Trip to Russia 1999

01.07.99 thursday

odometer reading in the morning 35916 km
Trip started from Espoo, southern coast of Finland. Quick pizza at Jyväskylä, just like the year before (see "trip to Norway"). Managed to ride all the way to Koivu camping area, 30 kilometers south from Rovaniemi. Weathers were fine, warm and no rain. When the day ended and I built up my tent, there was 36701 km on the odometer.

02.07.99 friday

Woke up quite early, the fine weathers continued. Oil change at 37000 kilometers in a friendly service north from Inari (or was it Ivalo, I do not remember). Couple of pics near Inarijärvi here and here. Got myself and the bike to Utsjoki and finally to Nuorgam to Kontio-rally. Some guy had killed a reindeer with his Suzuki.. . Plenty of people at Kontio, met many familiar faces. Some number was "1700++ bikers" but I do not know the exact number. Picturese here,here, here and here. In the evening, 37245 km.

03.07.99 saturday

Cold and misty day, a bit of a hangover from the last night.. Tried to get valves adjusted but no luck. Sami-mootor service in Nuorgam was helpful but there was nothing we could do. The day was spent healing my hangover and trying to keep warm. Here is a shot from Virago Club camp.

04.07.99 sunday

Started southwards. It was quite cold; less than 10C and it was raining... I had to stop at Ivalo and fix my grip heaters. Sidecar tire almost blew 30 km south from Sodankylä. Got the tire changed at Lapin Kumi, Sodankylä, great! These guys helped me a great deal. (Imagine, sunday evening in the middle of nowhere and I got just suitable tire installed !) I had spare for the bike but not for the sidecar, of course ... Got to Hyrynsalmi to "Jälkilöylyt" rally. Quick sauna and then to bed. The day was long and tiresome, driving was tough when one has to be extra careful about the reindeers, and there were plenty of them. 38022 km in the evening.

05.07.99 monday

Drove to Suomussalmi, met Seppo Keränen there. In 1998, Seppo organised a convoy to Murmansk. The story behind that link was my main motivator to join the group this year. We adjusted the angles of the sidecar to match the new tire, finally... Also cleaned and lubricated the bearings of the sidecar wheel and took away the right side crash bars. Slept well in Seppos apartment. Got my clothes washed by Seppo's wife, many thanks to her. 38100 km in the evening.

06.07.99 tuesday

Sad news, IC motorcycle and the driver, Erkki won't make it to the convoy. Gearbox problems... Maybe next time? We (me [black Kawasaki ER-5 with sidecar], Seppo [brand new black Ural Tourist with a sidecar], Juha [green Ural with sidecar] and Esko [black Dnepr with sidecar]) drove to Seppos sisters datsha, enjoyed sauna and drew plans. Eino [grey Ural with sidecar] and Mauri [grey MZ, no sidecar] arrived to datsha with their bikes just in time to get into sauna. I had bought grille made of steel in Suomussalmi and so I cut and installed parts of it to cover the radiator. Can you spell "ugly hack" ? I sure can ... Friend of mine just got her radiator broken by a stone on the road. Luckily she could have it fixed to get to Kontio (Hello Heidi!)

07.07.99 wednesday

Our visas arrived to Suomussalmi, Seppo went to get them and so the trip to Russia actually started. We crossed border at Vartius border crossing station. Had lunch at Fregat restaurant near Kostamus (Kostamuksha). Eskos clutch cable gave up, "ne remont, tolka profilaktika" (not a remont, just maintenance). We stopped for a while and a hungry dog came to beg us some food. Visited Rukajärvi (Rugozero), Seppos cardan axle gave up and so we had to spend some hours fixing it (38373km on me). Eino, our Ural-guru, got it fixed nicely! This guy and his friends helped us in getting things done. Russians seem to be keen on monuments, this one photographed at Rugozero. Met Jevgeni [Ural with a sidecar], our russian friend at hotel in Sekehe. Drove all the way to Pinduinen (Pindus) near Karhumäki (Medzevogorsk). Met Sergei [Jawa 350]. Later it turned out that Sergei is a milisi-officer but hey, he's a biker and a wonderful person ;) Slept in the russian army fleet student accommodation (or something like it..). At least the accommodation was cheap :)

08.07.99 thursday

Met Sergei again, he guided us to different hotel. Here is a shot from the toilet for your viewing pleasure. I took off the sidecar and had a little tour around the city area with Sergei. Mikhail [customised Ural, no sidecar] (manual gearshift, nice!) arrived with his daughter, Katriina, to the hotel. Mikhail lives something like 60 km from city of Pedrozavosk. Visited the canal built by Stalin which connects the St Petersburg and Baltic sea to North Sea. We also visited a graveyard where plenty of finnish and carelian "enemies of the state" got buried in years 1937-1938. The forest grows well, no surprise; there are estimated to be more than 7000 bodies in the ground. The name of the place is Sandormoh and there is a hyperlink to more information here(finnish only). It feels ironic to think that the finnish communists escaped Finland to Soviet Union where they thought they could live happily. Most of them got shot as spies...
Got the bikes to the garage of the milisi safe for the night (Thank you Sergei for arrangements!). 38710 in the evening.

09.07.99 friday

Sergei decided to joined our convoy. We left the hotel, refueled and headed for the road. Along the way we visited Kivatsu falls. Very beautiful natural reserve. We took a short break at a cafe beside the road. Drove to Petroskoi (Pedrozavodsk) (to buy some spare parts for Urals and Dneprs ..). Bought a spare tire for the sidecar, 170 rubles (42FIM). Met Aleksei (here beside me, I'm on the right), local milisi-man and biker (here on my bike). Here are our russian friends, Misa, Aleksei and Jevgeni. There was a people from television station to film us and have some interviews... I heard the film was shown on St. Petersburg, Moscow, Petroskoi and Novgorod. Funny.. Later on I saw people pointing us by finger and heard words "Ural", "Finlandija" and "Television". I guess we had our couple of minutes of fame :) Took the bikes to guarded parking area and went to the city to visit bikers club, Tik Tak. Saw the bikes of the local bikers, wow... There was the only western bike which was not mine, some Kawasaki GPZ, that I saw during our trip.

10.07.99 saturday

Sergei left for home. Shopped around and in the evening, visited a local garage. What a sight ... So many disassembled Urals and Dneprs.. We met a russian "self made man", local entreprenour near the hotel and he hopefully took very good care of the money he managed to get without our permission...

11.07.99 sunday

Got the bikes away from the parking area. Katriina stayed at Petroskoi, we others drove to Aunus (Olonets) to hotel Olonga. Sauna felt really good and local beer Nevskoje felt fantastic ... 39053 km in the evening.

12.07.99 monday

The hotel turned out to be quite expensive in relation to other hotels along the way. 150 FM for one night per person. Breakfast was, however, included in the price. We got our bikes from the milisi guarded garage and started southwards. We stopped in Lotinapelto to refuel. The guys tried to exchange finnish marks to rubles here but this place only accepted US-dollars. I had had problems with my knees being constantly bent so I installed "highway peg" (Ural steering tightener) to the left side of my bike. Right foot could rest on the sidecar fastening assembly. So we drove to Novgorod here taking and short break to cool Jevgenis Ural down. Finally we managed to get into hotel Inturist. Too tired to go into the city for a beer or two.. 39411 km in the evening.

13.07.99 tuesday

Guided tour in the city. Kreml was nice. The guide told us many interesting stories about Russia 1000 years monument. We decided to be good tourists and visited Novgorod Sofia church and lit a candle for bikers saint. Got russian money with a visa card but finding the right place to do it was not easy ...There is a ATM which gives rubles with visa-card but ... It was broken (not a very big surprise..) Took a walk alone in the city in the evening, met interesting people along the way.. In the next morning I had to ask the russian members of our group what the russian word "prostitutka" means. Ah well... You live, you learn ,)

14.07.99 wednesday

Started from Novgorod, visited Misas parents and drove to the city of Luga. We took plenty of photos of nice looking bike which is not a BMW. The guys took their time shopping for Ural and Dnepr parts in this shop. Uh, there is one thing I do not understand ... If Ural is such a good bike as the guys told me, why they kept buing spare parts on every possible occasion ? Drove all the way to St. Petersburg and through it. It's a _BIG_ city and it took us three hours to get through the city .. It was quite scary to try to keep the group together; I was driving last and I had to disobey total of 3 or 4 red lights... My hair still rises from the fear :) We had to fix Eskos Dnepr with iron wire several times ... (Right exhaust pipe almost fell off as well as the centre stand ..) So we managed to get away from St.P. and towards Viipuri we rode... Eskos Dnepr broke 30 km before Viipuri (Vyborg) and my spare battery (I carry it as a weight in my sidecar) was taken into good use .. There was a truck tire burning in the side of the road on dry grass. I pulled it onto the asphalt to prevent a forest fire. I understand there are enough of them even without this one... Got the Viipuri anyway and so our group went to sleep after a long day (after having a long discussion with milisi about our driving the wrong way on the one-way road. No penalty however was given to us).

15.07.99 thursday

Quick shopping and goodbye to Mikhail. Towards Finlandija, at last .. No problems at Nuijamaa customs post. The rest of the group headed towards Ural-Roikka biker meet in Pyhäsalmi but I headed to home. When I got to Espoo I had total 40132 kilometers in the odometer.

Poste scriptum

Two weeks and 4216 kilometers. No problems with my Kawasaki. How much money was spent, nobody knows and I do not dare to count ... "High octane" gasoline however costs something like 4-6 rubles (1 - 1.5 FM) per litre.

There were no casualties to Kawasaki save for the broken register plate; the vibrations of the Russian roads was too much for it. Bag of spark plugs was spent to keep some of the eastern bikes running and plenty of iron wire was needed to keep Eskos bike from dropping parts on the road .. Jevgenis Ural suffered from crap in the carburettors but after they were cleaned, they caused no longer any harm.

No-one had major problems with health. One should be careful about what one eats, it's easy to get diarrhea.

There is a bitmap-map here (104k). The blue dots represent the sleeping places. Needless to say, the red line represents my / our route.

Seppo Keränen also wrote about the trip, in finnish though.

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Copyright Jussi Savola 1999. No quotation without permission granted.