From Yakutsk....
"Kamchatka Peninsula" by Bike and Kayak
Wed 11 Jul 2012 20:42
I finally arrived at the start point of my bicycling adventure....
Welcome to the metropolis of Yakutsk....Capital of Yakutia, a huge state of Russia, and a city of some 250 000 people, who survive and prosper in a climate that is one the world's extremes: 9 months of cold, where temperatures reach -60C, and then the 3 warm summer months where temperatures can get up to 40C. It has recorded many +100C annual temperature ranges, which puts Yakutsk with a very small group of towns and cities in the world. Well I happen to be starting my bicycle ride right in the middle of the hottest time, but this necessary to avoid the real cold, and still frozen rivers, or if too much later, the impassable swollen rivers. There is only a small, but unpredictable window, and I'll soon find out how lucky I have been...!
It was been a real adventure just getting from London to this point! Two nights sleeping in airports, hiding from Russian airport marshals with my bike box and gear. Having a sleeping bag, makes it almost seem luxurious when I look around at my fellow 'squatters'! Then 2 hours out from Moscow, the flight is forced by an onboard medical emergency to turn around back to Moscow..!
Anyway, after flying in low across the impressive Lena River, the moment of start of adventure arrived: Yakutsk airport, all my fellow passengers departed and me all alone, unpacking and then assembling my bike and gear. Ii feel very alone, quite vulnerable, yet at the same time, definitely excited. Time to get cycling...
It's the first time I'm riding with the trailer, bike almost fully loaded, so all up six pannier bags. This trailer 'thing' is something I'm really have to get more comfortable with...: I always felt trailers were 'nerdy', and unnecessarily cumbersome, for those how can't simplify enough...Now through necessity I'm one of 'them'! It's like driving a double truck and trailer, and I wonder how Yakutsk motorists will react? Oh well, lots of passers by, stop look with amazement, try and engage, but my Russian puts a stop to any meaningful conversation. After just 2 days immersed in this Russian environment, I feel a huge anxiety, as it hits me how alone I'm going to be, not being able to even have a basic conversation with strangers around me. In memories of Patagonia's isolation, I break out into Spanish, but soon castigate myself, firstly, for it's obvious and stupid ineffectiveness, and secondly my poor progress in learning Russian. With my Spanish and understanding of it's rules and the basics, I could always start conversation with a local, that would end in mutual value, but here this is a non starter. I feel this deep hole, as I see the months ahead, and given my language proficiency gap, there doesn't seem to be a relief solution in sight.....I'll have to shutdown my extroverted side, and rely totally on my introversion...'Interesting' times ahead, and you will hear all about it!
Eventually I set off on the bike, and can't believe how unstable and cumbersome the bike feels, no fancy turns, or shooting gaps, with this, today!...I'd better watch it in the traffic, I'll be turning into the main 'highway' into Yakutsk soon. I know that within days this feel will all be 'normal', and although I won't quite be bobbing and weaving sharp turns with the bike, it will feel manageable...well, I hope so...
The traffic is full on, no cycle lane here, and large trucks making a seemingly polite, yet close shave, detour around me, remind me that this section is all about focus on the road ahead.
I reach the city, stop at a few, what I think should be moderately priced hotels, go through thee new procedure of parking and securing my 'oversize vehicle, only to find Yakutsk is living up to it's expensive reputation, $200 per night, and no space for my bike... Stuff that, 'we' will find 'Howard' type accommodation. I eventually find, exactly what I'm looking for, and Peter the mid twenty, year old guy at reception speaks a bit of English, and seems to welcome my exoticness...
Thirsty and hungry, their 'restaurant', more like a cafeteria, eating house, offers locals a 'poor man's' Russian buffet...reminded me of some of my African cycle trip, eating 'delights'! Having secured my room for two nights, I told my new 'friend', I'd have something to eat and drink, then we do 'all the paperwork', later. I told him, that I'll need him to help me officially register my arrival into Russia. This is something the 1st hotel you stay at has to do, to validate my visa. He's happy with that gives me the key, and I feel great, with a good 'home' to base myself, before the big cycle ahead.
I gorge myself on the exotic buffet, exotic only in it's foreign-ness, and 'buffet' only in it's volume, and I can see and feel that this is a local favourite. Peter is busy, so I just hand him the payment, and then I unpack the bike, move it and all my gear to my upstairs room, passing Peter each trip.
I'm just enjoying a quiet moment in my new home, and there is a knock at my door, it's Peter, looking very concerned and saying: Hovard(!), we have big problem, you must go, here is your money back." I was devastated, demanding to know what 'the problem' was, but his English was only enough for me to understand that it was his boss that had the problem. Finally after 1 hour, he agreed I could stay, but I now realise it was his compassion for me that made him take a risk, allowing me to stay against his boss's instruction. He gradually let me into the new 'rules of my stay'....I was to stay inside my room, so his boss didn't see me! Well, nobody gives me a prison like that, I was angry, but actually had become a most unlikely paid prisoner! Gee, I was feeling alone, and bewildered, but did escape, and head out to explore Yakutsk, all the time wondering what 'the problem' was, and why this had happened to me. I felt uneasy as it hit me that it was probably all about this visa registration thing, and I would be wasting another precious day tomorrow, not only searching for another hotel but also for my visa registration, and I had only one more day's grace from the government for this. My exploring of the supermarkets of Yakutsk left me with almost a sick feeling inside, as the choice of adventure calories for the cycle ahead, was very limited, and mostly unrecognisably local, and just Russian labels. Not even peanut butter, or instant rice.
I didn't sleep well with all this Peter / hotel 'stuff', and the unknown apprehension of the remoteness and isolation ahead. "But this is 'my adventure', it's all voluntary, and I can't just weaken at the first minor hurdle, there will be much bigger ones than this ahead, get a grip on yourself!"
Peter really delivered beyond the expectations of our brief friendship. He felt my anxiety, took some responsibility for it, and the next morning was spent following him and his girlfriend around Yakutsk, from officialdom to officialdom, trying to get someone to assist with my registration. Well what an eye opener for me, to see Russian bureaucracy at work, and to get the local interpretation of it, through Peter. As he relaxed with me his English improved and we were able to laugh and chat about quite a diverse range of things. Often he would start: "So Hovard, in Soth Afrika, do you have.....? I could sense he was genuinely interested in where I came from.
Finally at 2pm I was all sorted, new hotel, yeah an expensive one, but they agreed to solve my registration problem, something 4 government offices, refused to do!
Oh well, I'd been warned about the bureaucracy and this is just the start....
What has really hit me here is how almost anti consumerism, and exact opposite the city environment is to the world's consumerism icon, the USA. Just over two weeks ago I was walking the giant, consumer metropolis of Minneapolis, ' The Mall of America', not so long ago the largest shopping mall in the world!A pinnacle icon of capitalism: Brands, everywhere, advertising right in your face, subtly telling you you are a loser if you don't buy stuff, strongly overt, competition for the consumer dollar, and all over a witness to this unchecked consumerism: overweight, over indebted, people, hoping their purchases will bring the happiness the marketing 'promised'.
Here in Yakutsk, it's all exactly opposite. From the outside a retailer could be a workshop, no window of enticements, no clear branding, often just an indiscrete door, that when opened, takes one into a not insignificant consumer goods retailer. Fast foods almost non-existent, I haven't seen one Coca cola, Nike, Mc Donald's, Apple, Toyota, etc advert, sign... This isn't a small town, maybe the extreme winters have something to do with it, butt I sense the main difference is a totally different value system, consumerism vs the vestiges of socialism. The difference and the 'products' of the two models, so obviously opposite, interesting and makes one think, where the right path lies....!
That's about it from the non-adventure side, back to the harsh realities of what lies ahead: see next post!
H