With Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries causing widespread shortages of fuel across the country I brimmed my tank and the two jerry cans a few miles short of the border and then headed west to the border at Kotyayevka where formalities were completed in under two hours. It was all much more streamlined than crossing over from Georgia, largely I think because both countries are part of the Eurasian Economic Union, the EAEU, which promotes the free movement of goods, services, capital and labour and has abolished customs controls.
A car load of Kyrgs asked to borrow a pen to complete their migration cards and then came back again asking me to actually fill them in as they could not read the Russian or English (or possibly not at all). Two documents each for five of them asking for all the usual information from their brand new passports took some time but they were hugely grateful and a Kyrgyz trucker who had watched throughout insisted on giving me a huge watermelon from his wagon.
Before Astrakhan I crossed the bizarre floating steel bridge once more and decided to stop the night on the Volga as I had on the way through back in April. As the sat nav was now wildly inaccurate I relied on memory to pick my way through the suburbs to the centre where the Kremlin stood. Access to the river bank was however blocked off for the summer as it is a popular promenade so I found another parking area and went off in search of coffee and cake. Whilst at the border I had obtained insurance easily enough but local SIMS were unavailable due to restrictions from on high and in any case need 24 hours for security purposes before becoming fully activated.
As my border crossing had been so quick the combination of fuel, GPS and SIM issues persuaded me to crack on for the rest of the day. The roads were very quiet and queues at the filling stations very long so I made good progress and stopped for a quiet night in the tiny village of Artesian.
A few hours south towards Makchetka included an internal border check for both Dagestan and later Chechnya and the Mapy.com app's navigate function saw me around Vladikavkaz and heading south towards Georgia. The downloaded maps didn't require an internet connection and by skirting round the city I avoided the GPS discrepancy. There is only the one major road south and before long I was at the Verkhnii Lars border point.
The van had returned 48mpg so I had half a tank left and hadn't touched the spare cans. The border was again a surprisingly quick affair as vehicle numbers were low, the staff on both sides were friendly and helpful and the customs searches thorough but not onerous. The customs guy asked me for a specific vehicle import document that I didn't recognise - he showed me a specimen example but I still didn't recognise it from only a day or two earlier. I rooted through other paperwork and he spotted the required form. This had actually been issued entering Kazakhstan almost three weeks earlier before the Charyn Gorge and due to the aforementioned EUEA had been valid throughout Kazakhstan and Russia. An important lesson : keep all documentation from all countries for your entire trip as you never know.
Thus in under two hours I was out of Russia, with some relief, and in to Georgia via the Larsi checkpoint where I soon had most of my last few roubles changed in to lari, a month's insurance and a month's unlimited internet, both around £20 each. I spotted a trio of Belgian and French vans parked up so stopped to say hello. They were heading to Russia and the Stans but were completely unaware of the fuel situation. Thus they were very keen to buy both the fuel and jerry cans off me for what I had paid and with trust established they were also happy to give me euros for the Kazakh tenge that the money changers had not been interested in. I threw a map in for good measure and the small ruble notes and coins that would cover the steel bridge crossing and wished them all well. It's a tough time of year to be heading to the Stans as the heat was already building when I had left a fortnight or so ago and reading a couple of fellow travellers blogs quite a few were foregoing their vans and trucks for rooms with aircon.
A large number of wrecked cars lined the road as I headed up the dramatic Dariali gorge, through a couple of intimidating tunnels and began climbing towards the Kazbegi Pass. Trucks are held in batches to tackle the tunnels and hairpins so there was the odd line of drivers patiently parked up but nothing like the miles of wagons I had seen as the backlog from the snow closures were cleared back in April. So before long as dusk was falling I was back on the outskirts of Stepantsminda in the same carpark, had a decent but overpriced burger served by a friendly lass with good English and fell asleep quickly after a challenging couple of days.
I confirmed within the family in Tbilisi that it would be OK to stay for a few days and after giving the van a thorough jet wash treated myself to a Georgian pork dish before arriving at the accommodation. There was a Dutch van and German overland truck parked up but the owners of both had flown home so apart from an endearing kitten I had the place to myself.
I spent two days giving the van a good clean out including the fridge, bathroom, all cupboards and so on, put a new tyre and tube on the bike which also got a good clean and lubrication and enjoyed their shady chill zone as several loads of laundry were washed and dried. A Swiss couple turned up on the second night with plans to get to Vietnam via Mongolia so were keen to pick my brains and good company. Hot nights and limited shade encouraged me to cycle up to the nearby mall and check out the parking for overheight vehicles and a large well stocked Carrefour and I strolled around the numerous shops that contrasted so sharply with much of what I had seen in recent months but also also chimed with the malls of Tashkent, Qizylorda and Samarkand.
I loaded everything up, blitzed the mall for food that was at last vaguely familiar and drove the couple of hours to Gori where my man once more filled the 907 cylinders for £2 apiece. Hot weather, limited cooking and cool showers to combat the heat had seen each cylinder lasting a month which was I thought good going as of course the fridge had had to work hard. The Truma water heater is back in service again after I'd stuck a vacuum nozzle in to the exhaust and inlet ports followed later by a jet of air at a tyre depot and touch wood all seems well with the van for the few thousand miles home. The park up at Gori lacked any shade so I walked in to the town, birthplace of Stalin, found a repair kit at a builders merchants for plastic tanks as my waste tank took a hit on rough ground a few weeks ago and then grabbed a much needed and rather severe haircut. Back at the van I dug out my glue gun and two glue sticks, plugged it in to the EcoFlow and filled the hole before slapping the repair tape on as well, all of which seemed to do the trick.
With Mandy due to arrive in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, in two months time I can now enjoy a much slower pace of life covering far fewer miles - partly necessitated by my insurance policy nearing its 20,000 mile limit. I'm not sure if the 12,000 miles outside of the EU would count, it seems illogical that they would as the company has no exposure beyond the EU and I have had local insurance in every country. However on renewal in August I will get a policy with a higher limit even though I doubt any future trip will be so extensive.
My plan is to return to Mestia in the Svanetti region of the high Caucasus via Ushguilli, regarded as Europe's highest permanently occupied village which I couldn't reach last year due to snow. Whilst on the dual carriageway from Gori heading west a police car indicated for me to pull in which I of course did. The surly officer asked to see the usual documents which were all in order and then claimed I had been on my phone a kilometre back which I strongly denied as it was patently untrue. I showed him how it sits in front of my instrument cluster to function as a satnav and is only on a short power cable so cannot be held to an ear. I also offered to show him my call log at which he just shrugged and walked off. Whilst I have the greatest respect for the police in general this, very occasional, kind of blatant cheating on a visitor really gets my back up. There are so many locals belting past at speed, undertaking, cutting in and regularly using their phones who are overlooked and I was determined not to be intimidated.
Later passing through Kutaisi I laughed out loud as another officer drove towards me clearly engrossed in a call..... After Tskaltubo with its decaying former Soviet Spas I found a perfect park up by the river which is the resurgence for the Prometheus show cave a few miles upstream. Loud frogs and inquisitive cattle were the only interruptions and with plenty of shade it was a lovely spot to spend two nights. The farmer turned up yesterday on a bizarre contraption to check his stock, a few locals dropped in for a quick swim and last night two Belgian girls stayed nearby using a roof tent but cooking outside as the mozzies emerged looked uncomfortable.
I was away this morning and heading up north once more in to the hills stopping at a roadside spring for water and I am now at a super little campsite run by Mzia at Aghvi where I will stay two nights. It is just grassland with trees on a high point above the river with a quirky range of facilities and at present no other visitors. At only a fiver a night it is a perfect stop over and if it stays dry tomorrow I will unload the bike and explore a bit. I've seen a few other vans in Georgia from EU countries so the feelings of remoteness and isolation of the last ten weeks are receding and I look forward to the opportunities ahead....
