Sorry for being quiet for so long. I made it back to Vienna on Dec 26th but since had been too busy to complete the reports but from now on I hope to manage a little better...
I was lucky with my
hotel choice as I could park right in front and the room was clean and
comfortable. The next morning I went out to discover the city and discovered
that there wasn't much to discover. I guess in warmer seasons the parks which
are plenty give the city a better feeling but at temperatures slightly below freezing
the attraction is less. In terms of architecture I found Almaty disappointing,
it's still predominantly Sovjet, probably because Mr. Nasarbayev decided to
move the capital north to Astana.
Astana, I was
promised, was a different kettle of fish and that's why I soon proceeded north
to cover the almost 1000km to the capital. I had read the weather forecast
which said that temperatures would drop to -25C but I thought that would be ok
as long as I get the right quality of winter diesel which I was told would be
no problem… Little did I know… The road up north wasn't bad and after first
being snow covered became nice and dry so that I was able to get along well.
The landscape was mostly flat and hardly any settlements were on the way. So I
broke my trip at a truck stop with quite good food and as I had enough propane,
my Datcha was comfortably warm. The only thing I had to sacrifice was my shower
as the temperature dropped rather quickly to about -15C. When I went on the
next morning and went on it had dropped to -25C but the sun was shining,
however, the strong northerly wind made it feel even worse.
I made it to
Karaganda, a mining city with a large Arcelor Mittal office due to its large
coal mines that used to be exploited by forced labor from the 40s to the 60s of
the last century. During the war 70% of the population was ethnic Germans deported
from the Volga. Meanwhile most of those have left for Germany where they became
a problem due to their integration difficulties for lack of German language
knowledge… About 260 kms to the east is Ekibastuz the place where Alexander
Solchenizin spent in the GULAG. Originally I wanted to go there but in light of
the low temperatures I decided against.
On the way there I
had two encounters with the police. The first one tried to extract some money
by accusing me of not watching for oncoming traffic when turning left on the
highway but he relented and wished me a good trip when I showed him, that that
traffic had a stop sign…
The next one was somewhat
justified as I had overtaken a truck in a no-passing zone which I hadn't
noticed as the road was totally straight for many kms and oncoming traffic far
away. Misfortune had it that the first oncoming car was a police car which then
turned around to catch me. The two policemen were friendly, asked me to join
them in their car and showed me a list of fines on which my mistake had a price
tag of KZT 24600 (abt 120 eur). So I handed over 25000 and waited for my change
and a receipt. Change of 500 KZT came only after my insisting. And, of course,
I insisted on a receipt. This turned out to be a bigger problem as they simply
were unable to understand what I meant… ;-) Instead the policeman handed me
back 10000 KZT and after my complaint that that wasn't enough another 5000 KZT.
But then he wanted his 500 KZT back which I gladly handed back to him upon
which he wished me a good trip and sent me off… Actually this was the only such
case on the whole trip… In another incidence a few days later in Russia a
police car tried to get some money from me for just checking for an overtaking
possibility without even overtaking but eventually relented after my vigorous
protest…
As it was evening in
Karaganda when I arrived I stopped for dinner in a mall and then in a side road
to sleep. By now the temperature had dropped to below -30C and I decided set my
alarm to let the engine run after about 4 hrs… In the morning I went on to
cover the remaining 200 kms to Astana where I stayed in a rather comfortable
service apartment.
First I went to the
local Ford dealer to get a small service for the car and replaced one of my
batteries which showed some weakness and to get my frozen handbrake going.
Thank God I hardly ever use it and so it was frozen in the off position… well,
they 'fixed it' and the mechanic drove the car out of the shop, I paid and went
to the car to find that the brake had frozen again, this time in the on
position… So they tried to get it back into the shop which took almost half an
hour. There they thawed it but were unable to permanently fix it as the cause
for it was the modification of the exhaust I had have done before leaving for
the trip. If I hadn't done this, I never would have made it through Mongolia…
so better no handbrake than no exhaust…
By now the
temperature had dropped to a sunny -35C and as I had not gotten up during the
night to start the car, the next morning it refused. Lesson: at these
temperatures it is better and cheaper to let the car run all night… So I
organized a tow truck via the Ford people which took it back there to thaw. As
there were only 3 such trucks in Astana they charged 100 eur… After this
experience I never stopped the engine for any longer than 4 hrs…
Astana didn't
disappoint me as I wanted to see what basically one man (Nasarbayev) would do
with a clean slate to plan a (almost) totally new city. Well, what should I
say? The result was quite impressive, although naturally, not all of the
architecture would please my eyes but admittedly many buildings are very
impressive… and the layout definitely is grand. I hired a local guy with a car who
showed me around town as this was the most sensible way as driving around with
Datcha was not practical. The government buildings are huge and the whole city
is interspersed with Malls, some of them of extreme architecture and size. Even
a big opera house is presently being completed albeit in a somewhat strange
pseudo classical style.
The 'old city' has
little charm as most of it was built in Stalin's time and Astana at that time
also was basically a large GULAG for deported Germans and other 'undesirable
elements'. But the restaurants are not bad…
After two days I
carried onwards north towards Petropavlovsk (abt 600 kms) as that was supposed
to be the better route for my trip towards Russia. Well, in theory… I had been
warned by the Ford people that I was unlikely to be able to go that route as
the police was blocking that road for diesel driven cars as there had been
cases where whole buses were stuck due to problems with 'frozen' diesel. By
now, the temperature had dropped to up to, better down to -42 C.
As I had filled my
tank with winter diesel and also had enough propane to keep me warm for at
least a couple of days I decided to try it and was promptly stopped at the
outskirts of the city. So I turned around and, using Google Maps and my iPad,
found a route going first to the west for about 100 kms without being stopped.
Then there was a smaller road going north, eventually meeting up with the main
road. The temperature had dropped below -40 C which I could tell as my thermometer
went 'blank' whenever it exceeded -40 C. Initially everything went quite well
with very little traffic. But about 50 km before I reached Makinsk about 200km
north the engine started to lose power and the car slowed down to eventually
abt 20 km/hr. At the outskirts of Makinsk at a slight incline I had to stop as
otherwise the engine would have stopped which I had to avoid 'at any cost'. Thank
God it kept running and after about 5 min the engine heat had apparently
'thawed' the filter and full power was back. So I found a gas station with
arctic diesel and from then on there were no more problems... except with police
road blocks… twice more I had to turn back and find alternate roads. The second
time the detour again was about 150 km over snow covered side roads with only 3
cars going the other way… When I arrived in Petropavlovsk the police was
surprised to see me but didn't ask any embarrassing questions.
The next morning I
again was stopped at the city limits, this time without alternate route. I
tried to negotiate and pointed out that I came from Astana without any problem
but initially to no avail. After 15 min though, all of a sudden they let me go,
knowing that 40kms further I would be in Russia…
The border crossing
was one of the most pleasant procedures of the trip. The Kazach officer only
slightly complained that I didn't have registered at all places but stamped my
passport and the Russians didn't even make me fill out a customs declaration. A
pretty and friendly customs officer just checked the car superficially and sent
me off. The whole procedure took less than an hour.
