ROGER REPORT 25:

Sunday, August 20, 1995
Novosibirsk, Russia

THIS MESSAGE COURTESY OF MCI MAIL

A Report from Moscow, Russia -- Part 2 of 3

Hello All,

10 August, a Russian teacher has agreed to travel with me as far as Moscow. We left Krasnoyarsk about 10:00 and headed west for Novosibirsk knowing it would be a two day journey. For the first 200 miles the road was very good. It was rather cool for this time of the year, around 21 degrees C, with some altocumulus clouds dotting the sky to make the scenery more striking.

There are immense stretches of cultivated fields dotted with stands of Birch and Poplar trees. I can't for the life of me figure out why the trees are left in the middle of the cultivated fields. The road is lined with the trees, also. I'm sure these are used as wind breaks for the fields and to keep snow from drifting on to the road during the winter. But the large stands of trees left in the fields remains a mystery.

The destination for today is Kemerovo, about 520 kms. west of Krasnoyarsk. We made good progress most of the morning with intermittent stretches of gravel road. But, all in all, the driving was much better than I had expected after the experience driving from Irkutsk to Krasnoyarsk.

We stopped by a moderate size river about 13:00, set up the camper and had a nice lunch. By now it was getting hotter and we were glad to get back on the road after our lunch. By mid-afternoon the altocumulus clouds had become rather awesome cumulonimbus in all quadrants of the sky. I began to wonder if there were tornadoes in this area. It really reminds me of Kansas on a hot summer day.

Off in the distance it was raining heavily and finally we got our share. It rained so hard driving was almost impossible, but we continued on at a slow pace. We passed horse carts and motorcycles with side cars who had stopped to wait out the storm. It rained on and off the rest of the afternoon. We arrived in a thoroughly drenched and partially flooded Kemerovo about 18:30 and looked for a place to park Bubba for the night. We found a Police Station, parked in their parking lot and managed to get set up before the next down pour.

I fixed some meat sauce. We had a nice salad of fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and onions, with the meat sauce over rice and boiled cabbage. By now, I'm sure everyone is wondering about the teacher traveling with me. Nina is a teacher on summer vacation from Krasnoyarsk-26, who has never been on a motoring trip. She agreed to accompany me after she saw the inside of the camper had two sleeping areas. She asked about my trip and what my objectives were and decided it would be okay to go along to act as a intermediary for me with the Police and any others with whom I might have difficulties. By the time we reached Kemerovo we had managed to work out a reasonable method of communication through the use of my dictionary and 2 phrase books she had brought along.

After the first night in Kemerovo the arrangement seemed to work very well and we settled in for what would be a good relationship for the trip. Nina is helping me with my Russian but I am having trouble remembering the words. I have to ask several times before I can commit a word to memory. I guess it is just old age setting in.

The morning of 11 August we started out about 07:30 after a light breakfast and headed for Novosibirsk only 270 kms. down the road. It was a very foggy overcast morning and after getting on the main highway we found ourselves on a long stretch of road lined on both sides with very tall Poplars giving the impression one is driving in a tunnel with no top. The sun peeked through occasionally giving the whole scene a rather surreal atmosphere. After about 20 miles of this we broke into the open country side and the sun came out for good to become a brilliant clear day. The previous day's rain made everything appear greener and more vivid. I do not have the words or talent to describe how extraordinarily beautiful this morning was. I would say it looks like a scene Van Gogh might paint. But I'm not sure anyone, no matter how good, could paint this magnificent morning scene.

We continued through the countryside seeing occasional BMWs and horse carts go by to add a little interest to the day. The countryside looks much the same as the day before, with small villages and huge areas of cultivated land. We arrived in Novosibirsk about 12:00 but it took almost 2 hours to find the hotel. All the staff were on summer vacation so we had the whole building to ourselves. After getting all the stuff moved into a two room suite, I called a man I had met at the Computer Camp to arrange to meet him on Saturday. The hotel is so far from the city we ended up cooking in the camper and eating there.

I asked the guard on duty if there was someplace to eat in the area. He gave us general directions and we set off to find the Cafe. We walked through an apartment complex and out to a main street. We asked several people where the cafe was and got several different answers. We set off in the general direction most people indicated only to find the building where the cafe had been. It looked as if had been closed for at least a year. So we went back to the hotel to make alternate plans for our meals.

Saturday, 12 August, we had appointment to meet Alexy Borozidin who has a program helping children, who have been declared untreatable by the Health Authorities. We spent about 2 hours driving south from Novosibirsk looking for the area indicated on our directions. But due to the lack of road signs, we passed the turn off and ended up about 20 kms. too far south. Fortunately we found Alexy waiting at a stop light for us when we retraced our path. He took us to his home for a wonderful afternoon of discussion and listening to him play the cello. He is a music teacher and has several students, who are now playing professionally. One of his students is a child prodigy who was playing in concert at the age of 5. This group of talented people, through their own designed program, have done almost miracle work with children who have been declared untreatable. I would hope by writing about this, there will be people who will contact this group for information on what they are doing and the success they are having.

At 18:30 we had to leave these wonderful people and get back to the hotel to start getting ready to be on the road again. We decided to make Sunday a "clean the truck" day. Sunday, 13 August, we spent all day giving Bubba a bath and cleaning the inside from top to bottom. Nina was determined to give the whole truck a good cleaning and kept me busy all day. After we finished, I cooked dinner and we watched "Dances With Wolves" on my VCR and went to bed about 23:00.

Monday the whole staff showed up at the hotel. We talked with the hotel manager about a few things, including the location of the package from GSH, the money I had deposited with the hotel for expenses while in Russia and where I could get propane for the truck. The results were: no propane available, no information about the money, the package was at the DHL office and one of the hotel staff was sent to get it. I had a couple of broken hinges on a door in the camper. It seems there are no hardware stores, so one of the maintenance men came by and I gave him the hinges, he returned about an hour later having welded them back together.

On Friday, I had the stitches removed from the operation done in Krasnoyarsk to remove a small lesion from my leg which I worried might be cancerous (it wasn't). It looked like it was healing well, but on Saturday the whole thing split open. I was able to put a butterfly stitch on it with some neosporin hoping I could avoid an infection. On Monday my leg again seemed to be healing well, I am hopeful it will continue to heal properly.

Everyone take care of yourselves and do the right thing.

As Always,
Bubba and Roger

After consultation with a local friend, we believe that the stands of trees in the fields are either windbreaks/snowbreaks OR simply places where the farmers throw rocks and other debris from clearing the field; it's easier to leave it there and plow around it than to haul it off somewhere.

happy trails,
Alyson

From: Paul Woodson Gates
Subject: trees in the middle of the field

I would like to propose an alternative suggestion as to why there were trees in the middle of the field. In Indiana where I grew up there were trees in the middle of the fields to provide shade for when the farmer stopped his horse driven plow or combine. Although only the Amish still used horses the trees often would remain, especially in fields that now are not used for crops any longer. So it is possible these trees represented areas for resting the horse out of the hot summer sun.

NEXT WEEK: Part 3 - On the road to Moscow, Russia