Double Front Light

In Samara we reached 6.000km. Wow. Its 1/3 of the whole trip now. One month on the road and two more to go. So far we enjoyed a lot of nice sunny weather and didnt get into troubles. The car is very reliable and police stopped us only once and just wanted to know if I’m drunk.

Samara got some Moscow taste. Traffic jam and not so smiley waiters. It seems like they repair all streets at once. The whole city is one big construction site.
Anyway, there are some things worth seeing. We found the historic city centre and visited Stalins bunker (Well, he never used it). Booked some apartment here, because I have to wait 2 days until Willem will arrive here. Robert is flying home now and I am busy washing all my clothes. And finally taking a looooong sleep.

Celebrated the international “Vehicle Repair Day”.

A lot of parts from Uljanowsk were installed.
The exhaust was fixed, we have a new battery now (Ah, maybe it was just bad contacts, there are still some electrical issues), new air filter, checked all lights and we can start the car manually now.
Especially the last point took us long time, because the original crank isnt long enough for my new front bumper. We had to improvise and now I can extend this crank with standard parts from my toolbox 😀

And some statistics here:

For 6.000km you need:

950L gasoline
7L engine oil
0,15L gearbox oil
a lot of grease
15L water (the radiator is leaking somewhere)
1 gasoline filter
1 gasoline pump
1 exhaust pipe (the silencer went useless on the old one)
1 battery (not sure if it was really broken)
1 air filter
2 new battery clamps
4 new light bulbs

funny fact: If it continues like this, i only need to change the oil filter every now and then. The engine oil is always new 😀

^^ the tires look really good after 6000km. The guys from MAXXIS were worried they could be a lot of abrasion on asphalt. Finally our average speed is about 80km/h and it seems to be OK for them. We never had some dangerous situation with these tires. With my old russian set, there were often situations, where the wheels blocked or skidded along the road. I am very happy!

After checking out some small villages and doing some camping at the Volga (ewwww, Moskitos!) we finally arrived in Uljanowsk. Uljanowsk is birth place of Mr. Vladimir Iljitsch Uljanow (aka Lenin) and also: my lovely car.
They build this car since the year 1965 and its still in production. Just some minor modifications were made over the years. Now its a little more safe, but still somehow out of time 😀
Anyway, its perfect for russian roads!
Uljanowsk is also some kind of shopping paradise! You can get ALL parts for this car there 🙂
Now we have a new exhaust and finally can talk while driving 😀

Lenin said “good bye” and we moved east, to Kazan. New impressions every day. Now there are cows on the street and almost every village got these gas tubes in front of their houses.
Enjoyed a lot of nice views to the Volga river. But somehow this river has a bad ghost. Whenever we get too close, some problems with the car start 😀 Had to check the gasoline pump and fulter again. There was too much air from somewhere. And the car got some nice racing sound now. Somewhere the silencer isnt silencing any more.
Well, we will pass Uljanowsk soon. The car was built there and all the town will be full of spareparts 🙂

^^ how to put new oil to the gearbox? Use a soap dispenser 😀 Martin Kuhn Design…….

We didnt take dhe main road and tried to enjoy the countryside. Russia is beautiful. Not just birch trees and mud. People in villages still build their traditional wooden houses, and they put them in really nice places. I am sure, a lot of them dont have water and some not even electricity, but when you look outside the window and see the majestic rivers and valleys…… its priceless…..

After 2 days of driving we reached Nizhny Novgorod.This city is like some relaxed miniature of Moscow. They also have some Kremlin (aah, the view here!!) and really nice old part of town. Its also called the architectural queen of Russia. You will find old and new here. And people are smiling! Unbelievable 🙂

^^ Robert inspecting a russian compass. They always point to the west 😉

Hello Moscow. The biggest city in europe. almost 12 million people live here. Too many, if you ask me. Traffic is chaotic. Sometimes its really ok. Just dont get too close to the center. Use the metro as often as you can. Its cheap and fast.
In Moscow we stayed at the “Legendary Sovietsky Hotel”. Wow wow, harp music at the breakfast. 😀 We also met a lot of friends and had some private time. The Japan boys went home and now we can relax 😉
I also had the chance to go to Obninsk with Olga and meet with the family of my wife. It was a lot of fun and much more eating. It feels like in this few days I found some extra kilos. 😀 I dont know how girls here can be so slim. Maybe its the everyday stress in traffic…

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On the way to Moscow, there is Veliki Nowgorod. Again, old castle walls, churches, tourists….. And here we decided to get off the main road and see some nature. It was incredible! Villages as big as 3 houses, next gas station in 100km, asphalt??? Ha ha haaa! Who needs it? My car is made for this roads. OK, there are noises from everywhere, but who cares? SO MUCH FUN!
And finally got to taste Moscow traffic plus broken GPS system…..

Russia – country of fairytales and miracles. In America everything can happen, in Russia everything will happen 😀
As example: first thing you see can be someone who is skiing in swimming gear. In summer. On the main road to the border…..
We had no big troubles at the border control and people were very helpful, even without anyone talking english. I should have practiced my russian language skills. Would be very helpful to understand jokes about germans and russian cars 😀

First stop was in Wyborg. Its the first city after the border and they also have one of these nice castles. We had lunch there and were looking for an car insurance. The third company said OK and now I feel much safer on the road 😛
From Wyborg its a few hours ride to St. Peterburg. The roads are new and people drive very civilized. If you give people some space to be faster than you, they will say thank you with some lightshow. Not many people in Germany do this. Only in bigger cities, there will be more crazy driving every now and then.
Finally we met St Peters famouse traffic jam. Hello 🙂

OK, OK, and we did sightseeing a lot 🙂