Bear dodging

We had a 5 hour long border crossing (a new record that has surpassed Central America) from Estonia, which was mainly caused by the Russians processing slowly. This gave us the opportunity to discuss our planned route, and we changed it. We dropped the idea of going into northern Kazakhstan and decided to put our heads down and head straight for Mongolia. We will be passing through Kazakhstan twice later any way (unless we change plans again).

I know Moscow is fairly north, and has harsh winters. But I really thought with it being June that it would have been warmer. 11c to 13c seems to be the best we could have hoped for. There has been a constant high wind, freezing rain and hail storms.

Maybe further south would have been better.

We are finally starting to meet people who want to talk , even though we have different languages. 

Accommodation has been roadside motels, cheap and cheerful but always with a 24 hour cafe attached.

Gregory, a motel owner, asked us to visit his home to see how real Russians live. He was waiting for us at breakfast the next day. He hijacked a young lad, Sranislav, from the petrol station because he had a phone with Google translate, and we could use both of ours to communicate.

We were shown around Gregory's village, no asphalt, some very broken houses. One person had abandoned their house and converted an oil tank to live in.

By contrast some traditional ones remained in a well kept condition.

At the back of his house was the remains of an old collective farm and machine factory. After the disbanding of the USSR the funds and infrastructure were taken away. All the jobs went. He was very angry about the new regime and corruption.

We left with a lot to think about.