Here we go then. I’m expecting this to take all day and to involve a great deal of what might colloquially be known as ‘being fucked about’.
Get The Bitch out the orchard. From the mess all around on the ground she’s been binging on unripe apples. I hope she doesn’t deposit that over some Russian guard’s shiny shoes.
On my way out of town I stop to spend my last Georgian money on .. you guessed it.. another litre of milk. That’s 4 litres in the last 24 hours. Much of that was sweated out on the ridiculous ‘walk’ up to the church and back last night. It was a very very steep and rocky path for 2.6km. Everyone I saw was head to foot in North Face apparel. They all had backpacks and walking poles and climbing shoes and climbing glasses. I bet they had North Face tattoos too. I had a phone and an old pair of Teva sandals. I looked like bloody Gandhi compared to them. One of them even asked to take a picture of my feet! I do have particularly nice feet though, and I had just done my nails.
By the time I got to the top I was royally fucked and only 90% man and 10% milk instead of the usual 50/50. So that took some replenishment.
Anyway, coming out the shop I heard a giggled ‘hi’ from the car beside me. Before I knew it my helmet had jumped from the bike through the window and into a young woman’s hands for a fondle. And then into the back for more. My helmet is definitely not used to this much female attention first thing in the morning. Maybe it’s like Castle Anthrax. A last horah in the hands of young maidens before I go off to fight the knight in Russian armour.
The border is about 8 miles away, nestled between 2 small rocks. You can just about make out some trucks down there somewhere.
Borders and bikes work perfectly. I ride down past miles of queued cars and trucks counting off the hours of saved time until I just push in at the front and I’m out of Georgia in about 10 minutes flat.
Now the fun begins. There are a few miles of nomansland before the Russian border and it’s complete mayhem. It’s jammed tight. I sit in a tunnel with the trucks and the dogs, trying to breath sparingly, patience turned up to 11. Keeping the engine off. Slowly pushing into the light.
The Russians separate the lanes to the border to stop the drivers pushing in. They have lanes delineated with huge fuck off steel cables. The queue is from here to eternity so I get my book out and just start to read.
3 small Greek bikes appear behind me. They want to try and filter to the front. It’s always easier in situations like this to let the smallest bike go first and slip through, make everyone close their doors, flip in their mirrors, negotiate a little movement to make room. And then I can come through with the supertanker last. The bikes are at melting point by the time we get to the front but the Russians pull all of us into a separate lane to process us together. But she sees my British passport and tells me I have to ‘wait.. just a little while’. They want my phone. Last time they just wanted my phone ID but this time they want me to give them my phone, and my code, and they take it away into a small room for a long time where they can do whatever the fuck they like with it.
When I get my phone back it says it doesn’t want to talk about it. I plug the lightning cable in but it all loose and floppy. My phone has obviously been violated.. poor thing. I asked Siri a question and got a curt ‘Siri has left the chat. You are now taking to Natasha. Do as I say and you won’t get hurt’ in reply. Very comforting. She did ask me to rub her back while she made low purring noises though so maybe it’s not all bad.
Russian customs is always a head fuck. The kind of thing that would drive many people to absolute apoplexy. When they stamp your passport they walk off with your drivers license. You can’t get it back until you go through the customs process at a different window of a different building.
The customs office reminds me of a seagulls nest. Every so often the custom officer lands , opens the window and a million people wave their customs form like hungry chicks wanting to be fed. They choose one person, shut the window and fuck off for a fag for 15 minutes. When eventually they choose you, they scribble all over the form you’ve filled out to correct your mistakes then give you new forms to fill out properly. Then you go through the process again.
Eventually I’m done. Maybe 3 hours which is a record at this border. And I’m out. Breathing Russian air. I know where to get insurance. I go to get insurance. They’ve stopped doing insurance for bikes. Fucky wanky tits bum and arse. Now what. I stop at a couple of other roadside sheds. ‘Moto?’ ‘Niet’. Bollocksy toss wombles. Maybe I’ll have to go commando.
I’m just about to give up when I drive past a hut and hear a high pitch hiss coming from inside. On investigation there is a very attractive young lady that has lips like the Rolling Stones logo, and it appears one has sprung a leak. It’s loosing poutness rapidly and the noise is attracting dogs from all directions so in an attempt to make some money for a repair she has agreed to give me motorbike insurance, providing I spend the next 10 minutes with my finger in the hole. Sounds like a deal to me.
I can’t leave the poor girl with only one lip like a 80s Volvo bumper so I get the puncture kit out and effect a temporary repair.
Get to Vladikavkaz and the GPS goes out. Not surprising given the number of antennas everywhere. I know the hotel is by the river. I’ve been there before. I send my brain’s librarian down to find some reference pictures and we’re there in no time. They don’t change money though. Find a bank. They have a ticketing system for appointments. The next ticket is 4 digits. They only on double at the moment. The attendant has a think, leads me outside, round the corner and down the street, down into the basement of a hotel where there is an exchange. You wouldn’t get that in Southampton.
Back to the hotel. Cash only. No cards work in Russia. This hotel is expensive. It’s a treat. It’s a safe haven while I gird myself for the next few days ahead.
I go out for a long walk about the town. First thing you notice, no chub. No muffin tops. No legs touching from thigh to heel. No trousers round knees. Nobody dressed like they’ve been striped naked, covered in super glue then tied to a bucking bronco and let loose in a charity shop. Every one is clean and tidy. And the women. Quite often a woman will turn towards you and you’ll just go ‘OH JUST FUCK OFF WILL YOU. YOU’RE JUST WAY WAY TO ATTRACTIVE TO BE REAL. JUST TURN AWAY. PLEASE. YOU’RE HURTING MY EYES’. Seriously. They can untie a vasectomy at 1000m. We need to calm this gene pool down a bit. I know dozens of ugly blokes I could ship over here to sow their faulty seeds before this gets completely out of hand.
Someone is doing alright. There is even a Maybach parked just down the street.
And for anyone concerned about how I might feed my habit out here. Have no fear. All is in hand.
Breakfast today is a carefully choreographed event. This is where Robert Palmer got his inspiration for Addicted to Love. He must have sat here and watched the Russian swan waitresses with their sheer white uniforms, tight buns (both), their loose, fluid movements and their bodies that get out of bed 6 hours before their faces do. He must have just sat and watched.. and watched. I think I can see him still sat in the shadows.
I’m getting ready to leave. I need to go out to the chemists and buy some brave tablets, but I’m not brave enough. I saw a disabled young soldier begging last night. He had lost a leg. I wonder if he could feel my guilt as I walked past him. The people here are just people. Ordinary people. The pawns of politics like we all are.
I’m putting on my boots. What’s that under the bed? Right at back? It’s a pen lid with my teeth marks in it. Two down. Two to go. I think they’re going to be a lot more difficult though.
Out on the road it’s business as usual. Russian drivers could generously be described as ‘playful’ but in reality they’re truly adversarial. Put more simply, the fuckers are all out to get you. First near collision is with a bloody policeman who decides at the last minute to go round the roundabout on his phone in the outside lane right across my exit. This part of Russia is deadly dull. Flat, featureless and windy. It’s a dull ride until suddenly I realise where I am.
Grozny. Chechenia. When I was younger remember seeing images from the Chechen war that looked like the ones you see of Gaza today. But now the bullets have all been buried under tonnes of concrete and tarmac. I think it’s an unhappy truce though. It’s all Muslim down here which feels strange. All the blokes look like Castro on steroids too. I certainly wouldn’t cross one. In fact I’ve temporarily had to change a personal law on who can sign my helmet. It now includes girls, kids, and any Chechen, who can do exactly as they please.
I come to a town and I can see down a hill for miles that the traffic is completely static in my direction. I fear for The Bitch in these situations. It’s almost 40 degrees and she’s hotting up already. There is now other way for it, just cross the solid white line (a definite no no in Russia) and ride against the oncoming traffic. For about 2 miles. Get near to the front and I can see the problem. Two trucks have had an altercation and one is wedged across the carriageway.
I decide at that point to use the bike lane, aka ‘the pavement’ and I’m through and gone. I’ve got to say The Bitch did well though. I gave her a round of applause for that.
Eventually get to Machachkala and try to get a room. First place. Lovely looking boutique hotel that apparently takes foreigners.. doesn’t want to take British it seems. One look at the passport and ‘we don’t have any rooms’. That’s the first time in my life the British passport has felt more of a hinderance than a help. Across town to plan B. £30 and I’m in. Plus £70 for the stupidly expensive flower pot I smashed whilst parking my bike on the pavement.
Why am i here in this unknown city in the arse end of south east Russia? I dunno. I just don’t want to rush through and only see 2 lanes of concrete road. I want to grab my brain and swab it about soaking up as much of the planet as I can I guess. The Good, bad and the ugly.
This hotel is almost on the coast of the Caspian Sea so I took a quick walk down for a look. It was 7:30 in the morning and the beach was already full. There were fuck off huge rock men everywhere exercising and sweating rivets. There were 100 year old Chechens doing one finger pull ups and some others swimming whilst tethered to tankers pulling them into port. They’re not natural.
Don’t ever ever ever fuck with a Chechen. Or their pot holes either.
I’ve been starting to have some trouble with my face recognition. It keeps failing and going to the calculator. I’m guessing it’s something to do with the Russian seeds planted in the phone at the border. After one attempt I got a warning.. from Natasha. “I REFUSE TO LOOK AT YIOUR FACE UNTIL YOU GROW A PROPER BEARD YOU FUCKING DIRTY UGLY BRITISH PIG DOG”. So that’s me told then.
Stop for some petrol, and some prayers. A lot of petrol stations have these little mosques attached. Maybe so Allah can easily get a cold coke if he needs one. I wander around for a wee and on the way back I pop in, ask Allah if he wouldn’t mind getting off his phone for a minute and I have another quiet word. Like I said. Cover all the bases
Look at this though. 25 litres for less than £15
The road today is bleak. Here it is
And here it is again 150 miles later. Same same. Hot, windy as all fuck and largely straight as an arrow.
Stop for a fridge raid. These are fast becoming an addiction too. Who doesn’t like a juicy pear.
There is a disabled dog on the forecourt. Poor bugger has had a broken leg and his front paw is all bent back into a stump that he can’t put pressure on. I know a certain little lady that would not leave the premises without giving that dog a treat so I go and buy the biggest fuck off Russian sausage in the fridge, cut it into 3 and give it to the hounds.
I am so over not being able to book hotels in Russia. 35 degrees, body milk low, Ktm with its tits on fire in the traffic. Hotel No1. ‘Full’. Hotel No2. Closed. No3. Taking the piss. No4. Full. No5. ‘Sorry. full’. No6. ‘Are you sure this isn’t a prison?’ By the time I’m on my way to No7 after 2 hours and nearing sunset I’m seriously considering buying a fucking flat here tonight, that would probably be easier. And that’s about what I end up doing as they only have a suite left.. of course they do. Well let me tell you.. it’s not going to smell to suite in the morning.
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