mylovelyhorse
Registered user
A mate is off there soon and I wrote up a few hints and tips on riding in Russia for him. After I'd scribbled it down, I thought it might be worthwhile posting it here as well. I hope it is of use:
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OK, some info that I've learned from riding in Russia:
Cheers
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OK, some info that I've learned from riding in Russia:
- A good map is essential, the GPS will be wrong. The map will be wrong too but not as badly.
- I found writing the Cyrillic names for the places I was going each day onto a bit of paper stuck where I could easily see it in the top of the tank bag really helped.
- Road signs rarely quote road numbers.
- Russian roads vary from brand new and very good to sand or gravel. Not "a bit of sand or gravel" but e.g. 22kms of deep sand where there has never been tarmac.
- Roads marked on the map as good may not be but roads marked as bad probably will be.
- Lorries are everywhere & they're very slow.
- The speed limit in towns & cities is 60 kph & out of town is 90 kph.
- The Police tend to have signs saying ANC on their cars (well, ДИС or phonetically De, I, Es).
- The police are on the entry and exit of any big town, randomly checking papers.
- If stopped by these chaps, give them passport & international driving licence (NEVER give them the real thing) and you'll be fine.
- Road markings must be read in conjunction with the road signs.
- Double or single solid white lines mean (a) no overtaking and (b) there's probably a copper somewhere close trying to catch someone overtaking so they can extract a bribe.
- Solid white lines are usually used with no overtaking signs and you cannot start overtaking until you see a 'end of no overtaking' sign even if the solid white lines have ended.
- There are only four types of vehicle on the road:
- lorries (& a few coaches)
- ladas and equivalent
- nutters in fast, new cars
- you - Find a not too fast nutter in a fastish car and follow them, using them as a lightning conductor for the police. They'll get stopped before the police see you if you're clever about it and they'll slow down where they know coppers are or might be. 90 kph day after day is very dull indeed. Believe me, it really is.
- The coppers do have speed guns. And real guns.
- "Nyet par Ruski" means what you have guessed it does
- If you get stopped, act as if you don't understand a thing. They often have a little booklet with some Russian / English phrases like "you were overtaking" and "I must make a report" but I don't believe "pay me a big bribe" is in there. "The fine is.." may be. On the only occasion I got stopped, I acted like I didn't understand, smiled and was polite and eventually they gave up.
- Rarely do people speak English, especially once you are over the Urals.
- If you want to camp on the side of the road, this seems pretty easy to do. Certainly I did a number of times and had no problem.
- The trucker motels are usually clean and good value. Beware though, they will start filling up around 5 or 6 pm.
- Petrol is very cheap indeed - as little as 60p a litre.
- When you want to fill up, park at the correct pump and go to the cashier. They will be inside the hut and behind a screen. there'll be a moving drawer for handing over money. Very paranoid. Write the number of litres and the octane rating on a bit of paper and show it to them. Example '17 -- 95'. They will then write down the amount, you pay & the pump is activated.
- Cards of any type rarely work at petrol stations - and they aren't that useful anywhere else. Cash machines are particularly bad for not accepting the card even if they have the appropriate logo on them.
- Russians will want you to use Roubles to pay for things. Dollars are for bribing the cops only.
- You cannot guess Cyrillic into English. It simply doesn't work. Learning the alphabet doesn't help much either.
- West of the Urals then road signs usually have both Cyrillic and Anglic spellings on them, East of the Urals they generally do not.
- Look for coffee houses. Marked kofe (only the f is a bit odd - Ф but usually with a longer tail) in big letters, they're hard to miss. They sell food too, almost always. How you'll order it is up to you... ;-)
- Russian coffee in these places is awful and always sugared, like it or not.
- Have good waterproofs. Don't ask my how I know, I just know, OK?
Cheers