The Motherland Calls (and beyond)

It’s a long way south to see a statue. Was it worth it, you bet it was. I said before on facebook that it made the Statue of Liberty look small. In face it’s slightly smaller than liberty, but, The Motherland Calls is not on a plinth. Anyway it’s a bloody impressive statue.

The Motherland Calls

The hall of remembrance

Every hour they change the guard. Impressive!

I asked in the hotel if it was near. Yes she said, 5 minutes away. She thought I meant by car, I walked!! I ended up scrambling up through the gorse and trees every which way until I came out at the back of the statue. I caught a taxi back.

The bike loaded with the off road tyres 

The next two days were spent getting to Ufa to meet up with Uwe Remmers a German guy I had met through Horizons Unlimited who said he was going the same way as me at the same time and we could support each other through Mongolia.

Samara by the sea (or the Volga) but a beach never the less 

Lovely promenade in the evening.

The monument of Glory built to honor the local aviation workers

Rain that evening and the next morning made the bike and me very dirty with all the road dust and muck from the trucks. We managed to get to the Hotel the same evening and had no problem getting aqainted. He speaks perfect English and as travelers we have no problem finding things to talk about.

Uwe with his bike and we met a Egyptian guy, Sharif Loutfi riding to Tokyo on this Goldwing!!

We did a couple of the sights the next day as well as getting the bikes cleaned and ready to go.

Hands up who doesn't know this guy??

Salavat Luaiev, very popular in 1774

 Popular wedding day on the Saturday. He then picked her up and put her on my filthy bike in that dress!!

All through the small Russian towns and along the roadside wherever the traffic has to slow down there are people selling things. Some days it can be sleeveless warmers and garden gnomes and other days it can be home made honey or preserved fruits and berries, one day it was samovars. Whatever it is it’s the same thing all day. How much of it they sell is difficult to say as you very rarely see anyone stopped at the stalls.

The next four days  through Chelyabinsk, Omsk and Novosibirsk to Barnaul have been heavy going. 650–700km per day. I was asked if I was going so hard for a reason, but no the truth is that there are very few towns in between these places and the ones we stayed in have nothing much (as far as I could see) to make stopping any longer than overnight necessary. Time will be better spent in the Altai region and Mongolia which should be more scenic. The only relief from the open plains and wheat fields is when you cross over the Ural Mountains and enter the Asian side of Russia. Enjoying it is not that easy as all the trucks have to slow down, and then it becomes a game of dodgems with the traffic coming the other way to make any sort of progress.

our truck stop accommodation for the night

This is pretty much the view for hundreds and hundreds of Km 

In Novosibirsk the Opera House

And our hotel which may have looked "interesting" from google earth but it was very nice

On the way out there was this train museum. Unfortunately it wasn't open

So we are now in Barnaul. We have a nice apartment for two night and we are going to try to get the off road tyres fitted at a bike shop rather than struggle with them ourselves. The next post might be a while away as we will be entering Mongolia and who knows what awaits us there??

Hotel in Barnaul


In this area??