From Moscow to the border!

On June 24, we arrive in Moscow very early in the morning. We slowly discover the city by bike; a city that is just waking up. The opportunity to see the famous Red place at 7 am, empty of its usual flood of tourists: top!

Moscow !

After this quick morning sightseeing, we headed for our host Warmshower Stas, who lives about ten kilometers from the city center, to drop off all our stuff before he leaves for work, to visit the city more quietly.

Visits

In short, then we spend two days visiting the capital, on foot or by bike, under a blazing sun, or a little rain.

– On visite le célèbre Kremlin et sa place des cathédrales avec un coréen rencontré dans le transsibérien. Le Kremlin, une ville dans la ville, qui a vu défiler l’histoire de la Russie depuis plusieurs siècles et qui est aujourd’hui le centre du pouvoir politique russe.
- Red Square, so beautiful! but we will not see all of its greatness as it is these days the site of a great book festival. Ah the book in Russia! It is an object dear to Russians, and their education is very much focused on literature. So a book festival deserves to be held on the most famous square in Russia (and one of the most beautiful squares in the world, some would say)
- The boulevard which surrounds the city, transformed into a park and where it is good to walk in the evening.
And then, our favorites:
- The Gorky Park, where many activities are installed; our favorite? Huge ottoman where we spend a moment basking in the sun.
- And then, by bike, we climb the hill towards the university, one of the great Stalinist towers in the city. This building is particularly impressive for its austerity - the image came to me from the book 1984 ! Despite everything, student life is here, it's graduation season and we meet students dressed in gowns.

Paris in Russia?

The city center of Moscow reminds me a lot of Paris, and in several ways.
Déjà, un centre avec très beaux bâtiments, chargés d’histoire. Et une vie moderne qui se déroule dans ces lieux qui depuis plusieurs siècles voient défiler les styles et les époques.
Et puis c’est aussi le luxe qui est omniprésent – grosses voitures qui brillent, magasins de luxe, tenues vestimentaires classes…
Et pour finir, on retrouve la même circulation intense des voitures, ainsi que les métros bondés.
Bref nous avons bizarrement l’impression d’avoir quelques repères ici !

Après deux jours marathon à la découverte de la capitale russe, on prend un train de nuit en direction de l’ancienne capitale : Saint Pétersbourg !

Saint PETERSBOURG

This week again, we are swapping our tent for more space and comfort in a beautiful apartment; because this week is reunion! My parents come to find us; 9 months we haven't seen each other in real life (luckily Skype helps reduce the distance). In addition, they do not come empty-handed and arrive with a load of cheeses and cold meats that will put our taste buds in ecstasies!

And then we are culture !

- a free walking tour to get to know the city and its history. Exciting !
- and simply walk around the city during the week, in the middle of this city steeped in history.

- The Peterhof Palace ; after a trip to France, Peter I - also called Pierre Le Grand, the founder of Saint Petersburg and the first to have made it his capital - ordered a grandiose palace to be erected which would surpass the Palace of Versailles in beauty. It is true that there is an air of Versailles in all of this!

- the Peter and Paul fortress, in the heart of the city, built in 1703 by Peter I (again him!). In the fortress, the cathedral where all the Russian emperors since Peter the Great are buried; his prison which saw the greatest opponents of the regime pass before the Russian revolution (Dostoievski, Trotsky, Gorki)…

– churches and monasteries : where once again we were impressed by the importance of religion among Orthodox Russians. And as in Greece we found these churches so rich ... Church opulence which always makes us cringe a little ...
- Pushkin's apartment: a leading Russian writer whom every Russian knows almost by heart.

The arts and Russia ... that's literature then; but it's also dancing! And we had the chance to go to see a magnificent ballet at the new Marinsky theater. Even Thomas liked it a lot!

In short, thank you very much parents for a wonderful stay in Saint Petersburg!

En that!

Friday July 3, we get back in the saddle. Short visit to the "doctor" for Thomas' bike, and off you go!

We will drive 3 days before reaching the border, along more or less the sea. Seaside obliges, the wind is often present, despite the surrounding forests. During these last 3 days in Russia, we drove a lot in the middle of thick forests, which sometimes gave a glimpse of the sea. Pretty pretty forests, full of raspberries, small flowers - me, that reminded me of the forests of Vercors - but monotonous after a while.

Dans les villages traversées, les maisons sont toutes en bois, des pommiers et des potagers dans les jardins. C’est mimi ! Mais finalement, ce qu’on a préféré ces jours là, ce sont les bivouacs du soir. Sur les plages, régulièrement on trouve des zones de camping gratuits, avec barbecue, tables et toilettes. Beaucoup de russes viennent y passer la journée ou le week-end. Du coup, quand on demande conseils aux locaux pour trouver un endroit sympa, quelque soit leur âge, il ne sont pas étonnés de notre demande et ont de bonnes idées !

Par contre, la nuit dans la tente sous ces lattitudes début juillet… ben c’est pas vraiment la nuit ! Le soleil se couche à 22h30 et se lève vers 3h50, et il ne fait jamais vraiment noir ; nous nous réveillons plusieurs fois par nuit à cause de la lumière. C’est une belle expérience à vivre !

Générosité russe

Nos dernières 24h en Russie resteront en mémoire. Le dimanche 5 juillet, 60kms avant Narva, la frontière estonienne, nous demandons conseil dans la petite ville de Ust Luga pour poser la tente. Un jeune couple nous montre un endroit au bord de la rivière, puis on commence à discuter un peu plus ; au final, ils nous proposent de venir chez eux. Mais Thomas est plutôt réticent, le mari sent l’alcool et on se dit que la soirée risque d’être un peu “longue”. Il finit de nous convaincre en nous parlant de son Banya. Et on ne le regrettera pas !

Behind a little cold air and a little smile (normal for Russians after all!), Alex, his wife and their 13-year-old daughter, will take care of us until the next morning. After a tour of the property's vegetable garden, and a good dinner, we go to Banya; we are entitled to the whole tradition of Banya : sauna (wet) for a few minutes, then vigorous whipping with leaf branches, and bucket of cold water at the end - a few minutes breaks, and we start again! Pfiou, after a day of cycling, it's invigorating! The Banya, much more humid than the sauna we are used to, is really nice - yes, yes!

After that, tea then at bedtime. In short, a golden family with whom we spoke well. The alcoholic smells initially smelled were the remnants of a drunken Saturday night, which poor Alex will pay the price for with his worried mother's sermonts and Monday morning tremors - alcoholism is a real plague in Russia; as a reminder, the life expectancy of men is 64.3 years against 76.1 years for women! A former alcoholic on a daily basis, a festive evening is not without consequences for him today.
We left them the next day quite moved by this generous welcome.

The last day of the road is quiet, in a countryside that opens up a little more, there are fewer trees. The beginnings of what we are going to discover in Estonia, but less well. To be continued !

Divers :

- the Russians like the French in general. Perhaps we owe it to Peter I for whom French culture was important? In short, in any case, several times people have told us that they really like the French. And even once: “your country? - French - ah, French, good! Americano: not good! But french: good! ”
Suddenly we realized that the French are still appreciated in a lot of countries around the world.
And we asked ourselves the question: in general, the French, what other countries do they like? Well, we couldn't find an answer ... French, too arrogant?