For my trip I chose a BMW R1200GS
because of its multipurpose, as well as
dressed it with good on-road tyres.
My route to the Ural Mountains was
through secondary roads avoiding
highways. This brought me in touch
with brilliant nature reserves, ferries,
significant fortresses, beautiful cit-
ies, both well-groomed and abounded
temples, an alluring ethnomuseum
and the legendary karst ice cave in
Kungur.
Russia is a multinational country,
where there are around 160 nationali-
ties; all have their own local language,
that differs from the Russian national
language. This is exactly why during
my trip, while listening to the radio,
I had a chance to both go deeply into
charming Russian scenery and enjoy
music in a different local language. I
gained inexpressible emotions riding
my bike through indescribable beauty
of nature and deepening myself into
the other cultures of my country.
Already in Siberia, I met one of my
new friends – Andrey Valikov who was
on the back roads from Magadan. He
made a journey of about 20,000km
travelling with his friend on BMW
R1200GS and a Toyota Hilux. I kept an
eye on his journey through Facebook.
It was surprising how we met each
other 3000km away from home even
though we live just 70 km away from
each other. However, for about two
months we couldn’t meet in Moscow!
For us it was easier to meet 3000km
away from home than just to journey
the 70km.
On the 7th day of my journey, some-
where between Omsk and Novosi-
birsk, it was a day of motomeditation.
At that time I had already travelled
about 4000km. The road was straight
with a good pavement and few cars. I
gained an opportunity to get into self-
soul-searching, think of topics that
in a daily routine I would never have
found time for.
Autumn was here, trees were turn-
ing a burningly bright red and yellow
TRAVERSE 50
tint. I was delighted that I decided
to choose autumn for my trip. All
around was stunning. During a lunch
break I found an appealing lake and
field where I could practice enduro
style riding.
This was a place where I almost lost
my right side pannier. Luckily, it fell
off in the field. On one of my rounds
I noticed it lying right in front of my
bike’s wheel. I was very fortunate be-
cause if it had come off on the high-
way I wouldn’t have noticed for about
3 hours when stopping for fuel.
I was lucky to reach Novosibirsk be-
fore it started to get dark and cold; at
night the temperatures were already
dropping to minus one degree Celsius.
My motorcycle gear was estimated to
handle only positive temperatures,
thus I tried to go through my journey
only in the daytime.
It is amazingly cool when on your
way you discover a large number of
original villages and stop for an over-
night stay somewhere in well-kept city