Krasnoyarsk

This city has a population of 870,000 and is vibrant, youthful and backed by attractive spikes of jagged forested foothills. I was told by a friend to visit the Regional Museum as it is one of Siberia’s best. It is a 1912 building that combines Art Nouveau and Egyptian temple-style features. Unfortunately I only made it to the local supermarket and Siberian clothes market, the supermarket is a real treat when you are in a big city and I took the opportunity to stock up on a few of my home away from home goodies like honey, coffee, cup- a -soups and tomato sauce. I have also acquired a new taste for sunflower seeds that have been roasted oooh yum, they are light and nice to munch on when you are sitting in the van for hours on end waiting for the next runner to finish. It was great to find them because I was falling in to a bad habit of munching on chippies and lollies while waiting, so these are a much healthier option. I shall miss them when we leave Russia, I wonder if they roast them in New Zealand, perhaps I can do that myself in the oven when I get back home. Brought myself a lovely sun hat at the market and yes it has my trademark blue nicely weaved in around the side of the hat.

Kansk

In the 1880’s the city of Kansk was so predominately Jewish that it was known as the Jerusalem of Siberia. After WWII Stalin devoted himself to the destruction of Jewish cultural life, shutting schools, theatres and publishing houses. Between 1987 and 1991 more than half a million Jews left Russia, 350,000 going to Israel and 150,000 to the US. However, since 2000 an estimated 50,000 Jews have returned to Russia.

We had a brief visit to Kansk and really all I saw was my hotel room, I was even too tired to have dinner that night which was at a local Chinese restaurant. Victor who ran first for us that afternoon finished his 10 miles right beside a lake and he loves his water coming from a triathlon background, so on came the goggles and in he went, Victor our driver and Polly who is filming this running adventure also joined him. I sat on the bank and dipped my legs in and chatted to about 10 kids who were spending their Sunday afternoon splashing about. I found out their names and ages, that’s about all I can manage in Russian and then gave them some blue planet run stickers with the website on so they could find out more. I imagine all kids these days own a computer even Russian kids.

I had an interesting run and past through a village, there seemed to be a hype of activity and at one stage I had to navigate myself around on-coming buses, cows and geese. I am fascinated by the wooden cottages that are so neatly presented and are brightly colored in Blue, green and yellow. As I run by I imagine what they look like inside, hopefully I will get the chance to look before I leave Russia. It really was a lovely Sunday evening in Siberia so I decided to jump on the bike for the last 10miles and bike with the Doctor and Richard who was running last for our team. Its nice to bike for a number of reason, you get to see more when you bike because you can relax and take in the scenery, it gets you out of that van for another 90 mins and its good to ease the legs out after a run.

Nizhneudinsk

Well the unpaved Russian roads have begun and as these roads got worse the speed at which we were traveling had got faster, you see for two days our sensible driver Victor was replaced by another driver we have named Superman. Superman as lovely as he is only knows one speed and that’s FAST and I mean RUSSIAN FAST…..yep I was hanging on for DEAR LIFE once again. That night we also had the worst accommodation, being so tired it was straight to bed, but in the morning I woke up to the reality of the of the dormitory, it was so bad I had to get all the evidence on my camera especially our bathroom, broken and discolored tiles and no toilet seat - you get the picture. I felt like I was bitten all night by the fleas in my bed and it dipped severely in the middle so I had the most awkward sleep and again there were no curtains. But we had been warned to expect all this and when you are warned in advance you can start preparing yourself mentally in advance! But I have got to say as bad as the place was they did a great cup of coffee in the morning and that made everything sort of ok - you really to hold on to the small pleasures now.

My 10 mile run the next day was on a dirt track and I felt like I was running cross country, it had me thinking the whole way and concentrating on where to put my feet and I loved every minute of it despite the dust filling my lungs as the big trucks past by. I finished by a river and was able to soak my legs in the cold water to aid recovery, that is as far as the water level went as it look a very brown color and I didn’t want to risk any more stomach upsets.

And we were in heaven when we rolled up to our hotel in the City of SAYANSK at 11pm as we had again gone from a minus 5 star to a good 3 star, but after a minus 5 star it felt like a plus 10! Oh to get into a comfortable bed with fresh sheets and a seat on the toilet, the shower was cold but it was still paradise to me.

My run towards our next city IRKUTSK was on very hilly terrain and once again enjoyed the variety, past many field filled with purple flowers, this was our last day on the 3pm-9pm shift so I ran quite hard as I knew I had a day off the next day. As usual the Russian police followed right behind me, keeping me safe from those CRAZY Russian drivers, we all wonder what their conversations must be as they inch along behind us- certainly there must be a conversation on our ‘styles’ of running and no doubt the shape of our ‘bums’!

Irkutsk

We arrived in this city about 10pm, it has a population of 591,000 and was founded in 1651. Irkutsk was the springboard for the 18th century expeditions to the far north and east including Alaska, then known as a ‘Irkutsk’s American district.’

As eastern Siberia’s trading and administrative centre, Irkutsk’s dispatched Siberian furs and ivory to Mongolian, Tibet and China in exchange for silk and tea. Three quarters of the city burnt down in the disastrous fire of 1879. It was restored and known as the ‘Paris of Siberia’.

We kind of had a final farewell to Russian in the city and someone (I don’t know who) hired this big white limo and we all piled into it to dance the night away at some disco. It was my first time every in a limo and I was glad to have had the experience in what is known as the ‘Paris of Siberia’!!!!! It was a little escape out of reality before we faced some harsh reality accommodation wise in the city of Kyakhta, But before we arrived in Kyakhta we were able to experience the magic of Lake Baikal and the city called Ulan Ude.

This city is where Dasha our tour guide and Victor our driver were from. Dash who has been away from home for only 3 weeks as we have run across Russia and Siberia was so excited to be back home, that wonderful sense of familiarity and I imagined that excitement when I would get back to my own city of Wellington and catch up with all my family and friends over a cappuccino at the Parade Café, take a run through the Botanical Gardens, swim at Thorndon pool, and visit all my buddies at the soup kitchen.