A motorbike trip "Across the Caspian Sea — to the Pamir Mountains!" Part 1. Moscow → Dagestan → Chechnya → Georgia → Azerbaijan

Let's go!!!
The first hundreds of kilometers of our new adventure are behind us. And ahead there are about a dozen countries, thousands of kilometers along the unfamiliar roads, new towns, wonderful forests, seas, mountain passes and deserts. We will cross the borders and meet people, make new friends and come across the old ones. This is an indescribable feeling of the beginning of a great journey!

We made a short stop in a hero city. Tomorrow we are going to Astrakhan.

“There was only the steppe around, it was a long way to go… ”
460 km of a dull and unremarkable landscape are over, and now we are in Astrakhan! It's quite an interesting town, by the way! Here you can see a luxurious Volga embankment with fountains and restaurants and dilapidated old wooden houses, overgrown with grass up to the windows, side by side. But what we were astonished with completely, was a recently erected theatre. The Louvre and Versailles have got nothing on it. And if it was empty inside, then the Bolshoi, Maly and five other smaller Moscow theatres would fit there. It is difficult to even imagine the amount of funds contributed in its construction and the number of yachts and other real estate properties obtained by someone in Italy and Spain as a result of the investments.

We spent a wonderful evening in a café on the embankment, in the company of my friend, a wonderful and unique person, traveler, motorcyclist, diver, parachutist, paraglider, karateka, etc., whose name is Sergey Zachvatov. It was a perfect end to the third day of our journey.

Tomorrow we're heading for Grozny.

Well, finally, the adventures begin gradually! The ride from Astrakhan to Grozny turned out to be much more fun than the previous ones! Firstly, several dozen kilometers were sandy off-road. Secondly, someone wanted me dead today! Well, maybe not so right on the spot, but the attempt did take place! :)

An aggressive jigit, driving a Lada Priora car, decided to overtake me on a narrow ground road. It wasn't a success. As a result, the protective arc of my motorbike is scratched and the left trunk is off: it has a rubbed to the iron side from the right door up to the rear wing. Since there were three of us and he was alone, he saw no chances and after five minutes of argument he cowardly got away from the scene of the accident.

The trunk was put back in place with a kick and our journey continued! In general, the local drivers seem to be quite dangerous. Without any exception, their turn signals do not work and there are no rear-view mirrors. Or maybe they have ones but, apparently, nothing is visible in them.

And the rest of the people in Dagestan and Chechnya are very friendly and welcoming! Even the traffic police officers!

Grozny is very beautiful at night! As for Grozny City and the Putin and Kadyrov Avenues, they have left an unforgettable impression!

Day five. 17.08.2017
We crossed the Verkhny Lars, which is the border between Russia and Georgia, in one hour. The queue in the direction of Georgia was small, but towards us a multi-kilometer sausage of trucks stretched. Those were the impatient citizens, who wished to drive faster, so they tried to drive around the oncoming lane and created a dead traffic jam in the tunnel. Therefore, we had to squeeze into a narrow gap, clinging to the wall of the tunnel with the right handlebar, and to the mirrors of the oncoming cars with the left.

After a few kilometers we made a stop in the mountain village named Stepantsminda. There we had a snack in a café, left our heavy trunks and headed for the top of a high mountain, where a small but very beautiful church stands high above the clouds.

The way to this temple is remarkable. The road, which leads to the top, appears to be a broken, rocky serpentine with sharp turns, huge ruts and streams flowing across. You can climb up either on foot or by a rented Mitsubishi Delica ATV, which isn't in a good state. That's extreme!
We arrived in Tbilisi right after the sun had set behind the mountain peaks. Here we were met by a wonderful man and Valery's friend, whose name was Lasha. We stayed overnight in his lovely house. And then everything went as it was expected: we had dinner at the top of Mtatsminda mountain, which offered a gorgeous view of Tbilisi at night. We enjoyed khinkali, khachapuri, tsinandali, cheers… I wish we had sung the songs as well! :)
I love Georgia, damn it!

Day six. 18.08.2017
Today was the most interesting day of our trip!

In the morning we left Tbilisi for Tusheti, which is the wine region of sunny Georgia. We overcame about a 217 km distance to the high-altitude village named Omalo, 70 km of which took place along the incredibly beautiful paths, following the picturesque gorge. It was just fantastic! This is one of the most interesting and unforgettable routes I have ever experienced! Imagine, seventy kilometers of pure happiness for a motorbike traveler!

The road is unpaved and some parts are rocky. There are steep serpentines, through which rivers flow, and slippery mud sections. We made a huge number of stops to take pictures and film videos, or to just stand on the edge of the abyss, watching a mountain river bubbling somewhere down there. It was such an incredible thrill!

Do you remember the famous Soviet film "Mimino"? Yes, just imagine, it took place exactly here, in Shinako village (the neighboring one to Omalo), where Valiko Mizandari (V. Kikabidze) flew in his MI-2.
There are no helicopters flying here now. The thing is, they cost too much. And all the surrounding highland villages live here only from May to September. In winter the passes become covered with snow and one could no longer get out of them. The locals tend to leave their houses for the mainland and only few old people stay here until spring. It's hard to understand how they are able to live in such conditions… Well, they must probably have got used to it.

 

Dartlo, Shenako, Diklo, Hahabo are small, semi-abandoned villages located in the surroundings of Omalo. They are unique in their indescribable flavour.It is impossible not to fall in love with these houses (they have roofs made of plate stone without any mortar), watchtowers, grazing horses and cows, and children, who had smeared their faces with charcoal for some local holiday.

Day seven. 20.08.2017
Georgia → Azerbaijan.
We were supposed to arrive in Yerevan today, but after the evening meeting our plans have changed. The thing is, according to our route, the way back from Iran takes us to Baku, and Azerbaijani border guards don't really like the fact of a stamp in the passport, marking the visit to Armenia. We can't predict what this may result in, but we shouldn't take risks in such a situation.

We crossed the border quite quickly, just in an hour. It took us 10 minutes on the Georgian side and 50 minutes on the Azerbaijani one. Our possessions were not shaken down; we were only asked to open the trunks for order. The weather was hot. +37°C in the shade. Roads in Azerbaijan are of excellent quality. In many big settlements you can see tall steles with huge national flags waving above. What's more, we were constantly coming across the portraits of Heydar Aliyev, the father of the current president.

On the roads there are a lot of cars, made in the USSR, especially of the classic Lada model. From time to time we had to drink water. A lot of water. The further south we went, the hotter the weather became. I wondered what it would be like in Iran…

I flew over a 250 kilometer distance along a perfect motorway from Ganja to Ayat in one breath, excluding a couple of stops to wet a cooling vest with water and buy a watermelon from roadside sellers..

The numbers on the dashboard showed the air temperature gradually growing. +35°C... +37°C... +39° and the oncoming air no longer cooled me but, on the contrary, burned the open parts of my body. Such a heat!!!
The landscape around was monotonous and unremarkable. The road was gorgeous and the speed limit was 110 and 90 km/h. However speed cameras were placed every five kilometers.

Suddenly, a BMW with flashing blue-red lights on the roof appeared in my rear-view mirror. I turned on the right turn signal and stopped at the roadside. A heavy-built 45-year-old traffic policeman didn't leave the car but waved his hand, inviting me inside.
"So why are you going so fast, Andrey? One hundred and sixty kilometers, wai! I saw thirteen radars and left my post, waved a stick at you, but you flew away and I barely caught you up. That isn't good, right? Let's go to the post and fill in the protocol", the owner of the striped stick, which was lying next to me, started speaking hurriedly, while looking at my documents. "Then you will have to go to the city to pay a fine".
"It's too hot here, I can't ride slowly, otherwise the motorbike will become warm and I may have a heat stroke. Then I'll fall somewhere on the road and there will be an accident. How much is the fine?" I asked.
"That will be a big fine, as I caught fifteen radars. You are charged 700 manats!" (1 manat = 35 roubles.)
"Seven hundred? I don't have that much money! That's a lot! Let's make a kind agreement… I have very little of local currency".
"And what else do you have? Dollar, Euro, Rouble? Where are you going? To Iran? Well, give me 200 dollars and I'll let you go".
"Two hundred??? Then I won't have any left at all! I won't be able to buy gasoline or food… How would I go on?"
"Oh Andrey, it's not much. Gasoline in Iran is cheap, you'll have enough money for it. Come on, 150 dollars and I behave like I haven't seen you".
"Maybe 50? 150 dollars is too much! In Moscow for such a sum you can drive drunk around Red Square! Let's agree on fifty and I'll go".
"Are you serious??? Fifty? Wai, Andrey, why do you offend me? I'm giving you a discount like a brother! And I still have to erase your twenty radars on the computer, you know? Why are you so greedy? You're no good, Andrey!". . . 15 minutes have passed. I got excited and felt like a buyer in an oriental market, who was being offered a cheap Turkish carpet under the guise of a hand-knitted Persian silk. Finally, we agreed on 70 dollars. I took out a hundred-dollar bill.
"Let me give you the change," said Akif (this is the name he introduced himself by) and took the crumpled bills out of his pockets. "Here you are ten euros, it's like twenty dollars, and another five manats".
"Ten euros equal twelve dollars, Akif, no more!"
"Look! In your homeland you may have twelve and here we have twenty. Well, here you're a bit more…" and he took out several crumpled bills of 1 manat from another pocket. During our conversation Akif's face expression was constantly changing from extremely offended to good-naturedly condescending. Having shaken hands, we said goodbye to each other and I continued my way to catch another fine. Despite the fact that my wallet had lost 80 dollars, my mood was excellent and I kept recalling this show for long, while riding further.

Lankaran is a provincial, unremarkable town, which is situated 45 km from the border with Iran. When I asked the locals what interesting things I could see there, they thought for a bit and then answered: "Nothing…"

The only attraction is the Caspian Sea and its coastline with black sand. But the sea is quite shallow, the bottom is rocky and the water is muddy.

I went through the whole town along the main street. There were a lot of people in military uniforms. As well, a lot of Lada VAZ-2101 cars and their subsequent modifications. There were not just a lot of them, but about 70-80% on the whole. A strange thing is that in Azerbaijan, which actually has got enough oil, gasoline costs more than in Georgia. Its price is 41 roubles for 1 litre of the 95th octane number. Exactly like in Russia. :)

 

 

 

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