Too Fast, Too Close, and Often on the Wrong Side of The Road
Russia is so vast it’s almost hard to comprehend. The motorists of this fine country have an awful lot of ground to cover, and apparently very little time in which to do it. Because I am avoiding public transport for the most part (You know, because of the deadly virus), we are clearing vast swathes of the country in car shares.
You pay the equivalent of £5 for a 3 hour ride, then a man dressed like a cyberpunk dissident silently places your baggage in the back of his new old Lada, adjusts his round Art Nuevo sunglasses, puts on a mix of shitty pop covers of famous 90s rock tunes, and drives you to your allotted location as fast and as dangerously as possible.
Speed limits here are much more a suggestion than a law. most of the highway roads are single lane, running through massive and beautiful untouched landscapes. Driving the highway here consists of:
- driving as fast as you can on the highway until you catch up to the car in front.
- getting the front of your car right up to the bumper of the car in front, to punish him for not going fast enough.
- When he refuses to yield, or speed up to make pace, pull out sharply to the other side of the road, driving into oncoming traffic at over 100mph to pass the slow peasant who’s holding up your journey.
- Do all of the above whilst texting and or having a full blown hands on phone conversation.
Have you seen the movie Speed? In that, if the bus they are riding drops below a fixed MPH, the bus will explode. I’m pretty sure your average Russian believes their car will collapse if they don’t hold their phone at least once every 5 minutes.
Lastly, even though the journeys themselves are more thrilling and terrifying than any theme park ride, The landscape truly is beautiful. Lovely forests, farms, small outcrops of houses and the occasional distant church dome. The thing that strikes me most though, is that whenever we seem to be in the most desolate and remote area imaginable, we inevitably pass a hunched over old lady walking very slowly down the highway with a big bag on her back.
Who are these brave pioneering women and where on earth are they going? Why are they alone, 5 miles from the nearest town, struggling with a big heavy load and walking at a snails pace? Probably just willing to do whatever it takes to not have to watch their husband sit and eat chicken with his hands again.
Right, must go, the road is calling, and there’s a LADA out there that doesn’t yet have claw marks down the back of the seat from my fear clutched hands.
