After enjoying our short “day off” and spending the night at the nice Vega hotel in Moscow we left at 9:45 am!!! for our 3 pm exchange point. The traffic outside of Moscow was just awful, with total congestion, massive back-ups, road construction and the crazy driving habits of the locals. It took us almost five hours to get to our exchange point – we got there about 40 min late. Although we were pretty much out in the middle of nowhere, little things continued happening here and there. An hour earlier, an obviously drunk (or drugged) guy kept staggering in the middle of the road either oblivious or with a death wish and tried to stop the oncoming traffic. We barely managed to avoid hitting him. We watched the spectacle continuing for another 15 minutes from about a mile distance until finally a cop car emerged and plugged the man off the road. A few miles down a hooker (in about 4 in heels…) climbed over the divider in the center of the highway and got into a waiting truck. I run last that day, it was quite pleasant running straight east on M7, just like running on a treadmill, except that you had to wipe some black soot off your face from the endless stream of trucks… After finishing our shift we headed for Novgorod, and arrived there after another 3 ½ hours of driving. The hotel in Novgorod was very nice, the food was good, and it was kept there for us for our late arrival. We all (except Paul) finished our meals with a shot of vodka, just to be on the safe side…

In the morning we continued on eastwards, not much to tell about the next two days. Both days were pretty much the same, both days were hot, and both days were hard days for running. The roads got pretty bad, and we did most of the running on the shoulders, which were uneven and sandy. The first day I finished on a long 2 mi uphill section, it felt like running uphill on a beach, the second day was so hot that I just barely managed to get it over with.

The nice part: We spent the night in a nice, good-size, modern city which I don’t remember the name off. It had a very nice hotel with an Irish pub and restaurant and we were able to rest up and prepare for our last 3 pm shift next day before getting a (much needed) day off. We did have a nice little episode at our 9 pm exchange point, which was located just a few one hundred yards off the shore of the river Volga.

A local TV station was scheduled to meet us there, but didn’t make it because there car had broken down. While waiting together with our Russian police escort, some locals got curious, and after explaining our mission we handed out BPR stickers in return for some local beers, and traded a T-shirt for smoked, dried fish. The people were very friendly, and everyone was wearing stickers and T-shirts when we finally left for our hotel in Kazan.

We arrived in the more than 1000 year old city late (as usual), but still got a nice meal in the beautiful, four-star hotel we were spending the night. Too bad we just don’t have the time to further explore some of the great cities and locations we are passing through. Kazan is a quite place with a blend of historical and modern sites. It was once called one of the golden cities, and is one of the few places were Christian orthodox and Moslem religions coexist peaceful next to each other.

We had to leave the town early at 9 am for our fourth 3 pm shift, and it looked like it was going to be another very long day. We were scheduled to cover about 410 km on that day, “some running” included. The drive to our exchange point took more than four hours, most of it on pretty rough country roads, and about 30 km of it was sandy and unpaved. We also stopped at a river crossing and spent about one hour waiting for the ferry. The word of the day: HEAT, FLIES!!!!!! The flies were just ferocious. I ran the 3rd leg, and the heat had just begun to settle a bit. The Russian country side is quite beautiful, but the bugs were almost unbearable, and I (involuntarily) ended up swallowed a few before finishing my shift…

Also, Paul and me had gotten into a small competition on who’s singlet was going to look the worst after wearing it for four days straight. It was later decided that I came in second, although it was pretty close… We will repeat this later for our next eight-day shift, and this could be quite interesting. Later we got on the road and prepared for a 3-4 hour long drive to Oucher.

Thankfully, our staff had in the meantime managed to find us a closer place to stay. A small dormitory near an oil refinery somewhere in the country side – Russian style with shared rooms and one shower + one toilet for all, and no food at this late hour. It was just fine, the water was hot – and just enough to get a shower, my bed was numbered with #7509054. We left early next day, trying not to bring too much mud into the vans while loading up – a pretty heavy thunderstorm had moved through the area overnight. We had breakfast at a small road side Café and then headed for Perm to enjoy our next day off. The drive was still significant, and it took us until 5 pm before we were checked in at the nice hotel Olympia in Perm.

The food was great again – but also, AGAIN, small portions… So, Paul and me had to order an extra round of dinners. Unfortunately, the food was delivered not quite at the same time and in order, and I ended up with the two entry salads, while Paul had the two dinners. The good part: all was some form of salmon, very well done and the only concern we had was that we may had overdosed a bit on fish that night… I also had TWO salads in a row – which was great, because I now don’t have to have another one for at least a whole week, and can stick with our preferred four B’s (bread, beer, beef, bacon)… It is very obvious that things are now getting a bit more adventurous, and this is the part I had been looking forward to…