Being a country boy from the Midwest of America. Roads to towns or villages as Russians call them, were gravel many times. It seemed that you either had river gravel or limestone gravel as the main roads. But always the base was kept up as a crushed rock of some form…
In our travels around Russia. We find that gravel is not high on the list of importance. The soil has lots of sand in it and no one contemplates using gravel as a road surface. The truth is that these sandy roads do a good job of getting you from village to village. It just looks like you are on a goat trail…
This is main street above in a village of about 100 people. It is much larger than our village. This is a thriving village. We left this village to try to find an even more remote village. The next picture is the main highway to a smaller village. Yes this road is on the maps. This is a real highway and takes you to a real place that lots of people live in… 🙂
We found the village we were looking for hidden way deep into the countryside (it is top left of picture – Sveta is top right of picture) but our road gave out. We had to walk the rest of the way. I was not in the mood to walk so we took some pictures of the river and the new walkway bridge that was recently built. We knew that several years ago that this was a auto bridge but it looks as though cars do not make it to the village anymore…
Village after village is connected by these roads. The only thing that is done to the roads is bridges and even those most of the time are done by local government and local people. A bridge like the walkway over the river would be a project done by the village, otherwise no one could leave the village to get supplies…
Sveta and I love to travel these roads and every village is a new experience. This last picture is what you have to do when you have to work on your car…
We are in the middle of the highway and if anyone would come they just drive around. One of the reasons to own a Volga is that parts are available anywhere and they can be fixed very easily. Every village will have an old Volga or two sitting around and they are prime for spare parts. It does not matter what year the Volga is, most likely the part will fit…
The roads are well used and you can tell the main roads because they are not overgrown with grass. Sometimes you find 5 roads going into 5 different directions and all you have to do is follow the path that is worn the most. It will lead you to civilization… 🙂
So as you see we made it back to our village and drinking that coffee and tea getting ready for another day of fun…
Kyle and Sveta
Windows to Russia