The departure is at 8 am, we haven't got too much road to do, less than 200 km to Saint Petersburg. We reach it before 12 am, we already know the hotel (we already went there in '95). What a difference from then!...
The city (the same thing they tell me about Moscow) it's totally different. 4 years ago I remember that we couldn't find a restaurant, a part from the very expensive or the ugly ones. Now, on Nevskij prospekt, there are just bars, restaurants, night-club and so on. We enter a roast meat shop, but then we greet everybody
-Today we have something to do, guys, see you this evening or tomorrow ...-
We have to find Tatjana, one of ours clients, who got married in Turin. Laura has given her some papers to give us, considering she had to come home for a fortnight. We call her at home, but nobody answers. We call her husband in Turin but he tells us that he doesn't know, maybe we'll find her later: -in these days -he sayes- she's sad, I understand that from her voice at the phone. Try to boost her moral-
So we go to the moto-ship Aurora, first route for the ones who arrive in Saint Petersburg. The sun's shining, but it's a little bit cold.
-no, tomorrow, we come back with our friends...
We call again Tatjana. She doesn't answer. We decide to go to her home: while we'll be looking for the way to go, she comes home. We spend an hour looking for the way, and an hour to find her house. We ring, nobody, we phone, nobody. I'm a little bit worried, it's almost evening. I call again her husband: he's worried, too. We rise (Michal and alena on foot: they don't trust the elevator; and me using the lift, even if I don't trust it. But I'm too tired to go on foot) untill the 8th floor, we ring to the neighbours, we knock, nothing.
We spend 2 hours coming back. The roads look all the same, in the out-skirt.
We come back to the hotel, I call again Tatjana's husband, now he's really really worried, we call her again: she's there. So we go back to her home again, now we go quite fast, because we know it. We come back to the hotel that it's dark. Alena's really in anger: this time we've got just a double room again, but now it's her turn to enter secretly. She fears someone will shout at her....
Michal is angry, too. We're finally in a hotel where there's hot water, restructured, the toilet's nice and all, but.. the water is brown!!!!!
In the hall in the morning we find everybody. Leandro has come back by plane, too:
Giuseppetells us
won't come, at the seaside he's fallen on the rocks and he has an injury in the foot...-We all go back in the registration office, because michal has noticed that we've paid the registration, and we hadn't to (we had already paid it in Moscow). The employee is really sory:
-I didn't notice, sorry-
but who can speak Russian notices at once that we had not to pay it-Michal says,
-yesí, but the other employee, the on of yesterday, is new...-the employee answers, giving us back the money
Wehave parked on the other side of the square, the parking costs 30 rubles less every day, but someone has peed on the right flank, on the doors, we notice it, unluckily after having entered and gone out many times...
We want to go to the Hermitage, but first we go back to motor-ship Aurora, route also for the ones who have capitalistic ideals, as come Brave-heart .....
We are received by a band which plays our Mamely hymn, the caricaturist has asked them to play it when he has seen us coming. We laugh, I persuade Giorgio, I want him to pay for a caricature, I persuade Brave-heart also, but then he's offended: he doesn't like to joke on his defects, even if they're not really "defects", (Brave-heart is a perfecionist, he's not the kind of man who wants a caricature, he'd like a portrait). Anyway he tears it. we go visiting the motor-ship, there's a museum under it and it's free. We take pictures on the dock, there are a lot of stalls of souvenirs...
When we arrive at the Hermitage we're just 5, Leandro and Francesco had already decided not to follow us, they don't want to visit museum, art and so on.. any more. They prefer people, bars, girls. Cesare and Giorgio leave us after lunch, they have to meet some girls in the afternoon.
Brave-heart would have left us, too, but
-You see.. The Hermitage is a very important museum, not everybody can go there. You come to Saint Petersburg and you don't visit this marvellous thing?-So he follows us. We go aroung for hours in hundreds rooms, halls, stairs, corridors. I don't understand anything more, I'm too tired, the others, too. Michal is the only who wants to go on visiting, he wants to see "everything". We look also the coins, the numismatics. We go out after hours, nervous and tired. I'm the most nervous, also because Michal goes on saying me that we haven't seen really everything, but just the half...
We end the day going dining in three different places on the Nevskij prospekt.
Alena is still angry for the room.
Today there will be a meeting. Michal needs copies, I wanna see the meeting-room. We spend the morning going arounf in the city looking for a copying office and for a good change. We also went seeing the meeting-room. Alena is still angry and she doesn't come with us when we load up the car to go to the meeting. She'll reach us later, she wants to go visiting the city another bit
the 6th meeting: S. Petersburg ...
In the evening we're not so tired as we thought we would be. We go eating something in a Russian fast-food, it wante to look like MacDonald's, but there were just two waitress and they didn't manage to serve everybody, cook and all.. in the same time...
We leave the hotel at 10 pm, we all agree: we leave today. Leandro's visa has already expired, ours will expired tonight. going down in Nevskij prospekt, we have to turn on the left.
Nevskij prospekt is the most important boulevard in Saint Petersburg. It's big, with 2 lanes for each way (or three, I don't remember). It is forbidden to turn where I want to... a policeman notices that, he comes closer and he says to me (in Russian) to approach on the right. I understand, but I haven't understood what he says, should I go? I go! And slowly I go on, with the others behind me. After 200 m we decide to turn on the right. After that we should be able to turn on the left, but the street after that one is closed. Or not? There are cars coming behind us. One is a taxi. If a taxi goes this direction it means that it's not a closed road, there would be an exit... No, the taxi stops and a cop comes out. He's really angry and he's .. the cop of before!!... The "guys" approach, still to see what will happen... I look at him with the most angelic face I can and I try to appear something like astonished. He asks me at once if I speak Russian, or if there's somebody who speaks Russian... he can speak only Russian.
-No, ale, ja malo panimaju. (no, but I can understand a little bit)-
He: now give me your driving-license and the car's papers.. You'll go takin them to the ambassy..-
Why? I've noticed that I couldn't turn on the left, and I've gone straiht on ... -
-I told you to stop and to approach!!-
-If you have said "stop" or "alt" I would have understood, you didn't say nor "stop", either "alt", I didn't understand, so I went straight on and then I've turned right. I wanted to come back to the cross where you were, if I wanted to run away I wouldn't have come back ... right?To say all this stuff I spend 5 minutes at least, and not just to say them, but to explain them by gesture, in a Russian really similar to Czech: Michal couldn't help me and I was confused by the situation. The cop is calm now and he doesn't even gives us a fine. This time I've been really lucky...
We go on towards Estonia, we've got some difficulties going out from the city, but finally we're out.. I can't believe it, from now on we'll go on the well known road we always do, there won't be no more surprises, it will be like a walk. I go a little bit faster but they stop us at once: too fast, I and Francesco. The Big Mother Cell goes on with no problems. We try telling them that "we've got no Russian money", Francesco insists too much:
- we haven't neither a cent!-the cop get angry:
-if you don't have money go change them and then come to the police station to take your documents away-
No, no, I've got money. I pay for him, too-I say- now Francesco can't say he's got money...
We go on, just a few km and we're in Estonia. But.. queue! It's long at least 2 km. There's a petrol station, we fill up.
I -Francesco, give me back the money for the fine...
-No, you only have take the fine..-
Stop, please. I get angry-
You stop, here you are the money-
I don't want them anymore-We've really discussed. Each of us in his car, offended and angry.
We go back in the queue, after a bit I and Michal go and see, on foot, the beginning of the it.:
-how much time will it take?-
-I don't know, maybe 10 hours...
Estonia... it was too beautiful to be true. What can we do? Change road, we cross Pskov, on the South. The big Mother Cell decides to remain there, they've got a kitchen, two beds and all.. so they don't fear a queue. We do. So we leave, Francesco behind us, angry.
I'm sorry we've discurssed, maybe it's because the all of us are angry, but I'm sad.. and I'm offended, too.
I run, there are no policemen, on the road there's nobody, 2 or 3 kilometri before Pskov we see on the hill a very big statue, it's strange. Let's see! We do a km on the hill. Francesco doesn't get out of the car. We get up the hill.
There's a huge construction, I can't call it a statue, it's composed by ten enormous statues together. They represent an army which 5 or 600 years ago fought the Prussian army on the iced lake there about. The chivalry of the Prussian army fell in the lake, which broke under the pressure of the knights and their horses. Their army, instead, was light and the ice didn't break.
We arrive in a big cross, with the habitual road-block:
-we go towards the Latvian border..-
No, the Latvian border closes at 8 pm. Now it's 8.05 pm! You can cross the Estonian border!What an unlucky thing.
We wait two hours at the Russian border, Leandro pays 80 rubles as fine for the expired visa, I make peace with Francesco, the Big Mother Cell arrives:
-we've decided to come with you to Riga, too. We don't want to wait 10 hours at the border...
We pass with not many formalities the other borders, the Estonian and the Latvian one. We don't pay for the obligatory insurance in Latvia, they don't even ask it. We go on along the road, which is desert for many km.. and we look for a hotel. It would be better to say "look for some sign of life". All around us it's seems that time has stopped, there's nor a bar, neither a restaurant or a hotel. Finally we see a light on the right, we turn, we stop: a bakery, a nice smell of bread. I come in
-Dobri vecer ...-I ask for some bread, it's very hot, just baked. I haven't much money but we succeed in buying food for everybody. The Big Mother Cell decides to stop there to sleep, we ask for a hotel there around. The woman explains us, we go, we come back, we cannot find anything, we go back again, we stop at a petrol station which is open. But there's nobody, we ring, we try to call, nothing. We go back again on the same road, going very slowly, looking for "the road sign" (the woman at the bakery told us we would have found one). Finally we find a diversion, between the fields. Suddenly under the light of the moon a lake appears. I't wonderful: the trees reflect their dark shadows on it, but the rest is lightened by the moonshine. There is a house near the lake: it's the hotel. We all are happy and we go ringing. Nothing. Ok.. let's see: there's nobody around for km. We desist and come back, really disappointed. After a couple of km we finally find the road sign we were looking for and after going around for half an hour more (now in the middle of a town), we find the hotel. It's among bushes in flower, wooden and new, clean.. a dream! There's no parking. Anyway I'm too tired, Brave-heart and Leandro come in with us, the others sleep in the car.
Francesco wakes me up, he wants to go drinking a coffee. I set in motion the car, Michal gets angry:
-let me sleep!I go in the car with Francesco and Leopoldo, we go around for the town. Everything's closed, we come back to the hotel, there's a woman who sweeps the stairs, we ask her if we can have breakfast there
-Certainly!In the hotel everything was clean, it was like being in IKEA, we drink a nice coffee, Alena too. In the meantime Leopoldo was gone waking up Leandro and Brave-heart. While we're waiting for them the other hosts of the hotel arrive having breakfast: they're all men, they seem soldiers, all wearing camouflaged combat clothing... I don't know
The way to Riga is short, we've already driven a lot last night.. We arrive that Michal is still sleeping, at first traffic-lights he "comes back to life", as Brave-heart says. We do straight to the hotel Turist, where there will be a meeting on Sunday. It's not expensive, next to the center, everybody agrees. We'll go to Mezhupark, on the lake, a little bit outside Riga, at the 2's terminus, after the zoo. It's a hotel where the football national team goes, too. (by there in fact it's full of football grounds. It's just on the lake, there are rooms of two kinds: nice and not so nice. Unluckily there's no hot water, but it's Summer, days are nice, we don't mind.
We go at the White Russian Ambassy at first, I need the visa to go to Minsk. If I'll take it on Monday I pay it just 44 dollars. Good
We go to the seaside, to Jurmala, Riga's beach. Under the sun I'm going to sleep. Alena goes swimming. It's not crowdy, the white sand, like sugar.
Sometimes we look at the car, parked by, near the beach, and at a certain point we see a limousine arriving, it's 6 m long... A newly-married couple comes out of it, then the friends arrive, too and everybody comes to the beach. The friends have champagne bottles in their hands, and glasses.. She's white-dressed, he carries her in his arms. A nice scene, really romantic.
We come back to the hotel and we work all the evening.
Today we go on working. At 11 am we go walking a little bit and we meet a very cheerful woman, in costume, who enters and goes out fo the water, she makes something near a boat...
-would you like to go on the water motion? It costs two lats for minute
-No thanks, it's too expensive.
Would you like to do nautical ski? It's doesn't cost too much, just 5 lats for hour.Alena goes, she's never tried it, and she wants to.
Tha woman asks for 10 lats!
-You know, she wasn't good, I had to come back to take her every time..-
-And so? You told us 5 every hour and now we have to pay 10?As usual....
The landscape is really beautiful, I take a picture of Michal....
We go on working the whole morning, then we run in the center: at a cross I see someone I know: -it's Alberto! -I stop, I call him... -We waited for him in Lvov, he told me he would have reached us with a by from Turin, we were worried..- He comes on our car (Michal says me I've raped him, in fact he had left everything he had in the hotel) and I take him to the meeting with us.
In the hall we meet Diego, who came from Palermo, and Giovanni, who had just arrived from Reggio Emilia. They were already friends...
We begin to load up the car.. everybody's there, this evening we'll divide.. Francesco and Leopoldo will leave tomorrow morning, Leandro has a flight tomorrow in the afternoon (in the evening- he says- he will already in the gym...) Cesare and Giorgio leave this evening. Kisses and hugs, have a nice journey. Brave-heart doesn't know what to do, he's sorry not to be in a group anymore. But he's curious to see Minsk.. Alberto decides to come with us, he will come back by car and he will miss the plane.... It worths! Brave-heart decides to come- come and take me tomorrow at 9 am.
We go dining at Lido, which is a latvian self-service, with typical cuisine where we always go, then at 9 pm we go to sleep
I wake up early, with Brave-heart and Alberto we go to the White Russian Ambassy again: the clients ask for a quick visa, they pay it 64 dollars, but they'll have it in the same afternoon.
Then I come back to the hotel, we load up the car. At 12 am we've got to meet Brave-heart at "Lido's", There isn't Alberto, he's with two girls he has met at the meeting.
We leave at 3 pm, I already know the way, we've been crossing these places many times.
We arrive in Vilnius at 8 pm, we stop at MacDonald's, we sleep in the car, we don't want to unload everything, Alena and the "guys" take a room at Gediminus hotel, in front of us: tomorrow morning we've got to wake up at 6 am.
We wake up at 5 am! The clients were confused by the time zone (in Russia it's less 2 hours, in Latvia it's less 1 hour, in Lithuania as we are and in White Russia less 2 hours). It's anyway the first time we leave and we're not in time.
On the way we findo also the mist, at the border we wait 2 hours, but everybody's kind with us.
We reach Minsk at midday, we stop changing money and for 100.000 lire they give us 1.700.000 rubles ... We laugh, then Michal tells us that the other European laugh of the Italian money, it's true, but in a little with Euros our lire will be just a souvenir.
We propose the turist hotel, but Brave-heart and Alberto want Jubilejnaja, which is the meeting one:
-it's better, we're already there..
In the afternoon we go around for Minsk:I'm impressed, even Michal and Alena notice how Minsk is different from the other cities. Shops are empties, there's nothing to buy, what a desolation. In Kijev, Mosca or Riga is a question of money, who has money can do anything he wants, here is not the same, there's nothing at all..Here there's still black market, infact as long as they notice we're foreigners they offer us to change money...with a profit of 50 per cent!But anyway you don't know what you can buy ...
We go to the restaurant because we don't find any open shop to buy food. For lunch we went to an Italian pizzeria, we're tired to eat always at Mc Donald's. In the evening we dine at the restaurant in the hotel.
Like the other russian restaurant there're a band and the dance floor.A big noise, we can't even understand what the waitress sais (Anyway,I couldn't understand her because she spoke only russian...), on the dance floor there's a lot of people who jumps and dance enjoying themself,here it's not as in Italy,people dances and moves as they want without shame,it's nice to see all this mess!We look around, the hall is beatiful, big and elegant, lights are overspread.At the table behind us there're three girls who are dining, every now and then they go dancing,then a boy comes and he's sitting on the chair... at the moment the directress "takes the chair off her bottom", he suddenly falls on the ground and in the meantime a guard arrives, he's 2 meters tall and he helps the boy to stand up and he takes him at the door.Maybe he was annoying the girls, I didn't notice it.
We're very interested in what is happening in the evening: at the table in front of us, there're two couples, the girls are very beatiful, the men quite normal, they order four salads and before starting to eat they drink a glass of something like vodka or grappa at a draught, I don't know.
At the table next to our there are three old men, they're already eating, on the table there are a lot of bottles,just two or three are alcohlics. One of them, after ten minute, bends his head and he stand it no more. The others seems not to notice him.
On the dance floor the air is more and more fizzy, I feel like to go dancing, but Alena is ashamed, Michal is very sleepy..let's go, I must work, I've to download photos, tomorrow there's the meeting.
We leave at 9 am, we're ready to go but they don't, they slept few hours tonight, they tell us what is happened last night: they were besieged by girls, Brave-heart is used to but Alberto isn't and he was glad of it.
We go to Varsavia passing through Brest, the road is beatiful, it seems an highway..Infact there's a tollgate ten km far from Brest.It's weird because there wasn't a tollgate at the entrance of the highway, but there's one at the exit..We ask the road tender:
But if we don't pass the tollgate we don't have to pay,don't we?
No, you don't
Can we go back?
Yes.We go back for 2 km and we go on another way which takes us to Brest as well. But we take the wrong direction and the road it's muddy and unmetalled for 20 km, the car becomes double color! Brave-heart tell us:
If you pay me, "this time", I won't tell it anybody ...
we stop for lunch at the Intourist hotel, we check the car: It's whorth taking a picture:
Like in Volgograd we breathe a sad melancoly here. At the entrance, under a big star, we hear a record: the voice from Moscow radio station which announce the war with the music of the time as background..Michal tells us what they said, then we enter, there're few people, the place is very big, there's silence and sadness
-I won't do it anymore!,I got no bielorussian money, I used them for the petrol,please don't let me go to the money exchange, I won't be able to find the road again....-
We arrive to the border, we're very happy and optimistic, soon our happiness lows: after a queue of 45 minutes, we pass the first border and we find five queue with twenty cars each one.. We choose the one less numerous, five minutes later we change, then again, other cars are behind us so we can't change anymore, we wait. We can't get off the car 'cause whenever the queue goes on, someone gets over you, taking your place. There's a lot of stress. When we get closer to our turn, we notice that cars from the other queues intrude in ours, so we get angry, but we can do nothing. Finally we pass the border, it's around 7. Il morale torna alto, ma per poco. Mentre compiliamo i soliti moduli sentiamo delle urla tremende.
-Cosa succede? Cosa fanno?-Le urla non cessano, anzi aumentano: è una donna, comincio a capire cosa dice:
-Aiutooo, salvatemi, mamma, aiutooo-Mi avvicino e inorridisco. Una donna, anziana, pittosto grossa era caduta in un buco largo mezzo metro, lungo cinque e profondo due che serviva ai doganieri per controllare il "sotto" delle macchine. La donna era scesa dalla macchina e senza accorgersene era caduta dentro, si era sfracellata tutta la gamba ed era laggiù in fondo che continuava ad urlare. Qualcuno era sceso per portarle i primi soccorsi, ma era difficile perchè lei era incastrata e non si poteva muovere. Mi sono ricordata che avevo comprato (Michal diceva che non sarebbe mai servito a nulla) il ghiaccio istantaneo e sono corsa a prenderlo, erano tutti molto stupiti, la donna se lo passava sulla faccia, senza smettere di urlare neanche un minuto... Intanto arriva l'ambulanza e a gran fatica la tirano su.
Siamo tutti sconvolti e shoccati, come fanno a tenere una frontiera cosí, e dire che ci hanno fatto pagare 10 dollari per l'uso delle "strutture"!
Mi avvicino a un doganiere
-ora possiamo passare?-Prende i nostri passaporti e legge:
-visto dal 31 al 2 settembre, voi dovreste essere passati ieri sera!-
Ma a me risulta-dice Michal calmissimo-
che se c'e scritto "fino al 2" vuol dire il 2 compreso..-lui insiste, poi si stufa e dice
io intantoguardando l'orologio
ho finito il turno, ora aspettate un'ora e quaranta il turno successivo!e se ne va. Non ci credo, è vero purtroppo, tra un turno e l'altro c'e la pausa, non si vede più nessun doganiere. Ci sentiamo intrappolati. Tutte le altre macchine che come noi sono sotto la frontiera sembra che ci siano abituati, nessuno protesta, incredibile.
Quando poi finalmente cambia il turno e arrivano i doganieri abbiamo un'altra sorpresa: (nessuno ha più parlato di multa per visto scaduto, per fortuna, ma era evidente, sebbene anche le cose evidenti e chiare in questi posti non lo siano più) ci dicono che le auto con più di 5 posti in Polonia devono pagare una tassa aggiuntiva di transito! Che barba.. Ci fanno entrare nel solito gabbiotto, Michal si rifiuta di ascoltare e tradurre, ci lascia sole, Alena ed io, con un poliziotto che parla un misto di inglese e polacco, capiamo poco, ma c'è poco da capire, ci ha fatto un verbale e poi ci dice, (ma chi lo capisce?) di andare a pagare all'uscita della frontiera. Ok. Partiamo, non andiamo a pagare, io ho un po' di paura, ma non tanta, proseguiamo, nessuno ci ferma. In tre ore siamo a Varsavia.
Nel frattempo Brave-heart era molto combattuto se venire con noi fino a Praga e tornare in Italia con noi, ma non subito, (noi ci fermeremo in campagna dal nonno due o tre giorni) oppure se fermarsi a dormire a Varsavia e prendere l'autobus il giorno dopo per Venezia e il treno di lí a Torino.
In campagna dal nonno di Michal era una bella prospettiva, ma tornare prima, forse anche. Per tutto il viaggio valuta i pro e i contro, finchè Alberto lo convince: torniamo.
Li lasciamo all'hotel Belfer, un albergo che conosciamo perchè non è in pieno centro ed è comodo per chi passa da Varsavia e ha bisogno di fermarsi a dormire. Finiscono qui 32 giorni di convivenza con Brave-heart, ci mancheranno il suo spirito, la sua simpatia, le sue battute, non le sue valigie, infatti ce le lascia, verrá a riprendersele al nostro rientro.
Proseguiamo una cinquantina di kilometri, poi mi fermo a dormire
Arriviamo a Praga nel tardo pomeriggio, Michal senior ci aiuta a scaricare ... siamo a cena dalla mamma di Michal, poi domani dal nonno in campagna a Brusov: un bellissimo posto isolato, una grande casa con un sacco di stanze. Lí sembra di essere tornati indietro di 100 anni, se non fosse che c'è la luce elettrica... peró non c'è l'acqua corrente, bisogna approvigionarsene a circa due kilometri ad una fontana. Ci si va con delle grosse taniche poggiate su di un vecchio passeggino per bambini. Bellissimo il bagno: una grande stanza con un buco di scarico al centro del pavimento e una grande vasca in cemento con all'interno, sotto la stufa a legna: c'è anche l'acqua calda!! Il gabinetto fuori come quando ero piccola nelle nostre campagne, di legno... Una enorme cucina con la stufa a legna e un tavolo per 15 persone. A volte non basta perchè il nonno di Michal ha 5 figli e una dozzina di nipoti ...
Ci fermeremo due o tre giorni, torneremo poi a Torino la prossima settimana, e "cominceremo" a lavorare!