Crossing the Urals off-road

Trip preparations

Studying the trip begins well before departure. November 20, 2010 First operational meeting with the participants of the expedition to the land of Russia called "URAL AND BEYOND.............". Participating are expedition leader Giovanni Dondi with his wife and navigator Erina, the tried-and-tested pair of navigators Fabio Bresciani and Mario Doria, the solitary former Paris-Dakar driver Giovanni Capoferri with his new travel companion Franco Agnelli and the new friends and future travel companions Tapiletti Danilo, on a black Land Rover 110...eerie and hyper-technological, with everything in its place, obsessive but.....perfect and the crew Camisasca Mauro-Bonfanti Giuseppe ("Beppo") who, not content with the many km traveled in Russia, the difficulties that will have to be faced on the impassable mud tracks of the Ural mountains, will then continue the journey crossing all of Mongolia.

After introducing themselves, each of the participants tries to make themselves better known, with technical notions about the vehicles, which cars will be used, their specific preparations, and then begin to talk in detail about the trip, from the departure date which is set for June 4, 2011 at 07.00 from Milan, to browsing the Russian road, air and military maps to decide in broad terms which roads and tracks to travel: they analyze and try to improve travel times by modifying the stages and decide, finally, on the choice of cities worth of interest and to visit. No less important are the roads related to the approach stage, deciding which states to cross based on borders and the visas to be obtained, and this to reduce bureaucratic costs but above all the long waiting times that must be taken into account when leaving the old continent to venture beyond....

They draw up the first cost estimates, draw up lists of things to look for useful for this type of trip, study the routes, make the list of medicines, and of the possible problems that may be encountered. Among the many things they decide to equip themselves with large "survival" knives which, if they are not confiscated in the various customs checks, can then be fixed to a stick and used in case of short treks on foot in the forests of the Urals, as a defense weapon against ferocious animals, the bear first of all. A small chainsaw must be put on the list of useful things to cut any trunks that might obstruct the track, or to cut wood and use it for rebuilding bridges that during the long winter may have collapsed under the weight of meters and meters of snow.

Among the curiosities to procure are some fisherman's waders to put on when deep fords have to be faced, for the pre-scouting on foot before crossing with the vehicles, or indeed to go attach a winch cable if one of our prepared vehicles were to break down...

04.09.2011

A second meeting is held with all the participants of the expedition: also in this case they compare the preparations of the vehicles, choose the tire coverings to mount on the Land Rovers, decide which photographic equipment to bring and finally check all the documents that must be brought by our efficient "secretary" Erina to the travel agency to comply with all the bureaucratic formalities, from the visas with Cyrillic translation on the passports, to the translations of the drivers' licenses for the drivers and of the vehicle registration documents. Finally they review some reports on the conditions of the tracks in the Urals: in August mud reigns supreme, with hair-raising routes, impossible passages, continuous use of the winch. Will we manage to go "beyond" the Urals??

The journey to Russia

The long-awaited moment has arrived: the participants' adrenaline is through the roof and no one can get a wink of sleep, especially the Camisasca-Bonfanti crew who haven't yet finished setting up their vehicle and won't be able to leave with the group, although they will later catch up with the convoy in Poland 2 days late. The meeting is set for 07.00 at the Villoresi Est service area (Arese): the first to arrive from Turin are the Doria-Bresciani crew in the support vehicle, the legendary and ever-present Iveco Daily 35.10 4x4. Right behind comes expedition leader Dondi Giovanni known as "the uncle" in a Land Rover 110 with his navigator-wife Erina and the Capoferri - Agnelli crew in a Land Rover 90 so equipped as to recall the legendary "Aziza I" of the overland navigator Nino Cirani....

A first small hitch with the leader's Land 110...the wipers don't work and given the inclement weather that will accompany us all day with heavy downpours and showers the problem must be solved! Off we go! We quickly enter Swiss territory where our friend Danilo Tapiletti awaits us We can't even reach the summit of the San Bernardino pass before the convoy is stopped again.....the "uncle's" Land 110 heats up like an old stove.....quick consultation: the thermostat is removed by the ever-present hyperactive Marietto known as "the plague" and thrown to the wind. Another problem solved and off again heading northeast...........the kilometers fly by....when the convoy stops again for a tire that starts to wobble just like its owner...dancer him, dancer the tire.....quick change and without even realizing it we reach Germany, to make a stop late in the evening in a cozy "service area"....

After over 930 km traveled in a single day a toast with Nebbiolo is a must....and worthy of mention is a pasta all'arrabbiata worthy of a 5-star restaurant!! Will it be hunger??

Germany 06.05.2011

Early in the morning we set off reaching Poland...a state that offers numerous surprises: cleanliness and efficiency...the roads that were thought to be little more than mule tracks are instead fast two-lane highways and in the towns we pass through it's not unpleasant to admire beautiful blonde girls with long legs and short miniskirts........... At the end of the day as if by magic we are joined by the Camisasca-Bonfanti crew aboard a Land Rover 110 TD4 hyper-prepared for extreme conditions that immediately earns the nickname Highlander...the monster....but "verily verily I say unto you that it is only envy....." The usual camp worthy of a nomadic family...the vehicles are positioned in a circle, the table set...the desire to test themselves against the impossible tracks of the Urals and friendship can be cut with a knife.

The group is already close-knit and a nice trip is in the making...in good company. Excellent weather conditions, a warm sun accompanies us along the route.

Lithuania 06.06.2011

Wake at dawn...ready, alert, off we go..............we enter Lithuania without customs checks where, if it weren't for a broken valve on the front wheel of the Daily, we wouldn't even have stopped.... We can say that the trip, the real one as we understand it, begins right in Lithuania....the roads become narrower with continuous undulations...the traffic thins out, the landscape changes...the fields are uncultivated...the houses abandoned to their fate and you can still breathe the heavy air left as a legacy by the recent communist past..... Goodbye Lithuania...Latvia here we come....

Latvia

We traveled about 200 km in Latvian territory without a hitch...strange.... At 9:00 pm we reach the Latvia – Russia border, where we immediately clash with Russian bureaucracy....the border is closed and we must wait until the following morning. Endless lines of trucks and cars let us understand that there will be a long wait....you have the watches, we have the time, and with this phrase we will wait trustingly.

07.06.2011

04.00 the alarm goes off and everyone in line on the dusty big road leading to the Latvia – Russia border. The line, as at every border worthy of the name and that makes you feel like a "foreigner", is very long, an endless queue of trucks and cars with the strangest license plates...

Under a scorching sun we wait not in vain, and at 4:00 pm we manage to cross the border and the checks, "only" after more than 9 hours of waiting, and after the Doria-Bresciani crew fell fast asleep on the Daily and blocked the whole line! Until they were woken by a very angry Russian customs officer!! Capoferri – Agnelli crew: caught! A 20-liter container of good Piedmontese "Nebbiolo" is "confiscated" from them by an efficient Russian customs official, with the banal excuse that you cannot import into the territory of the "confederation" more than a "certain" quantity of wine...Tonight at the customs official's house they'll be toasting.... A day without great emotions: lots of boredom, heat and dust.

Once we've entered Russian territory we zip along quickly in the direction of Moscow, on the only major highway, often riddled with potholes and with asphalt not exactly worthy of "Mother Russia".. From time to time you see police "checkpoints" for roadblocks, now abandoned, that recall the capillary control of the era.. Heavy traffic: trucks zoom past us menacingly, heedless of the presence of the convoy of vehicles... Stop in a guarded lot, with the first real shower of the trip and a dinner in a nice motel.

from Moscow to the Urals

The legendary expedition leader who always complains about the excessive weight of his Land 110, during the night gets what he wanted! "Lightened" of the camp table left unattended..... Departure on the route to Moscow, a strip of asphalt over 500 km long with a relatively good road surface. In the early afternoon we reach the outskirts of Moscow, where Stefania Zini, a family friend of the Dondi - Savoldelli crew, awaits us. After the usual pleasantries the convoy of off-road vehicles follows Stefania, who is also strictly aboard a Land Rover Freelander.

The next two days will be a "technical and cultural stop" in Moscow, hosted by Stefania in her delightful "dacha"......where, almost embarrassing us, she puts her house and even the garage completely at our disposal for small repairs and mechanical checks! Finally a bed worthy of the name.......waiting to set off again, this time for the adventure...the hard and raw one.

Moscow 09.06.2011

The crews are busy finishing the preparation of their lands...some mounting the compressor for the differential locks...some changing the tires, some checking the provisions and some going to the airport (Domodedovo) to meet the last of the daredevils...Nicoletta Grecuccio. A well-deserved dinner of the whole group together with the Russian friends, Stefania Zini and her partner Denis in an excellent restaurant featuring local specialties and several rounds of vodka....that made us forget the stratospheric bill paid with a miserable collection of rubles.......

Moscow 10.06.2011

The morning passes slowly and without any particular emotion..., early afternoon: the convoy heads toward the historic center of Moscow, where thanks to special permits we can park in the lot reserved for the authorities! right below St. Basil's basilica, close to Red Square!! Photos, photos, photos and videos... Tourist-cultural walk in the center of Moscow, then back to the home of our friends Stefania and Denis for "the last supper" worthy of being called that.....and after dinner we finish in style with a gastrointestinal illness of the new friend Nicoletta-woman adventurer that keeps us anxious for a few hours before she refuses a nice hospitalization in a Russian hospital...

Finally we leave Moscow in the late evening zigzagging through traffic the like of which has never been seen before...a few km for many hours of driving and here we are stopped in a service area where we spend the night waiting for the traffic to clear. Moscow 11.06.2011

Surprise!! The line of cars after 7 hours has grown!! We travel at a walking pace but the convoy of off-road vehicles must nevertheless reach its destination: the Urals. A few hundred km and we're still not out of the nightmare....still traffic.... We pass the town of Vladimir to reach Suzdal, a characteristic town built on the banks of a river and surrounded by dozens of small churches and cathedrals with golden domes, a reminder of an important past...tsars and Coptic priests... And here a "miracle" would be needed since Fabio Bresciani realizes he left his passport in Moscow, at the friends' house..a document as indispensable as air in this land of obligations and continuous police checks...a moment of panic then subsided (let's hope) when a courier will bring the document to Perm, our next stop.

The weather assists us, and beyond the zig-zag of traffic we also manage to dodge the rain. Camp in the usual gas station lot, and excellent dinner in good company. Company not only of the group but also of the many mosquitoes that give no respite...

12.06.2011

Departure with all calm, (9:30 am) since we are ahead of the travel times and that in any case we will have to wait in Perm for the arrival of the long-awaited passport. The journey continues along the black strip of asphalt, at times good but mostly potholes and bumps..... In the afternoon the convoy makes a detour onto an inner road that leads to one of the many villages lost in the middle of nowhere. Here you can admire the little wooden houses, partly in a state of abandonment; from nowhere as if by magic some inhabitants appear, at first suspicious then very friendly and curious they try to make themselves understood in their language, a smidgen of English and many gestures...we are accompanied along the banks of a large river where there is a small "store" that sells everything and here the usual toast with vodka.

The inevitable presence of the village drunkard...who is interviewed and filmed by our cameras.. Back on the road and again a night spent in a lot with the truckers. Dinner in a self-service with excellent Russian dishes and an excellent price too (2.50 euros each) The weather is good, but going north the air gets cooler and in the evening sweaters and fleeces start to come out..

13.06.2011

The compass, ever since departure, almost as if it had remained stuck, points N.E.: the URALS, a natural barrier that marks the border between the great north and the east...are approaching. The landscape since we entered Russia has always been very beautiful with lots of greenery but one must note the monotony of an endless plain....there are no heights, only rarely a hill..all this does not diminish the emotions that the trip reserves. The on-board instruments show us the way, the compass keeps pointing N.E.: the altitude never exceeds 250 m above sea level even though the birch and white larch forests give the impression of being in high mountains... The convoy of off-road vehicles reaches the town of Chaikovski where, for reasons of time, it cannot stop for a cultural visit...after a few km we turn onto a dirt road that leads us to a clearing where the night camp is set up.

The outside temperature drops rapidly, making us understand that we are climbing toward the north...the team eats outside after having set up an awning between the various vehicles to shelter from the humidity.

We climb the western slope of the Urals

Departure heading toward the city of Perm, capital of the Ural region. Along the way a detour is made to reach a panoramic point and visit a monastery built on a "white mountain". We turn onto a dirt road, which the locals advise us against traveling due to the broken-up road surface.. The daredevils of the tundra don't give up, and heedless they take the path...a first stretch of dirt road crosses an uncultivated field; the road enters a forest with tall-trunked plants and lush vegetation...the dirt road becomes a track, the track becomes a single rut drowned in mud with large pools of stagnant water... The first vehicle after a few km gets stuck in a ford-pool deep enough to block the Land....the vehicle bottoms out and there is no possibility of starting again except after putting logs under the wheels and winching the vehicle to pull it to an area with a harder bottom...

Meanwhile the other vehicles, seeing the impossibility of proceeding, must in a small space maneuver, amid mud, trees and ruts...Also the support vehicle Iveco Daily in this last maneuver sinks into a rut that takes it off-road...Danilo "quick with the chainsaw" cuts logs to put under the wheels and in a short time the Daily can also set off again. With all the off-road vehicles "nice & muddy" we arrive late in the evening in the town of Perm. After a wide tour of the center, the usual town with the usual Russian architecture of the 70s-80s with the usual girls with long legs, the group stops for the night.

Perm 15.06.2011

Technical stop day. The drivers make a cultural visit to the Land Rover dealership in Perm for a mechanical failure of Tapiletti Danilo's Land 110..and to make their mechanics envious of our modifications and technical upgrades. The rest of the group remains in the city: visit to the center and the market for a glimpse of local life. Among the various market stalls we are particularly struck by a very serious and funereal lady who, sitting next to a board with photos of cemetery headstones, trustingly waits for customers to order their own headstone. In the afternoon a visit to the museum of Russian military vehicles from the years 45 – 80. We quickly leave the city of Perm behind us, a bit of road under a light drizzle and camp in a clearing.

16.06.2011

In the morning the convoy of off-road vehicles heads for a visit to the gulag called "Perm 36" where, with particular emotion and indignation for the atrocities committed at the time by the communist regime against fellow countrymen guilty only of being intellectuals, poets, philosophers and artists or simply of not agreeing with the choices of the State, they were imprisoned for years in the so-called "labor camps" where in inhuman conditions they were held without a fair trial, and many of them due to the suffering linked to the prohibitive climatic conditions and physical toil did not survive.

After the visit, with a bitter taste in the mouth for what we saw and imagined, we take the road again to reach and visit the ethnographic park of the "Chusovaya" river where you can admire some ancient wooden houses of the Russian tradition, recovered and restored, as well as statues, churches with strange domes and an old merry-go-round where the whole group becomes a child again and together with a group of noisy Russian schoolchildren takes a nice ride on the merry-go-round. Photos, exchanges of gifts, autographs, and conversations in an improbable but nice Italo-Russian seasoned with a bit of English..... These too are emotions of....travel. Once again a long strip of asphalt to reach the village of Usva where we dine in a very simple little restaurant but with excellent dishes of the local tradition. A few more km and the camp is set up for the night bivouac.

17.06.2011

Departure with the compass pointing north.....we pass some anonymous industrial towns, chimneys puffing polluting vapors, acrid smells in the air, broken-up roads, barracks all identical and sad, gray enveloping everything and every where..... This too is Russia...this too is adventure. Brief detour to reach and see the "stone city", a cluster of large stones that seem to form a village.. In the early afternoon we reach the former capital of the Ural region, the city of Cherdyn which we thought would be interesting, but apart from 2 churches worthy of a visit, nothing special....except discovering that the inhabitants of the "capital" don't have water in their homes and you see some women who with little carts go to draw water from public taps.

Camp set up along the banks of the Vishera river, a large river that crosses a territory whose springs and upper course pass within a nature reserve that hosts an infinite variety of animal and plant beings. Nice big table all together, cheered by the company of clouds of mosquitoes that give no respite. Good night and a wake-up under a light drizzle that promises nothing good....

18.06.2011

In the morning the crews devote themselves to the last purchases of food and refueling with diesel in the last "civilized" outpost before undertaking the journey into nothingness.... In the town of Krasnovishersk, gray like and more than the other towns, under the rain, we visit the rather sad and poor market...the looks of the locals alternate between amazement and a sense of reserve at meeting, almost certainly for the first time, Italians in that land so far away and without a valid reason to be visited. Anyway after the first moments of detachment and impatience, the glances meet, timidly they approach our vehicles and try to understand the reason for the visit, ending with photos in front of the Land Rovers, strictly with a glass in hand, offered by us as a sign of friendship.

With a challenging off-road route, amid mud, deep ruts and pools of water we reach the summit.Here we leave our "powerful vehicles" and on foot, climbing over 700 wooden steps resting on a boulder that rises out of nowhere, here we are at the top, where weather permitting and it's not our case, you can admire from a ridge of rock that drops sheer, the peaks of the Ural mountain range, the river and the green valley that stretches immeasurably. On the way back to the vehicles a splash of color: we meet and strike up a friendship with a group of locals, who by our standards could be of "Rom" ethnicity, who entertain us with songs, dances and music and as per practice we are offered the inevitable "vodka" followed by tomato, cucumber or hard-boiled egg. We dive for a few minutes into their world....cheerful and colorful. Kisses, hugs like old friends and the adventure continues.....

In the afternoon we leave the "good" road to take a road that on the maps was supposed to be paved....the asphalt disappears after a few km and a wide track begins, rutted by big trucks carrying timber...bumps, deep ruts, puddles and mud reigning supreme create a bit of difficulty in driving, slowing the march toward the last little village marked on the maps: Zolotanka. Night bivouac on the bank of the swollen river and under pouring rain.......................

The first crossing attempt fails

Zolotanka The village that can be summed up as a disorderly cluster of about fifteen houses and wooden shacks, all crooked from the weight of the years and general neglect, at first gives the impression of being uninhabited and the few people look at us almost hostilely and challengingly as well as with amazement, but after a little while the attitude of the locals changes radically...we are pointed to the "store" where we can still stock up on food, we fraternize trying to understand local customs, and most importantly we manage to get important information on the passability of the tracks from the head of the forestry office, who kindly opens his office for us on a Sunday, assuming there is a Sunday in that village..........

The inclement weather continues to pour water, the puddles become small fords and the level of the river that we should ford several times rises visibly with a strong current that makes us have the first doubts about the feasibility of the undertaking of crossing the Ural range. Doubts that with the information processed with the forest ranger become reality: impossible to proceed and ford the river. After a consultation with the whole team the expedition leader decides to turn back, travel back along the track that takes us back to the town of Solikamsk and go further south, below the 60th parallel to look for another track that seems to have already been identified....

at least on paper! The morning continues with a meeting with a couple of Polish off-road vehicles that would like to make our same trip and a couple of hours of forced stop on the track for a mechanical repair to Danilo's Land Rover. Repair carried out to perfection by the valiant all-round mechanic Marietto the plague. It's only the beginning....a brief intervention on the Daily....still onward on the track amid potholes and slalom of craters.... Then by the law of nature, the bigger the thing the bigger the thud when it falls....and Mauro's Land 110, although super-prepared, does not escape this law....after various small continuous interventions here it starts to lose blood...that is the red coolant liquid...consultation among learned doctors and wise men: punctured radiator...bad prognosis.

We start to accumulate delay..then a drip of water feeds the punctured radiator just enough to reach the town of Krasnovishersk where we spend the night. Part of the team stays in a "hotel" if you can call it that...with only 2 humble rooms, from the parquet to the walls completely in plastic, with two sofa-beds compared to which the benches sadly used as a dormitory at the Gulag "Perm 36" are comfortable beds.. No mechanic available, so the convoy sets off again in a desperate search for a radiator repairman.

20.06.2011

Troubles never come alone...and it's not just a saying...even the Land Rover of the legendary expedition leader suffers a breakdown just to not be outdone...the silent-block of the coupling bar gives out and the off-road vehicle is undrivable. Arrival at the industrial town of Solikamsk where a forced technical stop is made in the usual, umpteenth lot of the gas station. Here hoods are opened, wrenches are drawn and men in mechanic's overalls get to work....Marietto

The victorious second attempt: we're on the Siberian slope!

At 08:30 sharp as Swiss clocks, the crews depart in the direction of Alexandrovsk, a town exactly identical to a thousand other Russian towns, with the usual communist-era blocks of flats as an eternal reminder of the "nomenklatura"..the half-unpaved streets where old, smoking buses transport people from the countryside here and there...and the outskirts dotted with little wooden houses, all crooked, surrounded by weeds and crooked fences, bent under the weight of snow and time, anyway nicer than the blocks in the center..where a technical stop is made to repair the silent-block of the expedition leader's Land Rover.once a mechanical workshop is found; the job, as per procedure, was excellently done by the usual Mario...

Meanwhile, food supplies are taken on by peeking among the market stalls, where one comes into contact with local reality...a true reality but sadly monotonous and gray like the buildings. Departure!! We take a secondary road marked on the maps as "paved" and indeed it is a road built with porphyry blocks; we travel fast through beech forests, passing a town with an important past and now reduced to a mass of crumbling blocks, and the usual gray buildings crossed by the only road and bordered by unsettling pipes that follow buildings, roads, bridges, whose contents are unknown.... The local population becomes curious, strangely, about our passing.

The dirt road begins, easy at first, but as the kilometers go by the difficulties increase..the humps are ever deeper, the ruts force us to follow the track like rails...from time to time mud, stones, uprooted trees...and water, lots of it, always everywhere. Water that overflows from the ditches, puddles that become real fords...little streams with clear waters... The difficulties are there for all the vehicles, which struggle in the mud, twisting passages...low gears, power, and out of the hole again...now and then some vehicle, especially the Daily, gets stuck in some mud pit...we try to use the winch but in vain, since all the trees are small-trunked and the perpetually damp ground cannot bear the pulling force of the winch. We work with shovel, hoe, stones, and chainsaw to cut logs to put under the wheels and find the right traction for the grip....

The kilometers are covered very slowly..technical passages, walking ahead to make sure of the best attack point, rebuilding and securing some little bridges with big logs, other bridges now impassable are crossed by fording the river where possible. A technical passage to cross one of these rivers with a collapsed bridge, and the Daily, right at the critical moment when tackling the steep and precipitous descent, becomes uncontrollable... The vehicle picks up speed...it leans frighteningly to one side, almost tipping over..the driver does everything to brake it and immediately it is secured with stones and logs on the critical side. The steering rod has detached from its mounts; the steering does not respond.

After the first moments of astonishment and panic, we begin to dig to bring the vehicle back level and be able to tow it off the descent and figure out how to get going again....the operation immediately proves complicated, since the vehicle is the heaviest, it cannot be towed except in reverse uphill, and there is a concrete risk of a sideways rollover... After about 30 minutes, without a decision yet having been made...out of nowhere an immense ex-military 3-axle truck appears on the track with 3 men on board. Mirage or reality? A concrete reality when with their powerful vehicle they secure the Daily, towed like a whip...and as if that weren't enough, they get to work under the out-of-service Daily and with an invention worthy of a genius they manage to modify and put the off-road vehicle back on track. Hours pass.

When the work is done, everyone celebrates together with a big table in the middle of the track with pasta and good Italian wine. At 02:00 the convoy of off-road vehicles sets off again, following the Russian truck of our new friends, which acts as our pathfinder and will pull us out of another fix in an impossible passage....At 03:30 we set up camp, saluting in the still-bright night the truck that with the 3 men continues its journey...toward nothingness!!

22.06.2011

Back on the track...a very long track, rough and with no possibility of turning back, with many passages at the limit of feasibility for our vehicles. Countless times we have to get out..place logs, stones, secure old wooden bridges, use the winch, and so on.... The day passes slowly but interestingly, with breathtaking natural landscapes, immense forests, and in the late afternoon our maps and satellite devices tell us we have crossed the European Urals and are now in the Asian Urals."URAL AND BEYOND......." A nice ford, then camp on the banks of the river...a swim in the clear, fresh, very cool waters of the river and the usual team table.

23.06.2011

Waking up inside a fairy tale: the sun rising, the waters of the river reflecting the rays, green all around, the chirping of the birds...uncontaminated nature and a group of men and vehicles ready to set off.... Another track: now the ground conditions are good, now impossible..the forest track to follow becomes impassable after a few kilometers although it is paved with enormous logs... We consult, and the faces of the off-road vehicles change direction: from northeast we head southeast..another ford, another track, now better, to reconnect with the one we were supposed to take, and here we are at the first inhabited center, if it can be called that.. A cluster of dilapidated houses, general neglect..dusty dirt roads, dogs looking at us curiously, few people and no traffic. Restocking food at the only shop in the village, then we set off again in the direction of civilization...

Before reaching the town of Karpinsk, where the night is spent, some in a night bivouac, some at the Ural hotel with its rigid Soviet-style architecture. But here comes the usual Daily starting to give us a new worry. The radiator is losing coolant: when dismantling it for repair, the driver and the "great unique unreachable" mechanic Marietto tells us that a branch has driven straight into the radiator. During the night the repair is carried out, under the attentive and curious gaze of some Russian kids who keep us company, ask us who we are and where we come from, and even ask for autographs as if we were famous people!!

The return

The convoy sets off again, leaving behind the actual off-road route...we're now on the way back, with a touch of bitterness and at the same time a sigh of relief for the "mission" accomplished, amid fun, hard work, mechanical breakdowns, fluctuating weather conditions and genuine acts of banditry on the part of the local police who, at the end of the trip, managed to extort and pocket the sum of 530.00 euros for non-existent violations, naturally without issuing any fine.....

Brief visits to the towns of Verkhoturye (the famous place where Rasputin lived), the Europe-Asia obelisk..the classic.., Nevyansk to reach the city of Ekaterinburg where the roads part ways: the Daily crew (Doria/Bresciani) - Land Rover 110 "expedition leader" heads South-West toward Italy: the Land Rover 110 (Camisasca/Bonfanti) and Land Rover 110 (Tapiletti) crews head toward the South-East in the direction of Mongolia. "Donnavventura" receives compliments from the whole team for how she handled herself on her journey, like a true professional adventurer..and Nicoletta Grecuccio also leaves us, returning to Italy by air.

Goodbye Russia..... Ukraine...the roads improve..the towns start to resemble European ones: the usual long checks at border posts.. Hungary.....now up to the standards of the most modern Europe..and swiftly, with no more borders, we enter Slovenia where, even if only in transit, one can admire the mountains and peaks of the Carpathians before finding ourselves back in Italy after several thousand km. And here the last in the long series of mechanical problems awaits us: the Daily's alternator has given up....we decide not to intervene and, with a push from the Land 110, a "bump and it starts"...taking great care not to use lights, radio or electrical equipment on board.

The last night of the journey spent at the Venice motorway service area, one last lovely dinner among travel companions: the first memories are already surfacing...a toast with the last vodka and the morning after, the adventure in the land of Russia is history. Ready to set off again for new destinations...new adventures...new emotions...always and only with "GRUPPO SEXTANT"

Fabio Bresciani