Like Napoleon we are closing on Moscow. But there are some differences. First of all he had more horses than we do. He was also a bit shorter. I think that at my 6'6" I would not be a very popular soldier in his army. He would probably put me into a small enclosure for a punishment. Into something of the size of a Trabant. The one thing is the same though. He planned to get quite far in Russia and so do we. And, for now, let us not bring up his results.
Yesterday Hynek fixed the starter which was shorting out and I reloaded the car. Like any placebo it gave me a good feeling of accomplishment without really achieving anything of a substance. To my surprise the law of physics stating that any rearrangement of the load will not decrease its weight applies everywhere.
And then it was through the rest of Lithuania and Latvia to the Russian border. Of course, the map took us the shortest way which could have been the fastest. Could have been...if the road did not progressively deteriorate into a worse and worse one, ending up in a gravel road with occasional bumpy pieces of asphalt. But remember, we drive Trabant and not some pampered show-off like Corvette, and so, there were no issues. It was also good to visit the "land of the past" in the northern Latvia, where you meet a women carrying her shopping bags on the road home. But there is no shop and no house for about 10 km. Time is just a different concept here. In general, as we move East, time loses its oppressive shout of:"Hurry up!" and replaces it with another oppression of:"You might have to wait for a while". Which, of course, brings me to the Russian border.
The dreaded Russian border was, in fact, quite good. Of course, I am not comparing it to the US - Canada border. You go through a few more checks here, and then through a few more again. But since by luck we arrived as a first car, there was no lining up and waiting for us. First we went through three Latvian exit stations and then through three Russian entry stations. There we received some entry papers with the indication that if we lose this one little paper we will be only shot by the firing squad immediately. However, if we lose that larger paper, we will get immersed in the boiling oil first and then shot. Luckily, I have been learning Russian for the past year and I certainly know the importance of the word "bumazka" (papers) quite well.
The only real problem ensued when I entered our spare engine as an item that we are bringing into Russia (under the column "goods weighting over 30 kg"). I have been asked about the receipt for the engine and the purpose of bringing it to Russia. Receipt? No, I do not have it as I bought the engine about 20 years ago. Henceforth, I was told, that it will take a while and the meeting of subordinates with their superiors and their superiors ensued. Ultimately, I noted that the engine was not actually weighted and perhaps it is less than 30 kg and I made a mistake? At which point the engine was mentally weighted by the superior and found to weight less than 30 kg. After re-filling the new form we were waived on. In less than one hour we cleared the border. There were no bribes given or asked for, and the border patrol officials were quite nice to us; which I cannot explain since we ran out of charming looks quite a few years ago. Yes, there were no smiles on the faces of the border officials, but which border guard anywhere in the world offers you a great smile?
And so here we are, in the land designed in the old communist times as the "land of the future of the mankind, where the wished for tomorrow is actually in existence today", then denigrated in the West as the land of wannabe superpower and now, once again, as the enemy of the West. Which is understandable, as every politician needs to put some actual or imagined fear into his/hers voters. I just hope to meet people other than politicians and not to share Napoleon's fate here.
Yesterday Hynek fixed the starter which was shorting out and I reloaded the car. Like any placebo it gave me a good feeling of accomplishment without really achieving anything of a substance. To my surprise the law of physics stating that any rearrangement of the load will not decrease its weight applies everywhere.
And then it was through the rest of Lithuania and Latvia to the Russian border. Of course, the map took us the shortest way which could have been the fastest. Could have been...if the road did not progressively deteriorate into a worse and worse one, ending up in a gravel road with occasional bumpy pieces of asphalt. But remember, we drive Trabant and not some pampered show-off like Corvette, and so, there were no issues. It was also good to visit the "land of the past" in the northern Latvia, where you meet a women carrying her shopping bags on the road home. But there is no shop and no house for about 10 km. Time is just a different concept here. In general, as we move East, time loses its oppressive shout of:"Hurry up!" and replaces it with another oppression of:"You might have to wait for a while". Which, of course, brings me to the Russian border.
The dreaded Russian border was, in fact, quite good. Of course, I am not comparing it to the US - Canada border. You go through a few more checks here, and then through a few more again. But since by luck we arrived as a first car, there was no lining up and waiting for us. First we went through three Latvian exit stations and then through three Russian entry stations. There we received some entry papers with the indication that if we lose this one little paper we will be only shot by the firing squad immediately. However, if we lose that larger paper, we will get immersed in the boiling oil first and then shot. Luckily, I have been learning Russian for the past year and I certainly know the importance of the word "bumazka" (papers) quite well.
The only real problem ensued when I entered our spare engine as an item that we are bringing into Russia (under the column "goods weighting over 30 kg"). I have been asked about the receipt for the engine and the purpose of bringing it to Russia. Receipt? No, I do not have it as I bought the engine about 20 years ago. Henceforth, I was told, that it will take a while and the meeting of subordinates with their superiors and their superiors ensued. Ultimately, I noted that the engine was not actually weighted and perhaps it is less than 30 kg and I made a mistake? At which point the engine was mentally weighted by the superior and found to weight less than 30 kg. After re-filling the new form we were waived on. In less than one hour we cleared the border. There were no bribes given or asked for, and the border patrol officials were quite nice to us; which I cannot explain since we ran out of charming looks quite a few years ago. Yes, there were no smiles on the faces of the border officials, but which border guard anywhere in the world offers you a great smile?
And so here we are, in the land designed in the old communist times as the "land of the future of the mankind, where the wished for tomorrow is actually in existence today", then denigrated in the West as the land of wannabe superpower and now, once again, as the enemy of the West. Which is understandable, as every politician needs to put some actual or imagined fear into his/hers voters. I just hope to meet people other than politicians and not to share Napoleon's fate here.