August 27, time to leave Khabarovsk and start our way back to real life. The Aeroflot flight was early - 9:40am, so none of us had a good sleep. We had our final breakfast with red caviar. The taxi we had was the smallest you can imagine when you need space... My mom, aunt and uncle came to the airport. No tears - we will be back next year!
Pablo and I were in different cabins. Pablo was in Comfort and I was in the Economy. Reason: Pablo's ticket was bought with airmiles (mines!!!) and mine with money. There was no economy available for airmiles, so I had to spend the double amount to pay for Pablo's ticket and was left with nothing for myself. Oh well, we saved good money! Obviously, Pablo's flying conditions were much nicer and he managed to nick a cutlery set because he liked the design (for some reason he got two sets of cutlery, but gave back only one...).
As we took off, the magnitude of floods became clear. That was just one big river/lake with several islands of land and elevated roads. As we moved further North-West, the picture was very different. There were naked river beds - dry, no water!
We arrived to Moscow at 10am. Full day ahead of us! We checked in to the Renaissance Monarch hotel, went for a walk in the area and had an early dinner at the hotel lounge located at the top floor with excellent views over Moscow. As we were walking, we saw a small Lenin statue and I had an idea - we are in Moscow, we have to visit the man himself, not his statue.
August 28, we walked for about an hour from the Hotel to the Red Square to visit the Lenin Mausoleum. We queued for more than an hour to have a 1-minute visit - not allowed to hang around at all! Then we went for a walk and met with our friends for dinner.
August 29, we started the day with a short walk in the Petrovsky Park nearby where we found a monument to Laika - the first dog in space that never made it back (that was the design of the mission...). Quite moving... Then we went to the airport, had lunch at the BA lounge and boarded the plane. Surprise! We were upgraded to the Premium Economy as the plane was full. That was an excellent way to finish the trip! Comfortable sits and a glass of champagne!
The smallest possible taxi
Maybe you can't tell from this photo, but the rivers looked dry when I saw them from the plane
In the Aeroflot Comfort Cabin
Lenin mummy, photo courtesy of Internet. No pictures are allowed.
Laika Monument
On the way to Domodedovo Airport
Video taking off from Khabarovsk over the flooded Amur river
At the end of the trip, we spent some time at home to wrap up things and get some rest after the busy trip. The weather was a mix of rain and sunshine and more news of possible flooding were coming, so it was not a good idea to venture out of Khabarovsk in case the road collapses/disappears under water. Indeed, the water kept rising. We went to the river bank a couple times and it exceeded 6m level, which is dangerously high for Khabarovsk.
One day we went to the zoo and saw several bears. We finally saw bears during our trip, but that was real cheating, so it does not count. We also visited dacha a couple of times to pick up some vegetables and berries. Due to the rains, the harvest was not great at all.
For Pablo's birthday, we drove to the Bolshoy Ussurisky Island nearby - quite a large island in the Amur River divided in half between Russia and China. The Russian side is purely agricultural. There used to be a village there, but after the great 2013 flood it was evacuated. Some people decided to remain, hence there is one or two inhabited 5-storey buildings amidst other empty buildings and infrastructure. We saw several flooded summer houses (dachas) and plenty of trees standing in water. We saw plenty of herons, white egrets and even ciconia storks, plus plenty of small birds. Storks really made my day - they are at the brink of extinction, so seeing them in the wild feels like a privilege. The road was at times a minefield of potholes. Then we went for lunch in outdoors setting with two grey cats. We continued to the dacha and then had a small celebration dinner at home.
At the end of our stay we had two family reunions. First, with my father's side and then with my mother's relatives, where we played bingo, where my cousin's 7-year old daughter Sonya played for the first time and won big. We also took a boat trip on the Amur.
This was time to say "see you" to our car. We decided to keep it as the time was too short to sell it. We went to local UAZ centre for an advise on car storage and also to fix some door locks. We were told that our car is a miracle of very few problems - they often see a list of issues that need to be fixed, whereas we only had issues with door locks and handles (well, apart of wheels, but that it slightly a different story). Hopefully, our Patriot will continue behaving next year. As we put it to the garage, the odometer showed 21700 km. Leaving the car behind was quite emotional, but bittersweet as we know we will use it next year.
The 17th of August the Amur river in Khabarovsk was at 590 cms
The boats dock directly on the street as the docks are flooded
Kiwi berry (Actinidia Kolomikta)
Driving around Bolshoy Ussurisky Island
Flooded dachas
The patriot in the garage ready for winter
The 25th of August the Amur river in Khabarovsk was at 620 cms
