From the 2006/04/10 to the 2006/04/16

-- The road towards the Ural, borders of continental Europe



The road tracklog from Vladimir to Kazan differs from that of the map to the approach of Kazan. The M7 road was the subject of work of modifications. The distance from Vladimir to Niznij-Novgorod is 247 km and 418 km from Niznij-Novgorod to Kazan.

Niznij-Novgorod is the third town of Russia, Moscow is the capital, Saint-Petersburg is the heart and Niznij-Novgorod is the economic lung with its factories of heavy industries and armament. The Kremlin, the fortress, was built on a hill dominating the Volga whose buildings are occupied by administrative offices.

 

The mall 
its stores of luxury 
Niznij-Novgorod 
10/04/2006 

 

 

 

Symbol of the social success 
Niznij-Novgorod 
10/04/2006 

Kazan is it capital of Tatarstan. The Kremlin was registered with the inheritance world of humanity in 2000. As in Niznij-Novgorod, the centre town was entirely restored since the fall of “Ancien Regime”. The central market takes Eastern looks with its displays of pigments and dry fruits.

 

 

 

Kul Sharif mosque 
Kazan 
12/04/2006 

 

 

 

The central Market 
Kazan 
12/04/2006 

Michel Fabre informed me the 11/04 per mobile phone that the road to Perm via Malmyz and Igra was cut by floods. A deviation was in place to go towards Jelabuga then Perm via Izevsk. Consequently I took the M7/E22 road from Kazan and I changed my stages cities. In my way I was helped by a truck-driver who made me gift of his “Road atlas” with the name of the cities in Cyrillic alphabet. The road passes by the landscapes undulating at the borders of the east European plain before the Ural. Two controls of police wanted to make me pay a tax of 1800RUB together with documents, after discussion in English jargon and by asserting my statute of tourist I was exempted by it.



 

 

The road from Kazan to Yerkaterinburg was done in four stages of 1,154 km at the kilometric counter of the road tracklog. The stages are given by the page “Campsite-position” of the menu bar.

Kungur, according to the Lonely Planet guide, is a backwater at the end of a battered road composed of dilapidated buildings and industrial waste lands. I found “Ice Caves” after much of requests for information close to the Stalagmit Hotel. I was as part as a local tourist group and equipped with a English cassette player. The cost of the visit and the hiring of the cassette was of 300RUB. Actually, only the first three caves are made up of ice concretions. The others are classically made up of stalagmites and stalactites. I have an overnight on the carpark of the Stalagmit Hotel.

 

 

 

Underground lake, “Ice Caves”
Kungur
15/04/2006

Yekaterinburg, located in the Ural, was reached by a road mainly in good condition. But the dilapidated sections were very trying, it had to be done at slower speed. Alas that occurred several times. The city is especially known by the murder of the Tsar Nicolas II and his family in July 1918. Boris Yeltsin was its governor. After a Mafia period in the 1990's, the city knows a rapid industrial expansion since 2000's. It was very pleasant to visit.

 

 

 

The wooden Chapel 
Yekaterinburg 
16/04/2006 

The state of the roads is in general good on the large axes. Thus M7 is sometimes with twice two lanes. However some road sections are very dilapidated. On a long trip, the mileage per hour average depends on three factors: The first, of course, is the state of the road, the second is the number of crossed villages -the speed limit is from 50 km/h to 40Km/h-, the third factors is the number of controls of police and the zeal of the officers. The police force has manual radars to control speed. Doubting the reliability of that hardware, I adopted a speed lower than the announced speed limit. Controls of police are numerous, sometimes four to five per day. Since Vladimir they are often good child, sometimes the officer takes one present. I saw truck-drivers giving cigarettes, reviews and roubles. I was tested with the breathalyser test, it consisted in blowing in a paper cone then sniffed by the police officer and supplied with a blackmail to obtain roubles. Informed by the experiment, I refused systematically, then I waited patiently until my documents were returned to me.
Apart from the large cities, the traffic is composed of trucks either of Russian origin and slow, or of European origin and fast. The accesses of the large cities are encumbered with buses and minibuses making traffic difficult. The centre town is forbidden to trucks of more than eight tons.
Tuck-drivers were “sympathetic” and helped me. On the road the calls of headlights announced the presence of controls of police. Some car-drivers thanked me with the warning lights for having let them overtake me in hillsides.

The following days were in Siberia to go to the border of Mongolia in several stages.


Yekaterinburg, the 2006/04/16

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