Khor, Pereyaslavka and Tamara
15 January 2015
After these two days in Kiinsk I made my first bike ride. Important day, now the trip had started for real. Russians have a saying “you better have twenty friends than twenty rubel” and therefore I was not allowed to go to a hotel. Instead the family where I stayed made a phonecall with a friend named Tamara in Khor and I was supposed to ride to Tamara’s house, only 37 kilometers away. 37, Yup, I can do that. I got her address on a piece of paper and her house was marked on the GPS on my phone. Should not be difficult.
But the bike ride to Khor was. -23º Celcius, and by the time I was not even halfway in Pereyaslavka I was already exhausted and cold and I had to spend half an hour warming up in a shop and walk around on the street stamping my feet. I had done only ten kilometers and look how bad it was. These temperatures are scary. My Coca Cola had frozen up already so I had to buy a new bottle and protect it better.
The second part of the trip was not much better. My average speed was low, around fifteen kilometers an hour. It is not that easy to bike with two layers of thermal underwear, one blue jeans and heavy duty pants on top.
In Khor I easily found Tamara’s house. I had OpenStreetMaps on my phone, just follow the arrow, easy. Tamara I found sitting outside her house on a wooden bench in -25º Celcius, patiently waiting for me. I estimated she was about 75 years old, yet she must have been sitting there in the snow for an hour or more, waiting for me, making sure I wouldn’t miss her house. Tough! I don’t think Tamara ever visited www.bikeforums.net.
I was not allowed to leave the bike outside so had to take it inside the appartment. Tamara gave me borsch and bread and some wodka, and when I had eaten enough she started to do some real cooking for me: pelmeni, blini, more bread, more soup, well in Russia it never stops. And more wodka.
Before she got to work in the kitchen, Tamara installed me in front of her TV with DVD-player. She had two DVD’s, and the one I got to see was a documentary about St. Petersburg from 1970. It was mostly camera shots panning over buildings and parcs, with a Russian voice explaining what was so special about these buildings and parcs. After fifteen minutes I thought I had seen all buildings and parcs in Petersburg, but no, the DVD lasted longer than that. Much longer. Luckily there was wodka.
After forty minutes buildings and parcs I explained to Tamara that I had to go to the supermarket, and I bought her some chocolates, sweets, salmon and other things. And Tamara was really very nice and friendly. These people are amazingly friendly and welcoming. That’s what I find so special over here: their industry may be gone, their Lada’s rotten, but they are friendly and they share.
