{"id":253,"date":"2019-09-17T13:35:52","date_gmt":"2019-09-17T13:35:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/?p=253"},"modified":"2019-09-17T13:35:56","modified_gmt":"2019-09-17T13:35:56","slug":"crossing-kazakhstan-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/2019\/09\/17\/crossing-kazakhstan-russia\/","title":{"rendered":"Crossing Kazakhstan & Russia,"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Robin Ewing
Saturday, Aug 10, 2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Almaty north to the Russian border is a\n23-hour drive, if you include a 15-minute bread and cheese dinner under a gas\nstation lamp, a chocolate stop and a one-hour nap in the front seat pulled over\non the side of the road. It also includes a road that rivals Turkmenistan in\ninfrastructure horror. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Short on time, we crossed Kazakhstan in yet\nanother cannonball run for the border. There wasn\u2019t much to see: a lake,\nmountains, a long barren expanse and a few towns. Yoav got pulled over for\nspeeding by a police officer, confused him by asking for directions and then drove\noff. Ticket \u201cfine\u201d avoided. I was sorry to miss the capital Astana, but it was\nhundreds of miles out of the way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
600 km out of Almaty on the steppe.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Our lunch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Previously called Akmola, meaning \u201cwhite\ndeath,\u201d Astana is where Stalin built his gulags, including the notorious camp\nfor Wives of Traitors. In 1998, the city was renamed Astana, which, creatively,\nmeans \u201ccapital.\u201d It\u2019s a weird place, I hear, cold and wind blown in the middle\nof the open steppes and filled with new, futuristic buildings: a huge Norman\nFoster-designed glass pyramid, a building made to look like the White House and\none of the largest concert halls in the world. After creating the city, the Kazakh\ngovernment forced foreign companies to move their offices there. Joanne said\nwhen a friend was preparing to re-locate, a local Kazakh woman heard the news\nand sadly shaking her head, grabbed a piece of paper and drew a grave with a\ncross.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A graveyard on the side of the road.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It was dawning behind the mountains at 4am\nwhen we pulled up to Russia on a road with potholes like battle trenches. We\nbreezed through, the Russians taking no notice of the taped up export plates,\nand onto the best road I\u2019ve seen since Turkey. A few hours later, we were\nreunited with the Bandits in Barnaul and somehow ended up in the apartment of a\nRussian woman named Emma with purple hair who gave us all cups of tea, signed\nmy map and gave me a shell to remember her by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Emma invited us all into her apartment for morning tea<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We drove across Siberia for three days, camping\namong the thick pine forests, clear rivers and brown bears. We were towed out\nof the mud twice. Owen and Yoav replaced the Bandit\u2019s alternator belt on the\nside of the road, snow-capped mountains in the distance. It was cold at night\nand I wrapped myself in blankets, sleeping in the van or in the Bandit\u2019s extra\ntent. We spent our last Rubles on vodka and a bag of potatoes.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Siberian campsite<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Not our van this time!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Tow #1.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Two #2.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been 14,000 km since we left London.\nThe van is sounding bad, the Kazakh road roughed her up. Opel wasn\u2019t meant to\nleave the German autobahn. We need to get her to Mongolia before she gives up\non us for good. Tomorrow we enter our last country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Robin EwingSaturday, Aug 10, 2013 From Almaty north to the Russian border is a 23-hour drive, if you include a 15-minute bread and cheese dinner under a gas station lamp, a chocolate stop and a one-hour nap in the front seat pulled over on the side of the road. It also includes a road […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/IMG_2227-e.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256,"href":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions\/256"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}