Only two more things happen this day: two dragonflies mate and I get a WhatsApp message from Yevgeni: “Please open the door to the greenhouse to let some heat out,” an instruction I’m happy to follow.
CHEVY OR ZHIGULI?
NADYA LIKES MOTORBIKES, fast cars, and sleek yachts and knows all the barkeepers in Novosibirsk. Her voice is as cool and cutting as Siberian ice on a January night; she can switch expressions from a deadly serious sulk to a radiant smile and back in a fraction of a second. Like two people in one body. Her divorce came through a few days ago after a year of marriage to an Armenian businessman, which was spent living in a luxury villa on the island of Phuket in Thailand. When she got home she did what many do in such life-changing situations and went straight to her hairstylist.
She sits opposite me in a Caucasian restaurant with a meticulous pageboy haircut, brown eyes, and a blue summer dress. We eat lamb soup and chicken kebab, drink Russian pale ale, and talk of life, travel, and music. We soon discover that as teenagers we were both fans of Queen. I rule as completely ridiculous her submission that The Miracle was their best album and counter with A Night at the Opera and Queen II. Still, at least we can agree on A Day at the Races being an absolute classic.
Does she know the Altai region south of Novosibirsk, my next destination? Of course, she has been there. “It was a disaster because of the tour guide. Everybody wanted to do something different; we fought the whole time. One scandal after the other.” I quickly notice that “scandal” is one of her favorite words, having roughly the same meaning in Russian, English, and German.
We wander through the city for a bit. In front of the theater (next premiere: Kafka’s The Trial) a band is playing; the singer is trying to sound like Jim Morrison, flaunting his masculinity with some wobbly English. In Lenin Square a muscular fire-eater is performing as his topless assistant swirls a skull-and-crossbones flag. Around them there are grim-looking men with bikes and leather jackets with the logo of the Night Wolves, an infamous motorcycle gang. A busker nearby with a Western guitar sings “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).” There’s a full moon; the wolves on the jackets seem to howl at it. Quite a lot going on in Novosibirsk on a Friday night.
Back in my private dacha I ask Nadya via WhatsApp whether she feels like accompanying me on a weeklong tour of the Altai region.
Her response is a picture message with a screenshot of a car rental website showing a bright-yellow Chevrolet Camaro sports car. I was actually thinking more along the lines of a Zhiguli, a Russian version of the old East German Trabi or the Indian Ambassador. We meet in the middle and go for a VW Polo, then begin to argue over the best route.
Originally I wasn’t planning on renting a car, which is why even though I had packed my international driver’s license, I had failed to inspect it closely. When I do inspect it more closely, the expiry date doesn’t make me happy at all.
THE ALTAI REPUBLIC
Population: 206,000
Federal District: Siberia
DRIVING, RUSSIAN-STYLE
“WE’VE GOT A slight problem,” explains Nadya to the clerk in the office of the car rental company Eurazcar. The keys are already on the glass table in front of us. A picture of a Formula 1 racing car hangs on one wall; on the other, a map; on an Ikea shelf next to it, an icon. Faith, speed, Russia: the triptych of the ultimate road adventure.
“What kind of problem?”
“The European driving license is valid, but the international one has expired.”
“Have you got a certified translation of the European license?”
“No.”
“When did it expire?”
“February first.”
“That’s only a couple of months ago.”
“February first, 2008.”
“Oh.” He smiles bleakly, as only Russians can do.
“But I’m a web designer and a Photoshop pro. We can take a photo of the license and simply change the expiry date,” Nadya suggests. “If you show a photo instead of the original there is just a 500 ruble fine, I’ve checked on Google.”
“Hmm.”
In a great many countries on this planet a car rental clerk would tell a client to go to hell after such a proposition. At Eurazcar in Novosibirsk the man, cool as a cucumber, copies both the international and the European license numbers into the contract and gives us the keys.
“How did you manage to get us out of that?” I ask Nadya in the corridor.
“Mutual interest,” she explains. “We want to travel, he wants our money. There is no reason for him not to give us the car.” His main concern was that we stick to the speed limits. It’s Sunday and there are extra traffic cops on the streets hoping for more business than usual. Speeding raps get the rental company in trouble.
The black car doesn’t look like what we would consider a Polo—it’s a notchback sedan with automatic gears only produced and sold in Russia.
Nadya names it “Polya.” You have to establish this before setting off, she says. Polya is the short form of Polina and sounds somewhat Russian; if our car isn’t going to be a Lada, Zhiguli, or a UAZ, at least it has a Russian name. However, if Polya had known what was in store for her, she probably would have immediately driven up the stairs to the fifth floor of the office block and pleaded with the rental clerk not to accept Photoshopped driving licenses.
Nadya says “S Bogom”—“with God,” then we drive to her parents’ house, where she loads up the car with a huge backpack, a weighty metal cooking pot, a large suitcase, rain boots with a Mickey Mouse print, and two smaller backpacks. “We’re traveling for a week, not a year,” I remind her.
“I’m a woman,” she reminds me. “Can you change tires?”
“With Google, for sure,” I reply.
“Me neither,” she says. And then we head south.
On the outskirts of town we make our first stop, at a shopping mall called GiGant. Nadya loads up the cart with canned fish, potatoes, and “CCCP” condensed milk (“the best in the world”); we also find an angular camping gas cooker, and then we’re ready for the highway.
According to Maps.me it’s five hours to Gorno-Altaysk, our first stop for the night. “If I drive, four hours,” Nadya promises, and gets behind the wheel. What follows is a lesson in driving, Russian-style. The cultural differences I observe are best illustrated by a short quiz:
Passing is a safe option when…
a) there is a distance of at least 150 feet from oncoming traffic after completing the maneuver.
b) you assume that the oncoming driver is forward-thinking enough to slam on his brakes at the last moment to avoid a head-on collision.
A red triangle with an exclamation mark…
a) is a warning of an approaching hazard.
b) could mean anything. As the worst axle-breaking potholes are not usually marked, it’s not worth braking when you spot such a sign.
While driving at night with your headlights on high beam, when oncoming traffic approaches, you should…
a) dip them.
b) be thankful that you have better visibility because this means you can drive more safely than the other driver.
If a cow or other animal big enough to damage the front of the car on collision is on the road, the best response is…