July 21-25 Ulan-Ude to Khabarovsk

We had intensive driving throughout 5 days: 2 700 km to drive from Ulan-Ude to Khabarovsk.

July 21, we drove 650km from Ulan-Ude to Chita. As we took a wrong turning at some point, we ended up in a rural area with agricultural fields and roadworks to rejoin the Bikal motorway later. We enjoyed our last sightings of pine tree forests in Buryatia. As we entered the Zabaikalsky Krai, the landscapes started to change. We had to drive through the South of the Stanovoy mountain range: the road was constantly going up and down 200-300m. Reminded me of a giant never-ending roller coaster. The more we advanced towards Chita, the denser the taiga forest was becoming. This was also a flower paradise: fields of fireweed (иван-чай) The road itself was in a rather poor condition to be qualified as federal and there were plenty of road works ongoing. For some reason, temporary lane markings were very much not straight, while the permanent were ok. Must be two different approaches to applying the road paintings… We arrived at Chita (capital of Zabaikalsky Krai) at 8pm and after checking in went to have dinner. There celebrations in the town (Metallurgy Worker Day - День металлурга) on the main square: it was crowded and noisy with loud live music. Although Pablo was ok with the town and its people, I (Anna) was quite shocked: it’s as if it stayed in the 90-s (Russians will understand what I am talking about): men in sports clothes, feeling of out-of control. The cherry on top was the strip club ad on the desk of our hotel. I was quite happy to leave Chita the following day.

Some pictures of Chita:

We were pushing the fuel range of the Patriot as we were trying to find a Rosneft petrol station

July 22, we drove 770km through endless taiga up and down again. Chita is the end of the Baikal federal road (that started in Irkutsk) and the start of Amur federal road, which ends in Khabarovsk - this is a lifeline connecting the Far East to the rest of Russia. It is quite unbelievable that the road was only finished in 2010. Until then, it was partially dirt, partially gravel and partially asphalt (often poor quality). The area felt absolutely empty: very few villages/towns. Very little traffic. Very few petrol station with extremely expensive petrol - I have not seen such prices yet. That beat Altai Republic petrol prices by quite a margin! All because there were no other options to the drivers to refuel. In the evening, we left Zabaikalsky Krai and entered the Amurskaya Oblast. We spent the night in a town called Erofey Pavlovich (named after Erofey Pavlovich Khabarov - same explorer after whom Khabarovsk, my native town, was named). This was a dilapidated and sad place lost in the middle of nowhere. I don’t quite understand why such towns/villages exist…

July 23, 630km from Erofey Pavlovich to Svobodny. The landscape became flatter and many areas were flooded. Just two days ago, a piece of a road collapsed because of flooding - no one died thankfully, but there were still injuries (when will they learn to build roads properly??). As yesterday, the sky was grey. Endless taiga, empty roads with very few cars and villages. Activity only picked up when we were nearing Svobodny. We noticed cars and trucks with number plates from all across Russia - I don’t think we we saw such diversity before (probably, we didn’t pay attention). I wonder whether they were heading to China. Svobodny is a medium-sized down which has recently become the centre of attention: it now has a space vehicle launching site (космодром Восточный) and Gazprom is build a gas plant in the area. We were lucky to find a decent hotel for the night - the following night was sold out as there was some Gazprom gathering at the construction site. We heard plenty of foreign languages in the street - construction labour from the site. Our hotel room in Svobodny had a washing machine, so I was able to do some laundry.

Svobodny's Lenin

July 24, in the morning, I visited the part of my family who I have never met before: my grandfather’s brother’s daughter with her family. Then we drove via picturesque winding roads to Blagoveschensk - the capital of the Amurskaya Oblast. Quite an interesting place. On one bank of the Amur river is a Russian town of Blagoveschensk with mostly 1–5 storey buildings and on the other side a Chinese town oh Heihe with skyscrapers. Connection between the towns is by boat (a cable car is currently being built). We could see a giant shopping mall on the Chinese side right at the pier - for the convenience of Russian tourists. We were told that Heihe has built an amusement park with a giant ferries wheel (колесо обозрения) just for Russian tourists, but it has not been switched on for a while. After Russian rouble depreciated in 2014, it is the Chinese that come to Blagoveschensk for shopping and not many Russians go to Heihe. The weather has deteriorated, so we were walking under the rain. Thankfully, there was no fog and we could see the Chinese Heihe in all its glory. On the Blagoveschensk embankment, we saw the same Greek motorcyclist that we saw already twice on the road from Ulan-Ude. I was tempted to talk to him to learn his itinerary, but he was talking over the phone… We saw him once again the following day on the way to Khabarovsk.

Looking at Heihe (China) across the river

Blagoveschensk's "Arc du triomphe"

Bull fight

We can't visit a city in Russia without meeting Lenin (or two as the case is for Blagoveschensk)

July 25, 700 km to Khabarovsk! What a miserable weather the whole day… We started on quite a poor quality road towards the Amur motorway. Plenty of agricultural fields. It was quite sad to see water accumulations in the fields as this will certainly affect the harvest. And the weather forecast was not promising for the following days… As we re-joined the Amur motorway, the road quality improved somewhat, but still not to the level of a federal road. We entered the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, which was also rather flat with flooded plains. Slightly after 7pm we approached the bridge over the Amur river, where Khabarovsk and Khabarovsk Krai start. And around 8pm, we were home!