kit and the parts from his old truck can make a brand-new truck. Sales of glider kits dropped off for a few years because diesel engines changed radically and the new ones were so much better that it didn't make sense to rebuild old ones, but that can't last forever. A glider is still the cheapest way to get a new truck.
And the same idea should work for cars. Lada cars haven't changed much since the first one was built, in the 1970's, and all Soviet block countries are full of old Ladas. With a new body and reconditioned old parts you can make a new car, and the new model will be just as good as you want to make it. It could be better than a new car straight from the factory.
The idea could work for western cars too, but it won't. Lada can do it because they can make more car bodies than other parts, and they can increase their total sales by making bodies to sell separate. The sales of western auto-makers are limited by their markets, not by their production capacity, and if they were to sell new car bodies they would reduce their sales of new cars.
Apparently Lada is in an enviable position among car makers, because they can sell more cars than they make. The Lada is a good car and it's one of the few that you can usually find parts for in Russia. Mike says Russian used car dealers buy used Ladas in England to re-sell sale in Russia. Apparently a good used Lada will sell for more than a new one in Russia, because most of the new ones are exported and Russians have to wait to buy one.
In fact some used car dealers may go farther than England. In Smolensk, on the way back home, I see a Lada with a sticker on the rear window that says it was assembled in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Samara is also part of one the main lines of the old Silk Road. In the 18th century Russian Empress Catherine the Great kept a personal caravan of about 200 camels on the trail from China to Moscow, to bring her supplies of tea, silk and spices.
dRussian camel caravans travelled through here to China for hundreds of years, and they didn't shut down until after the Trans Siberian Railway was opened, in 1904. According to one account Russians complained about the quality of tea after the opening of the Trans Siberian Railroad and tea merchants eventually learned that the difference was the taste of camel, which worked it's way through everything in the year-long caravan trek. For years after, merchants packed some camel-hair into each bale of tea shipped to Russia.
There may be some people now living in Samara who saw the last of the great camel caravans pass this way.
We turn to a different highway here -- from M5 to M51 -- and drive on. About an hour out we stop at a pull-off, and I offer to buy Mike and Mick a shish kebab.
There's a gravelled area beside the road -- not uncommon in Russia -- with a small yellow and blue plywood shack at the back of it. The shack has a serving window, like an old-time hot-dog stand, and the counter displays bright-colored bottles of pop but there is no-one inside.
In front of the stand a teen-aged boy tends a shish-kebab cooker. It's a welded steel box about three feet long by one foot wide and about eight inches deep over most of it's length, supported on legs of welded steel rebar -- the ribbed steel rod used to reinforce concrete. At one end the sides of the box rise an extra eight inches, almost like a chimney. There's a steel grill over part of the box, and a couple of skewers of meat rest on the edges. Coals from a wood fire are heaped in one end of the box.
A few feet away a board resting on a milk carton displays six more bottles of assorted flavors of GI Joe brand pop, with an American flag on the label, and a trestle table behind the boy supports a loaf of bread, a shaker of salt and a plastic squeeze bottle of red sauce. Three men sit in a parked Lada car beside the shed.
The teenager wears a patterned gray sweater and a black leather windbreaker, which is not zipped up in this spring-like weather.
I wave my hands to indicate that I want three shish kebabs, and raise my eyebrows in a question. The boy raises one finger.
No, I want three shish kebabs. I show him three fingers, and wave my hands again. He shrugs and sets three shish kebabs over the coals. In a few minutes they're done, crisp on the outside, juicy on the inside.
The boy hands us the skewers and with a wave invites us to help ourselves to the bread and sauce. It's catsup, so thick we can barely squeeze it out of the bottle.
The meat is good. As we eat a car pulls up and a woman steps out. She speaks to the boy, and he puts five skewers of meat on the fire.
When we finish I bring out a wad of bills and raise my eyebrows. How much? The boy raises three fingers.
My smallest bill is 5,000 rubles. I finger it.
"He means 3,000 each", Mike says.
"Are you sure?" I peel off another 5,000 rubles and offer the boy 10,000. He shakes his hand, and again holds up three fingers.
"Give him another", Mike says. I peel off a third 5,000 ruble note, and the boy finally accepts 15,000 rubles for three skewers of meat.
After she ordered the woman went back to the car to speak to the four men who waited. Now she comes to pick up her meat. Five skewers. She hands the boy 5,000 rubles, takes the meat and returns to the car.
So I got taken, but it was my fault. The three skewers of meat cost us nearly $4, but the going rate is less than $1.
As Mike points out, the kid needs money and we don't.
Several Turkish 10-wheel trucks pass us, heading the other way. Turkey has a border with Georgia, due south of us, but Mike says a lot of Turkish trucks come in through Iran to Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
If he sees a Turkish truck broken down, Mike says, he will offer help, because if you help a Turk he will find a way to help you later.
Ken Ward told me that too. One time, he said, he had a load to Iran and they wouldn't let him into the country. Ken's boss told Ken to bring the load back to England, but Ken remembered a Turk he had met in England. Ken had given the Turk some tea, and the Turk told Ken to call if he ever needed help.
Ken called, and the problem was solved. The Turk had friends who would deliver Ken's load in Iran, and he offered Ken a load back to England.
"When once a Turk is your friend", Ken says, "he is your friend for life."
By the time we stop for the night we are 1560 km from Moscow, on highway M5 and we have covered nearly 700 km in 9.25 hours of driving time. That would be no great accomplishment in the States or Europe, but it's a good day's work here.
The truck stop offers us soup and more of the same kind of ravioli we had last night, and Shikhan beer from Baskortostan, with the label printed in English. Three meals and beer cost us 27,150 rubles, or about $6.
Six men and one woman at another table are drinking Pepsi and vodka with their meals, and are drunk and noisy. There are also a couple of tough guys at the bar, but we have no hassles.
After dinner Mick phones his wife in Scotland. Four minutes costs him $53 US.
Parking here cost 40,000 rubles for the night, up 10,000 from last night. It's a rip-off but we have no choice, because we don't dare park without protection.
Next morning our tire is flat again. Mike begins to fill it from his brake line, and a couple of Russian drivers approach.
They have a fitting that connects direct to our air tank, so Mike can fill his tire much faster. While one helps Mike, the others crawl over the truck.
Russian Kamaz trucks are good machines, but comparable to American and European trucks from the 1950's. The FH16 is one of the most advanced trucks in the world, and here it's like a flying saucer. The Russians crawl under it to inspect the air suspension, ask us about the power and the transmission, and sit in the driver's seat.
The Russians like it, but Mike says the Volvo is too modern for Russia. The nearest Volvo garage is probably in Moscow, and if he has any problem with the electronics no Russian mechanic could help him much. Mike would rather have his old Scania here because he understands it better, and if anything goes wrong he can probably find the parts to fix it.
Big trucks don't break down often but it's usually expensive when they do because it costs a lot to tow them.
But the cost of the tow and the repair would be small change, in some breakdowns. A truckload of seafood may be worth millions of dollars, and if the reefer breaks down for more than a couple of hours, or if the truck is delayed for more than a day, the trucker may have to buy it.
We don't have to worry about our load spoiling but a breakdown would be a real problem if we could not repair the truck. Local mechanics probably know nothing about the kind of electronics that control our engine, brakes and other systems, and they don't even have parts for Russian trucks let alone any foreign makes.
One lone cop at the police post watches suspiciously as we pull out onto the highway, but he does not wave us down for inspection. We're 1,577 km from Moscow, and entering the Ural mountains. We have a low pass here, Mike says, and all we will see up close will be some hills. Roadside vendors offer electric razors, vacuum coffee pots, blank pistols and car tires.
As we climb to higher altitudes we see that whole villages are fenced in. The gates are open now, but they can be closed at night. I wonder whether they are closed to keep wild animals out of the village, or tame animals in? It may be just a custom left over from the time -- not too long ago -- when wolves did attack and kill people in winter.
That sounds strange to a Canadian because we have lots of wolves -- including huge timber wolves -- but we don't consider them dangerous to people. Perhaps the difference is that since before the dawn of history most people who live in the bush in Canada have been armed, but for most of history Russian peasants have not been allowed to have weapons.
If a wolf in Canada attacked a man it would be killed -- either by the man himself or by his friends who would track it down and kill it. If a wolf in Russia attacked a peasant, it would have found a new source of food.
As Mike predicted we never have to climb over high mountains, but we can see them in the distance on both sides of the road.
We pass a police post and a cop flags us down. The speed limit here is 50 kph, he says, and we are doing 64. The fine is 5,000 rubles, and the cop does not fill out a ticket.
But he does ask Mike if we have any books. Mike gives him an English truck magazine, and we drive on. He says most Russian police want skin books, which they can't buy in Russia. Mick calls them "wanking material."
We see a portable restaurant in one pull-off. The operators have set up a table and chairs on the parking lot, and are cooking on a portable stove.
There are lots of pull-offs beside the road, and most of them have concrete ramps to repair vehicles on. There are lots of abandoned tires here, about one every 25 yards for miles on end.
We pass a wrecked car in a field by the road. It's a German BMW that apparently rolled over several times. No surprise because Russian roads are raised above the surrounding countryside. I guess they raise the roads to get good drainage, but they are so high that if you run off the side you can expect to roll.
People are dragging luggage out of this car. There's a police post less than a mile away, but the police don't seem to be interested. Later we pass the remains of wrecked, abandoned and stripped tractor-trailer trucks and buses by the road.
We pull in to a big gas station, but they have no fuel. That's no problem for us because we have enough for at least another 500 km but while we are there an ambulance pulls up. There is no fuel for them either, and the crew look worried.
There's a store at the garage, but it's closed.
About 10 miles down the road we pass a couple of army surplus fuel tankers, selling fiel at the side of the road. Did the black marketeer pay the manager of the gas station to shut down? Whether that's so or not they have only gas, and they are no help to us.
Later we find a black market tanker who has diesel. Mike fills up with 280 liters but Mick gets only 140 before the tanker runs dry. We are now 1,791 km from Moscow, and in the first full sunlight we've seen for a couple of days. Mick says there's snow in these mountains most of the year.
Several local kids come to watch us fill up. Mike thinks they're on the take, but I think they're just watching -- like English kids would if a flying saucer landed in their village. These kids are used to trucks, but not to foreign trucks.
The smallest boys opens and closes the fuel tank lids for us, and Mike gives him 1,000 rubles. He shows it to the others, and it looks like he is offering to share it with them.
We take a bypass around one town. Like the truck ahead of us Mike drives on the shoulder, and sometimes out into the surrounding fields, because they are much smoother than the road. The road ahead leads to Novosibirsk but just short of Y'ekatrinberg, we turn south toward Kazakhstan.
We pass through the edges of a big city. I see huge factories, giant apartment houses and huge ranges of garages -- block after block of garages, some of them more than a mile's walk from the apartment houses.
The few factories we pass close-up look as thought they have been abandoned, but people are going in and out and I assume they are working.
Sometimes I wonder how many cities I have seen like this, as I pass by, without ever stopping or finding out what they are like. Around here I don't know the names of most towns and cities as we pass, and I will never find out. Whole cities are just features of the landscape, no more significant than trees or rocks.
It must be the same for sailors, who may sail past a port or even drop anchor without ever going ashore, and probably even for camel pullers. From a caravanserai they could go to town if they want to, but the camels have to be tended and gear has to be repaired, and after a long day on the trail who needs to see another town?
On this road I meet Olga. We pull off at a typical roadside halt, across the road from a small shack that seems to serve as a roadside restaurant. A few minutes after we stop a woman about 30 years old comes across.
She is good looking and well dressed, with a gray and black patterned wool cardigan and red-checked wood scarf. Her hair is brown and short.
She speaks some German. We are the first English people she has seen, she says, and she invites us to her stand for a bowl of soup.
She goes back to prepare it but Mike doesn't want to go. When we don't come Olga comes back and gives me a good dark chocolate bar -- worth at least three German marks.
She is fascinated by how far we have come and she wonders about the time on our watches. I don't know what she's getting at but Mike tells me that she wants to know what time zone we live in.
She is impressed to learn that Mike lives about six time zones away, and that my home zone is six hours behind Mike's. I am now about half way around the world from my home in Toronto.
Olga wears a cross around her neck and she is curious about the string she sees under my shirt. She wonders if it supports a religious fetish, and seems surprised to hear that it supports my passport. She wants to see the passport, but I don't want to show her that the same nylon bag contains more money, in American dollars, than she is likely to earn in several years.
I wish I could be more honest with her, but around here I have to assume that she could be working for hijackers. When she asks me what we carry I give her the standard answer -- printed paper forms.
Before we part she tells me that she is psychic, and she asks if I want to know about my future. I say I'm not interested and she gives me no details, but she tells me I will have good luck.
Later that day a policeman flags us down. We were doing 80 kph in a 70 zone, he says, and he wants to see both our passports.
But we pay no fine this time. As we hand him our passports the Lada police car, off the side of the road, starts and accelerates toward us. As it screeches to a stop beside the policeman, the driver opens the door and speaks urgently.
Our policeman hurriedly hands our passports back and jumps into the car. They have an emergency call, and the car roars away with lights flashing.
The bus shelters here are made of steel, and they have rural scenes painted on them. All through Russia we see bus shelters by the main highways.
Later we see a couple of old buses that have been converted to a roadside cafe. A couple of trucks are parked by them, but we don't stop.
We're still heading east but Mike says we will turn south tomorrow, and drive about 250 km to the border. Russia is so big it's taken us six days to cross a small part of it. The last time Mike ran this way, he says, it took him 11 days to get this far.
By evening we're in flat country with low scrub brush, and we go a half hour at a time without seeing another vehicle. Moonlight back-lights the clouds in a mackerel sky, and in some areas we pass between huge fields covered with light snow. There's a strong breeze from the side, and the loudest noise is the sound of the wind and an occasional thump from the suspension as we pass over bumps. The road is smooth and it feels like we're coasting, or maybe standing still.
Normally Mike doesn't like driving at night because he can't see the road well enough, but with the moon ahead of us the road is lighted, and we can see potholes now better than we can in daylight.
Besides, we don't dare stop without protection and there are few police posts out here. Finally we reach a crossroads, and a police post where we can stop for the night. We're about 300 miles north of the Caspian Sea, 2,500 km east of Moscow. It's 12 hours since we started this morning, and in 10.5 hours of driving time we've covered about 800 km. We have more than 2,000 km to go.
Dinner tonight is canned chicken and rice. Mick cooks the rice and Mike cooks the canned chicken. If I were not here they might eat side by side in the same truck, but now Mick parks beside us and we eat in separate trucks. After dinner, Mike heats bottled water on his stove, and washes the dishes.
Later another truck and a car pull in to share the protection of the police post.