Going to the Crimea with my own house. A car journey.

It's just a pleasure to drive along the M-4 DON highway! I mean, from Moscow to Voronezh and plus a two hundred kilometer distance further. Then toll roads end and it becomes not so fun. I got stuck for about an hour in one of the traffic jams because of one bridge being repaired. Apparently, all these people decided to celebrate the May holidays by going in for a car rally to the south. In one of these traffic jams, somewhere near Rostov, a BMW GS motorbike leaked between cars and stopped in front of my window. I wound the window down. "Hi,Andrew!", said the man in the helmet and balaclava. "Hello!", I replied. "Where are you going?", he asked. I answered with a smile at the not yet unidentified friend: "To the Crimea! And you?". "Me too! Let's meet there! Good luck!", was his answer. I waved my hand and the motorcyclist continued making his way further along the aisle. This situation made me ponder over the question "Who was he???" all the way long.

While I was getting to the "Caucasus" port, more than a dozen bro-motorbikers with Moscow and Moscow region vehicle numbers overtook me. These damn feathered pieces of iron flew to warmer climes! :) And I feel sick in the "iron box" like a loser. Although... I'm starting to like this type of traveling too. To have a mobile house… There's something in it! One of the key factors is that you don't need to be in a hurry because you know that you can stay overnight almost anywhere. You just need to turn off the roadway and choose a picturesque meadow in the forest on the banks of the Don river, for example. And then you can fry the potatoes, boil an egg, prepare some salad and simply daydream and make plans for the following day, while having a glass of red wine and inhaling the smells of the pine forest.

"And how many cars can this ferry take on board?", I asked the crew member in the orange uniform, who was supervising the loading of the transport. "A hundred cars or twenty trucks," he replied, "we have got two such identical ferries, brought from Greece. There are two more for the trains and a few smaller and older ones for cars". "And when will the bridge be opened?", I asked a question that interests everyone, who is going or planning a trip to the Crimea. "On the 15th of May", was his answer. "And what will happen to the ferry crossing? And with those who work here?", I wondered. "I don't know, everyone may be sent home", the man muttered cheerlessly and went away.

It takes only 20 minutes to get to the Crimea port from the Caucasus port by comfortable ferry, but we spent three and a half hours to complete the whole procedure. A lot of car drivers and motorbike travellers decided to spend the May holidays in the Crimea, which is understandable, since the weather is gorgeous, the sea is clean and calm. And, in general, a journey to the Crimea always feels like a holiday! At least, for me.

While the ferry was crossing the narrow Kerch Strait at a fairly high speed, people were having fun feeding seagulls, which were catching the thrown pieces of bread on the fly. Some people were having a glass of beer in the huge canteen and other were looking at a thin strip with an arch in the middle, which was the Crimean Bridge a few kilometers forward. The construction will be completed quite soon…

Crimea is either loved or treated with arrogant disdain.

"Wait, where are you going? To the Crimea??? To this dump place with a complete lack of service, with dirty beaches and eateries on the embankment, where the whole neighborhood listens to the melody of late 80-s coming from hoarse speakers? Don't you find it too vulgar and all in all…?"
But, personally, I love Crimea. Maybe because I see it as my second homeland, where I had lived for not the worst six years of my life. And since then I come back here now and again almost every year. Well, this place is not like Nice, St. Tropez and not even like Turkey with their notorious "all inclusive". Nevertheless, if you have enough desire and finances, you can arrange a vacation that will be no less luxurious than in the aforementioned resorts.

But that's not the point. Anyone who has ever climbed Kara Dag Mountain with a backpack, sung songs with a guitar by the campfire, woken up in the morning on the sunbed somewhere on the coast in Yalta or Sudak will understand me.

In the last quarter of the 20th century, until the well-known events, no one cared about the Crimea, as if it somehow existed on its own. There are still enough problems now, but life goes on, no matter what: the new roads are being built, beaches and city streets have become cleaner, people are also changing for the better and this is noticeable.
All the bad will end and the Crimea will remain…

 

23 h 50 min, the 4th of May, 2018. Cape Meganom.

Have you ever lived by the sea? No, I don't mean the hotel on the first line overlooking the "sea view". Do you remember the scene from the Soviet movie "Love and Pigeons", in which the main character Vasily is seen off on holidays? Being dressed in a suit and a tie, he opens the door of his house, goes out, takes a couple of steps and falls into the sea.

That's what I'm talking about! Imagine, you wake up because of the sunshine falling through the open window. It begins to tickle you, jumps from your lips to your eyes, then to your cheeks and your small room is shimmering with bright spots of the morning sun. You open your eyes, hear the soft rustle of the waves on the pebbles, stretch your body, jump off the huge double bed onto the rug, open the door and, having taken no more than five steps along the soft yellow sand, dive into the transparent coolness of the real Black Sea!

Just fantasy and dreams, you say? No, my friends, this is the most realistic reality!
And the day before, late in the evening, having driven along the serpentines of the southern coast of the Crimea, you were going in complete darkness, shining your headlights on a broken rocky road with huge pits and boulders. Imagine you were crawling up slowly by a huge SUV, while your engine was purring in low gear. Then you were going down for a long time, almost groping your way through pits and bushes, and finally got to a wild beach. The sea is calm and only a long and wide moonlight path runs towards you along the black water, slightly covered with small ripples. However, you are not alone here, because you see a firelight glow a little further away and the outlines of a tent are visible in the moonlight. Apparently, some tourists have chosen this place for an overnight stay too.

The car paddles loose sand with all the four wheels tensely and, having turned around, stops at the very edge of the water. That's all for today. The engine stalls. You can hear only silence and a slight rustling of the waves.
And tomorrow you will be woken up by a thin ray of the sun that has leaked into your small house through a slightly open window.
Good morning! :)

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