While I was getting ready for a trip to the sea, another wish appeared alongside it – to go to the mountains. What I wanted was to see the Caucasus, or to be more precise Elbrus. And not just to see it: I badly wanted to climb this very special mountain. Why do I think it is so special? Because it is the highest point not only of the Caucasus and of Russia but of the whole of Europe. Over just a few months I read a great deal about ascents and about acclimatisation. I also read a lot about how to behave in high-mountain country. I remember coming across the advice that you should not drive into the Kabardino-Balkaria region. Although I never did work out why you should not go by car.
And now I was in the mountains. Our group set off to meet the adventure. The first stop along the way was Novosibirsk. The plan was to join up with our friends there and carry on. We got to the city itself without any trouble. Over dinner we marked our arrival and the start of the journey. We spent the night and took to the road again.
The second day meant driving on to Omsk. On the way we met several cars with Novosibirsk plates. Interestingly, their crews were all dressed in orange T-shirts. We regretted not having thought about our own outfits in advance and put the idea off until the next trip. Curiously, that convoy overtook us more than once as we drove, though we never could work out where we had passed them. We ended up spending the night in the village of Vodolazovo. An interesting name for a village – and one that suited the weather better than ever.
On the third day we were due to drive towards Ishim. Since we had not slept especially well, we ended up driving into the town although in principle we should have gone round it. We even got a little lost and had to switch on the navigation.
We managed to put things right later. Because the road between two villages was being resurfaced at the time, our speed was restricted the whole way. Beyond that the roadworks end. That is the stretch from the village of Berdyuzhye to Petukhovo. Here you can go at twice the speed – we were doing as much as one hundred and twenty kilometres an hour. As for traffic police posts, we saw none apart from the permanent ones. We spent that night near Magnitogorsk on the shore of the Ural reservoir. Curiously, at first we took it for the Ural river itself. We spent a long time marvelling at how the wounded Chapayev could ever have swum across it, and stood there mulling it over for a while. Our musings were suddenly cut short by people driving past, who told us there was a dam upstream.
And so it was already the fourth day of our time in the mountains. We got up at half past eight and headed towards Magnitogorsk. Along the way we decided to call in on our companions‘ relatives. And of course we could not deny ourselves the pleasure of a swim in the Ural. That remarkable little river is somehow reminiscent of our own mountains, and in places Chapayev could easily have waded across it. We drove past the gas plants beyond Orenburg and could smell just how strong the gas was there. At night the gas flares burn, and it is a slightly frightening sight. Long after midnight our car ran over a piece of plastic. We told our companions over the radio that we had hit something but would catch them up soon. They waited for us about three hundred and fifty metres ahead. With a huge torch we inspected our trusty steed yet again, and realised that things were rather more serious than we would have liked. In the end we decided to go back and find the parts we needed. We all drove back together, found what we needed, put it in the boot, drove on a little and stopped to rest. That day really did turn out to be far too long.
Now it was the fifth day of our time in the mountains. That is not so little, and it brought us close to a full week in mountain country. At ten in the morning we all set off towards Pugachev and Engels. On the road our car started playing up again and we had to stop a couple of times. But that mysterious business soon came to an end and we could carry on with the journey in peace. We ended up spending the night on the shore of the Volgograd reservoir. It is worth noting that the reservoir is a great mirror of warm water. It is also overgrown with reeds and full of algae, so few people fancy a swim. Clean waters have spoiled us, clearly. On top of that there really are a great many midges and mosquitoes here, all keen to bite us instead of the cattle. And that is something we could not take to at all.
Now it was the sixth day of our time in the mountains. At about nine in the morning we all set off for Volgograd. So we drove on, and on a hilly stretch of road we came across a speed limit sign. Along the way we were lucky enough to see a great many interesting and genuinely remarkable things. At times we were simply delighted by what we saw, and quite bowled over. And of course we photographed everything that took our breath away. One of the places we had to visit on the trip was the Mamayev Kurgan. More than that: seeing this place had been a long-held dream of mine. Ever since childhood, when I passed by on the train, I had wanted to see it. I wanted to look at everything as closely as possible. And I really was not disappointed by what I saw. Without exaggeration, all of it impressed me and moved me to the depths of my heart.
On the seventh day, at half past nine in the morning, we all set off for the Caucasus. As we headed towards the Elbrus region we took the wrong turning at a junction.