We are driving with our hosts from Volgograd to Lipesk to Moscow to Saint Petersburg. This is pretty much driving across the present Russia.
I have taken far longer trips – to, around and from Alaska – and we did this once before the Alcan highway was finished, but the present trip is a journey of a very different type.
It is difficult to describe the rigors of driving on Russian roads to those who have not had the experience. Imagine a two-lane blacktop road with many, many old and laboring trucks belching black diesel smoke and many cars. The trucks drive at speeds under 30 when going up hills and the cars want to drive 75-80. Vehicles pass each other constantly sometimes overtaking four or five trucks while staring down oncoming traffic. Once and a while when this was not possible we took to the shoulder and passed on the right. There are actually police and radar triggered cameras that take your picture if you are speeding, but every car I have ridden in so far has a radar detector. I do not drive, I could not drive under these conditions. We witnessed only one serious accident so far – a truck must have caught a tire off the side of the road and flipped.
You can pull off at many locations along the way to make purchases as local farmers bring produce to lure drivers from the highway.
