Where Is Ron?
Russia, Summer 2007
Ron in St. Petersburg, July 2007
Nizhny Novgorod
16 August 2007
Afton, Virginia, USADear Family and Friends,
Ron is now in Nizhny Novgorod, having, as you will see from his message, overcome the assorted logistical difficulties of hotel reservations, transporting and storing luggage, and train travel when speaking and reading no Russian. Both of us realize how lucky we were to have Vladimir, our tour leader, deal with all the logistics during our Golden Ring bike tour!
Among the photos that Ron sent from Lake Baikal were the two puzzling ones that he had labeled "I don't know" parts 1 and 2. I left Ron's captions on the photos when I posted them on the Web page, and asked if anyone could explain them. The speculation of a friend who has traveled to Irkutsk and Lake Baikal seems a likely possibility (thanks, Hudson!). He says, "The handkerchiefs tied to the trees would seem to be some sort of 'make a wish' thing. The woman would be selling the rudiments for prayers in her little baskets. Babushkas, of course, in Russia having special power. Reminiscent of the paper prayers sold at Shinto shrines in Japan, Tibetan prayer flags, any number of puja elements in India, Catholic indulgences, carbon-offset credits.... From all the lacy frillies in part II I'm guessing she may be a match-maker capitalizing on young girls' or their parents' hopes for love, babies, etc." He also says, "The only other clue is that Shamanism is HUGE in Siberia, and Baikal is especially sacred." So I've added this information to the caption on the photo page. If you want to go back and look at the photo, see http://personal.cfw.com/~renders/severo2_photos.html I must admit, my favorite part of this explanation is the concept of a babushka on a beach somewhere selling carbon offset credits!
Yesterday from Nizhny Novgorod Ron sent me some more photos, a few from Nizhny Novgorod and a nice group from the Lake Baikal village of Baikalskoe (he'd only sent two of the village before). So I've added a separate section to the Lake Baikal page for the Baikalskoe photos, see http://personal.cfw.com/~renders/baikalskoe_photos.html.
I should clarify here that the photos I brought back with me from Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the Golden Ring bike tour were all taken by Ron, not by me. The only photos he didn't take are those few with him in them -- either I or someone else took those.
It has been hot and very, very dry here in Virginia, although not quite as hot as some other states in the southeast, and we've had a brief respite for the last several days. However, the forecast threatens extremely high temperatures again today -- but I've closed up the house to keep the heat out, will make some peach pies to freeze for the winter (come visit and we'll pull one out of the freezer and bake it!), and continue reading book 7 of the Harry Potter series!
Love to all,
Ellen
Managing the logistics of Russian travel
To see photos of Nizhny Novgorod, click on the thumbnail at the left.
15 August 2007
Nizhny Novgorod, RussiaHello, my dear -
This is the third day in Nizhny Novgorod, and I am happier each day that I have been here.
Since sometimes people come up with my reports by searching on the Internet for travel information, I thought I would write a "logistics" report on how I managed to travel here, speaking no Russian and traveling with a bicycle. This may seem sort of nutty to many folks, but for those few travelers that travel with a bicycle, they may find the information very helpful -- and the others may be amused.
So some search terms:
Traveling with a bicycle in Russia
Bicycling in Russia
Russia, by bicycle With a credit card and plenty of credit, anyone can travel in Russia. Travel agents can get tickets and make hotel reservations, airlines get you there fast, taxis get you to where you need to be, and your comforts can be just like home. But to travel cheaply and with a bicycle, that is much more of a challenge, especially when you can't speak the language.
For my trip to Irkutsk and Lake Baikal I used a travel agency at the American Embassy to get my train ticket to Irkutsk and plane ticket back to Moscow. Bob helped me and I don't know if this would be available to all travelers. I found how to get my own ticket for the boat to Severobaikalsk on my own.
But the trip from Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod with my bicycle was a different kind of trip and one that presented more of a challenge than any of my trips anywhere.
We've been told that Moscow is currently the most expensive city in the world, and I must admit I failed to find a cheap place to stay once my friend Bob returned to the US. I did find a hotel for $60 a night (Tourist Hotel, the actual name of the hotel) but I could not make a reservation in person at the hotel and could never get an answer on the phone reservation numbers, nor could I get an answer about whether I could leave my suitcase there while I was traveling. So, before leaving Moscow for Lake Baikal, I made reservations for my two nights after returning from Lake Baikal and before going to Nizhny Novgorod, and my three nights before returning home, at two hotels in the cluster where the people on the Golden Ring bike tour stayed. The Delta and the Beta are part of a cluster of 5 big hotels built for the 1980 Olympics, the other three being the Alpha, Gamma, and Vega. My room cost is around $100 a night. There are hostels in Moscow, but I couldn't get reservations for the first couple of nights nor could I get an answer about leaving luggage.
Train stations have places to leave luggage, and I did confirm that I could do so, but since I chose the cluster hotel reservations, I decided to use their left-luggage room for a cost of about $2.50 a day for my bike suitcase and backpack for the first trip and managed to convince them to keep the more or less empty suitcase for the second trip for about $1.10 a day. So while this seems like I took the easy way, let me confess that I spend at least two days figuring out where to stay, make reservations and where to leave my luggage. And I learned that if I didn't have reservations I would probably not be able to find a room during August because hotels would be full. And I could not get a reservation at the end of July for a night or two before leaving for Lake Baikal because the hotels were full.
At the hotel reception desks you cannot make future reservations. They give you a telephone number. Since I don't have a phone, don't speak Russian and would rather deal in person, I badgered the hotels in the cluster (each of the 5 of them in turn) until I could find out where the reservation office was for each, and then tried to make reservations in person. In one case I was sent a door that led to a hall with other doors and a staircase up. So I tried a door and they directed me to another door. At the second hotel I could get my first reservation because it was for a weekend, but they said that for my second and third reservation I would have to use the Internet and a credit card because the dates were during the week when the demand exceeds availability. So I went to the hotel's Internet Cafe and tried to make the second reservation and learned that my dates were not available. I was unable to understand if the hotel was full or if the rooms only become bookable a month ahead (what someone told me) and I was trying to book for more than a month ahead. So I went to the third and fourth hotels and struck out. At the fifth hotel I was told to go to the second floor. I think I ended up in the manager's office and his secretary walked me down the hall to the reservation office and there a young lady could speak English and make my reservation for the two days before returning home (later changed to three). She gave me a reservation number and told me not to lose it. This was true for the first reservation also, and when I did check in I had to produce the reservation number for them to find my reservation.
When I travel I prefer to not have a fixed plan and to just flow with the travel opportunities as they open up. I don't think it is possible to arrive in Moscow whenever I wish and find a hotel room for less than $200 without a reservation, so now I have structured my travel plans around Moscow room reservations. So now that I know where and when I will be staying for my nights in Moscow, lets consider some of the other logistics.
I had never put the part of the tandem that makes into a single bike into the suitcase before, but I managed to do so at Bob's before Ellen left (although she took the cart frame and wheels in her suitcase because I would not be using them). Now I had a bicycle in a suitcase and a full backpack to transport to the hotel luggage room. Of course a taxi would be easy, but would not meet my criteria of cheap, and buses may have been possible but more difficult with luggage, so I choose the metro. I decided to make two trips and I am glad I decided to do so because there were lots of steps, escalators and crowded metro cars. But two trips did the trick.
Using the Metro without being able to read Russian is not easy. The Metro map we used had the Roman alphabet version of Russian Cyrillic in large type for the name of each metro station, and below it the Russian characters in very small type that I could not read even with my glasses on. [Note from Ellen: I could easily read the print wearing my glasses -- clearly Ron needs the new glasses he keeps procrastinating about getting! So we didn't have much trouble navigating the metro while I was still there.] But at each Metro station the names on the wall were, of course, in Russian, so I could not compare the map to the metro signs to figure out where I was and which direction to go. But I learned to read the color codes on the wall opposite the train track where they listed the connections for each stop ahead. The tourist map was color coded for each route and each route had a number. In the stations I could look for directions to the connecting routes in the appropriate color and with the number, but from within the cars it was most difficult for me to tell where I was. In some cases I could get glimpses of the color coded directions to figure out which station I was passing through.
My next task was to figure out how to get a train ticket. Most trains do not allow bicycles but I learned on the bike trip that the local electric trains do allow you to put bicycles on the end of each car. There was not a local "elektrichka" train going to Nizhny Novgorod but there was one going to Vladimir and I guessed that I could catch another one from Vladimir to Nizhny Novgorod; this proved to be correct (see the story below). I am now guessing that it would be possible to travel the whole way across Russia using one after another local elektrichka trains.
Moscow has several different train stations and Bob told me which station to use. Before going to Lake Baikal, I visited the train station, found out which counter (out of about 50) to use to buy a ticket to Vladimir, and at that counter asked and found out the schedule (not easy and took a bit of help from someone in line who could speak some English). There were three trains: 7 am, 2 pm and sometime in the early evening, perhaps 6 pm. I choose the 2 pm because I was going to have to bicycle from my hotel across part of Moscow to the train station, and didn't want to arrive late at Vladimir. I was told that I couldn't purchase the ticket then but could purchase it the day before traveling. OK, I thought I had all the information I needed. But....
The day before I was to leave for Vladimir I went to the train station to buy my ticket and figure out how to get a bicycle to the train (I didn't want to have to deal with my bike and backpack while I was trying to buy a ticket and figure this out). I went to the same counter, with a different person behind it of course, and she would only sell me a ticket to the 6 pm express and would not sell me a ticket for the 2 pm. Turns out the express was not an elektrichka and the express would not allow bicycles, and to buy an elektrichka ticket I had to go downstairs to a different counter. Again it took some help by someone in line that could speak some English, and she and her daughter helped me find the correct counter downstairs; this was not easy for them either. (In Vladimir I found the same situation with a different set of counters selling elektrichka tickets.) However, I was told that I could not buy the ticket in advance, only on the day of departure. But I now knew which counter to use and determined the path for the bike to the tracks that serve the elektrichkas.
When I returned from Lake Baikal I arrived at the domestic airport (not the international), and found it easy to catch a train to downtown Moscow where I could catch a metro to my hotel. Once I produced my reservation number there was no trouble checking into the hotel and reclaiming my luggage from the left-luggage room (presenting a rather large numbered token, which if I had lost I don't know what problems would have resulted). I don't know if they would have allowed me to take my bicycle into the room, but since it was still in the suitcase there was no problem. When I return I will find out what happens when I try to take it up to my room to pack back into the suitcase.
Bob had given me a good map of Moscow so I tried figuring out a route and then consulted someone at on the "service" counter in the hotel lobby. She suggested a couple of changes which worked out very well, but told me it would take several hours to bicycle there, which was not correct. I ended up at the train station about 11 am and had to go find a park to sit and read for a couple of hours after purchasing the ticket. There was no problem buying the ticket at the elektrichka counter and she also sold me a ticket for my bike. The day before I met a couple of bicyclists who were catching the elektrichka to Vladimir with their bikes. They told me that they take off the front wheels of their bicycles and then it is just luggage and not a bicycle so they don't need a ticket for the bicycles. Because my bike would be fully loaded and the front wheel has the drum brake from the tandem, which makes it a bit more difficult to simple remove and replace the front wheel, I opted to buy the ticket for the bike. Also I was not sure I could handle the clarification between it being a bicycle or a piece of luggage. On both legs of the trip I was asked for the bike ticket and had no problems on the train.
Arriving in Vladimir about 5:15 pm, I went to the counter, waited in line and asked about a ticket to Nizhny Novgorod and again learned that I had to go to a different set of counters for tickets on the elektrichkas. So I waited in another line and was told that there were no tickets available for the next few days! However, the elektrichka train leaving at 7:15 am the next day was available because tickets were not sold until the day of departure. Similar to my experience in Moscow, so I don't understand why you can buy advance tickets (and they can sell out) on some elektrichkas and not on others.
My next task was to find a hotel in Vladimir. I went to one that I picked from the Lonely Planet and was told their cheapest room was $160, so I asked them if they could tell me where I could find a cheaper hotel. This began a pattern of how I have proceeded. It seems that each hotel can tell you about one that is cheaper, although sometimes it takes a progression to finally get down to my price range. They told me about a hotel about two kilometers outside of the center and I asked them to write the name of the hotel on a piece of paper, along with the street name in Russian, which they did. Having my bike, 2 K was no problem and I got to see a bit of Vladimir and found a hotel that met my needs fine for 600r, about $24 (single bed, TV with English news, toilet and shower, fan, and clean). I just kept showing that little piece of paper to people and they kept pointing forward until someone pointed backwards because I had passed it.
The next task was to find dinner. Some of the Lonely Planet listings have gone out of business and other times the menu is only in Russian and they can't speak English. I am still trying to figure out how to handle this situation and would welcome suggestions. Cafeterias are great. Earlier I passed a sign that appeared to be a very nice Italian restaurant so I returned. When I went in it appeared to be more of a fast food place, but as I looked around I noticed some people coming down some steps so I went up and found a hall with several doors. I tried a couple of them that were locked and then a couple came out of one and I went in and found a very pleasant Italian restaurant. This is a pattern that I am finding. Entrances to buildings, restaurants, sometimes hotels are just not obvious, at least to me.
Arriving in Nizhny Novgorod, I found that the cheap rooms were already sold and the first hotel was quoting 5500r, but then I found one for 1500r ($60) and took if for a couple of nights. The room was small, very hot, no fan, no TV, but had private bath and an icebox which I used also as an air-conditioner. The Nizhegorodsky Hotel Complex, located on the bluff over the river, and a very beautiful place to be for sunset and when the night lights came on. The next day I continued my pattern of asking each hotel for the name and street of a cheaper hotel. I found one hotel cheaper but they would not rent to foreigners. With my bicycle I had a very good tour of the city on the east side of the river and ended up finding a hotel that told me I would not find one cheaper than their 1200r but then told me about a hostel, again writing the name of the street and the name of the hostel on a small piece of paper. This led me to a rather run down building, a couple of blocks from the Kremlin in the center of town and one block off the main walking street (to the east), a rather wonderful location. While the building is not very fancy, and not as clean as the one I was staying in, the room is larger, has a TV, higher ceilings and is cooler, and has a bathroom shared by two rooms as in a two room suite for 600r ($24). All in all I like it much better than my little hot room for $60.
In the process of looking for a hotel I found myself bicycling on some very busy highways, but as I continued to explore I also found that there was a wonderful network of parallel roads that don't go all the way through for vehicles to reach various buildings, and these are connected by pedestrian bridges and walkways that are wonderful for bicycling and avoiding the traffic. I am looking forward to continuing my explorations of the city.
This has probably bored a lot of folks, but perhaps it will be useful to someone who wants to bicycle and travel in Russia on less than a fortune.
Love and miss you,
Ron
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Last updated: 31 August 2007
