by Danny Bent
* * *
Passing village after village, my nerves started to tingle. This guy was thin but ripped. His every muscle bulged and rolled with each push of the pedal. If it comes to it, can I take him? He was definitely older than me. My knee was still troubling me - would it hold up if I had to run?
He pointed and I smiled. We were at his house. Then my smile fell away again. This was not the kind of house you find in the UK. It seemed in a permanent state of disrepair. ‘Yes’ was clearly a man who liked to start DIY jobs, finishing them being a different matter altogether. Litter or belongings, I couldn’t quite tell, were strewn around the garden. Every corner had them built up high. The small house sat in the middle of the plot. Mildew and other mosses, plants and creepers, covered the house. It was more like a hobbit's hollow but without the fantastical attention to tidiness.
My tent was no more appealing, so I stepped over the threshold. The front door opened onto a hallway. Axes hung precariously from the walls, sat to the side and were scattered on the floor. Food sat drying on the table tops; other food was mouldering half-eaten in bowls. I stopped dead but a push in my back got me through the threshold. Making our way along a dark corridor with drapes covering each wall, the light was so poor I could barely see where we were going. The door to the hallway was off its hinges and needed to be lifted out of the way to reveal what was behind it. The bright light in the next room blinded me. As my eyes adjusted, I emerged into an amazing ballroom-sized living room with a billiards table in the middle of it and artwork all around. How could this room be concealed inside this house. It was like a Tardis.
O to the M to the G. He started taking off his shorts. Standing in his pants, he told me to strip to my keks. He came over to help. I pushed his hand aside and did so myself. Where were we going with this? He motioned me to follow him. We left the house, (axes all still in their original place, thankfully) and walked round a wall to a pond. It was full of green algae and looked radioactive. We were still a little way away from Chernobyl where the nuclear accident happened which the Russian government tried to cover up until the Swedish reported high levels of radioactive material flying their way on the wind.
‘Yes’ dived straight in and swam a couple of lengths. This was his swimming pool. It was fairly small and green but it proved refreshing after a days cycling.
Getting dry, we changed and headed out. My 'being' was being forced to become liquid. I had no idea where we were going or what we were doing; I just had to go with the flow. We visited his mother's, picking up some food (peasant's opium - ground poppy seeds with sugar) and wine, and left. Next stop was a friend's. We were invited into the living room and I met Alexandre. He addressed ‘Yes’ as Micoli, his real name, who told him he'd brought an Englishman to visit and Alex almost exploded. He burst into English like demi-brut champagne when the cork is removed. And the words were as sweet to my ears. He dashed around the house and I was told to sit and wait whilst they made dinner.
His children were home from university to morn their grandfather’s death. Yleb (his son) was a handsome chap who had a coolness about him that could have frozen vodka. His daughter Maria was so striking I was almost knocked backwards. Both had warm smiles and an excellent grasp of English.
The dinner they prepared was all home grown - vegetables, bread, meats, honey, jams, and soups – and all made into traditional dishes. This was all for me. Micoli and Alexandre drank vodka with me, toasting everything British including his favourite author, John Fowles, a writer from my home town, and director Ken Loach of ‘Kes’ fame.
The family were passionate about philosophy and politics. Maria organised demonstrations and had been gassed by the police before now. She was a powerful, intelligent and passionate girl, and I (looking like a tramp's armpit) was smitten.
Giggling with delight as I so often do when happiness sweeps through me, my new word seemed so fitting. I pointed to my heart and said кайф - "This is living".
Chapter 11
Held hostage, but not against my will, Alex forbade me to leave the next day. Instead we casually cycled down to the reservoir where we swam, ate pears and lounged in the sun. Alex then took it upon himself to educate me in the reality of the fantastic lives that I had been passing all through the Ukraine. Maria sadly had to go back to university with her brother and, as they cycled off in tandem, we headed back to Micoli’s to play billiards.
Micoli wasn’t back from work when we arrived, which Alex assured me meant he was waltzing around the village looking handsome, meeting his girlfriends. He was the football star of the village and the girls all knew it.
Just because he wasn’t home didn’t mean his house was empty. It was full of semi-naked men. He had hand-built a sauna in his house which people used freely. The current occupants were slapping each other with sticks and rubbing mud onto each others' backs. It was quite a surreal moment but one that I was quick to get involved in.
Two children, Alexander and Burian, were also round. Whilst the men played billiards, I entertained the children, or was it the other way around?
Later I was solemnly warned about the dangers of travelling in Russia and, even more so, across Uzbekistan where, it seemed, the country was run by gun-wielding gangsters and corrupt police and military. Coming from a country that sells baseball bats in service stations to protect yourself, that was saying something.
The next morning Alex and his wife left for Kiev. The funeral had been taken care of and they had to get back to earning a living. So, when I woke up, Gran, Alex’s mother who ran the country home, rustled me up a fantastic breakfast. I think she thought I needed filling out a bit. I had eight eggs and a loaf of bread and biscuits. Whilst I was destroying what was in front of me, she gestured to offer me a drink. Wonderful. The bread had dried a little and I needed something to wash it down with. Putting a glass by my side, she began to open the vodka bottle. The look of disappointment on her face when I said no was excruciating, but I then had to stifle a laugh when she proceeded to open the wine and poured that instead (again there was disappointment when I refused a refill).
Shirley was laden with gifts of fruit and wine as I left.
* * *
To alleviate the boredom of passing through flat countryside for hours on end, I sang. I found I had forgotten the words to virtually every pop song of the past few years, so I was left with my childhood favourites from musicals such as 'Mary Poppins', 'Annie' and 'Bugsy Malone', not the most fitting songs as I passed underneath and beside huge military memorabilia. Tanks and aeroplanes were on display, accompanied by messages detailing the destruction they had caused the enemy.
I had been drinking tap water for a week and, like clockwork, my guts went from rocking out to so solid crew, to wet wet wet.
My diarrhoea was getting horrendous. I was refuelling in a café when my stomach rolled and my pupils enlarged. I had seconds to get to a toilet or I was in trouble. No toilet inside. I ran into the street. Nowhere was open. Then I noticed two mobile toilets on the road fifty metres away. I struggled there and pulled open the door. There was poo everywhere. Not one surface - sink, bowl or seat - wasn’t covered in the stuff. The bowl was full to the max and people had chosen to shit anywhere but there. I shut the door as my stomach wrenched again. I pulled the door back again, took a deep breath and entered the living hell hole. It was repulsive. Luckily I didn’t need a long time and was out of there in moments, but it was long enough for all my clothes to become tainted by the smell.
My change in bowel movements was almost a representation of the way the environment was changing. The smog crept up to my wheels, and then up my leg, and, like a monster from the deep, entered my body through my nose and mouth. I coughed and held a cloth to my mouth, but it made no difference. Chimneys billowing smoke showed me the way to the industrial Donetsk.
Pedalling hard to get out of this industrial area and into Russia where, I hoped, some natural beauty would reappear, the smog got so bad that I couldn’t see two cy
clists on the road until too late. They’d decided to do their repairs on the hard shoulder rather than the perfectly safe pavement next to them. With an almighty bang I rammed into an upside-down steel bike and two Ukrainians. “Izvinite Izvinite,” I called. Sorry, Sorry. They were silent, staring. I righted my bike and moved on.
* * *
The border guard told me I had to cycle back to my point of entry into the Ukraine. I’d lost that damn exit card. You know, the one they told me not to lose. I’d lost it.
I sat and tried to digest what I’d been told. What to do? One guard came up to me and said baksheesh would help. He stated a lot of paperwork needed to be filled in and many guards would have to be paid to turn their backs. They might even have to give something to the Russians. Phone calls had to be made. This was a real mess.
Bartering to save my entire trip, I ended up handing over $50 to the boarder guard. It felt like a lot of money but he was going to have to grease palms, fill in all that paperwork and make calls. I was just hopeful they’d get it all done quickly so I could at least get into Russia before nightfall.
As the cash hit the guard’s hand, he smiled at me and gestured with his arm and open hand ‘Off you go, then’. What about the calls, the paperwork, the greasing? This fresh-faced cyclist had been conned for the first time this trip. Lesson learnt. It wouldn’t happen again.
On the Russian side of the border, after I had crossed a kilometre of no man's land, the sun had travelled from east to west, dipping below the horizon like a digestive biscuit dunked into a hot cup of tea. I was knee deep in my kit again. The border guards went through all my bags, scrutinising the technicalities of each piece of equipment and talking together quietly. They would occasionally point at something and say “LSD, speed, ecstasy, cocaine?” I would refute their accusations emotionally, then demonstrate precisely what it was for.
Warnings of people putting drugs in your kit are rife in these parts, so no matter how innocent I was I was still scared to death. What if they put something in there and then accused me of smuggling? It would be so easy. Then they would pop me in jail and I might never see the light of day again. I was bricking it.
When the last piece of equipment had been examined, the captain turned to me and stated quite plainly “You not drug dealer. We just look and see. Welcome to Russia.” Well, as long as you’re having fun, don’t worry about me having pulmonary heart failure.
The continual diarrhoea, and my lack of hygiene resulting from the absence of any showering facilities en route, was starting to take its toll. I was getting spots where my legs met my buttocks because they were rubbing against the seat, my padded shorts feeling like they were stuffed with gravel, not foam. Popping my kit back in, I jumped on Shirley and winced. Every time I bumped the spots, they were agony. I knew it wasn't Shirley's fault that she was juddering along the uneven road, but I couldn't help shouting at her to be more careful. I realised we were over our dating period. We’d reached the next stage of our relationship. Shirley had aged, she’d got a bit grumpy, her chain whinged at every opportunity. It was as though we were married.
By the time my tent was up, it was raining heavily, so I dashed out and showered in the downpour, running around in the nude with a foamy white Afro formed from my soap, while a few crows watched on and appeared unsettled by what this crazy Brit was doing. After a bottle of mineral water cleared the bits the rain couldn’t reach, I felt ready to take on the best Russia could throw at me.
My introduction to Russia was fairly tame and mundane. Police cheered as I went by, farmers waved, dogs chased me. As I left the Ukraine, I was advised to buy something to protect myself against the dogs that got fiercer the further east you travelled. I visited a weapons shop.
It was like a scene from Pulp Fiction. I had to select my weapon of choice. Chainsaw? Too heavy. Baseball bat? Too awkward to carry. Samurai sword? Might chop at my legs. Gun? Man, I'd love one of these but I might well not get through the border crossing. Then I looked up and saw it. Shining. Beautiful. Oh yes! It was the high pitched whistle. Watch out, bitches, I'm armed and dangerous.
As the first two dogs joined me, they barked, placing the dogs further down the route on notice so that they were waiting for me as I went past, ready to burst out into aggressive barking and snapping. Each house I went past, two more dogs came out to greet (or eat) me. By the time I'd gone about a hundred metres, I felt like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, but my followers were not rats or children but vicious dogs wanting to shred the flesh off my legs, and I wasn’t playing my whistle.
Why, you might ask. Because I’d tucked it into my shirt to stop it swinging. As the dogs chased me, I couldn’t take my hands off the handle bars long enough to get it out. I wouldn't make that mistake again.
* * *
The food I was managing to scavenge was passing through me faster than a rat down a drainpipe. I hadn't kept much inside me for a week of continuous cycling. I was weak and miserable but I had no desire to rest for a day by the side of the road in my tent. I was becoming braver and more determined but I was still uncomfortable.
I managed to find a truckers' café with an outdoor shower full of excrement that I forced myself to use. Then a ginger trucker pestered me all night to buy him a beer and got quite aggressive when I refused to do so, so I slipped off to bed hoping he wouldn’t be in my dorm.
To make matters even worse, the glands in my groin were swollen so that it felt like I had marbles in there. Surely this wasn’t good. I seemed to be coming to pieces at the seams.
It was a single long road to Volgograd from the truckers' stop - a very narrow road with steep drops on either side. Far from escaping the industry of the Ukraine, I had joined a road to Industry Central. Massive trucks passed inches away from each other sometimes dropping their loads all over the road. As a cyclist, I was dwarfed and irrelevant to proceedings. No one had any room to manoeuvre, so every other truck brushed me as it passed me and one in ten sent me careering into the gutter. Zoom, zoom, zoom, a truck flew past every second, They were nose-to-tail, no gaps at all.
At one point the road surface was particularly uneven and, as I was being driven off the road by a large truck, my back wheel slipped, sending my bike tumbling one way and me the other - bang into the middle of the road. It was as improbable as a lottery win that there would be a gap between the trucks. A row of wheels supporting a seven ton truck bore down on me, the driver pounding his horn. There was no way he could stop. I dived for the hard shoulder as he thundered past, whipping a thickness of smog up around my body. I sat down to pull myself together. I was shaking. My heart wasn’t in it. I was reassessing the trip. I had wanted an adventure; I hadn’t come here to die.
I came to a conclusion. Volgograd was ten miles in front of me. I had to get there, even if it was the last cycling I did. I’d already seen there was an airport. I’d made my point. Green travel is very difficult when everything around you is so filthy and rotten. I could fly from here to Southern India.
Rolling on, the smog thickened as I got closer to the city. A train carrying industrial material blocked my way. The dinging on the level crossing was the same as at home amid the green pastures of the South Downs. I'd waited many times at those level crossings back home sitting on my bike. I’d never yet been attacked by gypsies there though. As soon as I stopped here, dark skinned gypsies emerged from every hidey hole next to the road. They'd come to ask me for money and to try to pull things off my bike. Politely as I could, I held up my hand to say “No” while attempting to protect my prized possessions. When they started to grab my lucky lamb, I got really cross and told them to leave me alone.
Luckily the barriers were rising and I was able to pull away, dragging a few along with me for a while before they realized my kit was too well tied down. On the other side, children were playing in the road, blocking my path. I stopped to chat with them but they thrust a dead cat in my face. They were trying to sell it to me. I must have been looking hungry. With vomit rising
into the back of my throat, I bust through the ring that was surrounding me and headed off with jeering kids following me as far as their legs would carry them.
Barring the episode under the venomous apple tree, it was the first time I’d felt threatened on the trip. I worried that it was going to be like this from now on. Smog, trucks, people trying to take your stuff ... A line from one of my favourite films went through my head “I ####ing hate pikies.”
The heat was suffocating and, as twilight had arrived, I had become a buffet for mosquitoes. I just wanted out. I bought myself some comfort food.
Downhearted, downtrodden and downcast, I finally found a place to stay after searching the estates right into the city centre, suffering yet more interest from pikies along the way. I lumped for a hotel that completely blew my budget. There just wasn't any other choice and, in the mood that had engulfed me, it didn’t matter as my trip was coming to an end.
Sitting in the hotel eating chocolate cereal and milk under the air conditioning unit, I asked myself one question. Why?
Chapter 12
It was six weeks since I had left my comfortable life in London town. Six weeks since I had seen friends and family. Six weeks since I’d seen the kids from school.
As I was fighting the weather, traffic, mosquitoes, saddle sores, lack of washing, sickness and thieves, they were all making their way to school, starting a new term with a new teacher. I’d heard a lot from the children in my first week but no students had written for a while now. I felt forgotten, a no-one.
