Nearly Imprisoned in Russia

Let me get you up to speed, so this short story doesn’t become a novel. It’s September 2018 & I had driven my 2004 Vauxhall Agila 1.2L engine to Mongolia from the UK. I understand that’s quite a leap already, but for sake of ease we will start in Mongolia. By this time my two travelling companions, Sam & Aidan had crossed the border to Siberian Russia as they returned back to the UK. We had already elongated our world tour by quite some distance & time. They needed to return home to work & more importantly, our double entry VISAs for Russia were about to EXPIRE.

That’s where I come in. The second part of my Russian entry Visa had Expired. Unlike my two comrades who were by far more cautious & sensible than I was, choosing to leave intact. I on the other hand had become swayed by the elusive “Transit Visa”. This Visa would allow me to pass through Russia even though my Visa had expired, although as I would later find out they don’t give you much time. So why did I decide to go through this bureaucratic loophole when I could have flown out of Siberia with my mates? In essence why did I do what 99% of people wouldn’t?

*The team re-united in Turkmenistan…(Excuse the feet)*

For this explanation I’ll have to take you into the realm of how my mind works & the fact I’m quite stubborn. I had travelled a third of the world to reach the end goal of Mongolia, it felt a bit like being subbed off in the 80th minute. Mongolia is such a unique, special & naturally beautiful country I couldn’t comprehend only spending 6 days there. Most of which was driving. I’d known deep down; I would probably never return. You can drive for days in Mongolia & never see a soul, due in part to its 3 million population & it being the 19th largest country. The other thing spurring me on to continue with the adventure, is that I had nothing to go back to. I had left my job, still had money in the bank & felt the most confident I had ever done. Don’t get me wrong it was a tough choice, but If I had not seen the real Mongolia It would have mentally damaged me. To go all that way & not experience one of the most interesting & culturally bizarre places would have felt like failure. I wouldn’t be doing right by me & knew the burden of living with regret would live with me mentally for a long time. That might sound like hippy bullshit to you & fair point it probably is, but it’s the way my mind worked to justify & make sense of living a fruitful & enjoyable life. I had the opportunity to move to Australia before Covid & my god does that come back to haunt me every time I see the slightest bit of drizzle…

So now we have cleared up my mental state, let speed this story up. I had decided to stay in Mongolia & attempt to get a Russian Transit Visa, easier said than done. The first problem occurred when the Russian Consulate in Ulaanbaatar was only open 3 days a week, so inevitably it was shut when I tried the first time. The second time I went, I had forgot to bring my car documents, so had to wait 3 days until they were open again. I also had to find somewhere to get a new passport photo, which wasn’t exactly straight forward. Long story short then, I finally applied for the Transit Visa. Luckily, they approved it otherwise I would have been royally fucked & stuck in the Gobi Desert with a 2004 1.2L Vauxhall Agila.

Anyway, it was approved & I was informed would take 10 days to process. Which was cutting it bloody fine, as now my Mongolian Visa was close to expiring. We spent these days visiting numerous national parks, horse riding, hiking, yurt-ing & everything else in between. I certainly got my Mongolian fix that felt needed. I should add at this point, that I was travelling with my Ex-girlfriend who will remain nameless throughout this story, but is necessary in the narrative.

After a great time exploring Mongolia’s national parks for 10 days or so D-Day had approached, it was time to collect my passport & head north to the bottom of Siberian Russia. Now here comes the crucial part of the story, as it transpired my TRANSIT VISA was for 10 DAYS ONLY! I had just over a week to make it across over a quarter of the globe on dodgy roads in a car with a leaking fuel tank & top speed of 60 mph. This wasn’t helped by the Russian border; which took us 24 hours to cross. The drive from Ulaanbaatar was longer than anticipated, which meant we didn’t get to the border until 11pm. The processing of documents, customs, car paperwork & the fact I’m on a weird transit visa & don’t speak Russian meant we now only had 9 days to escape! Similarly, to my experience in Mongolia, I didn’t want to just blast through Russia, so was hell bent on making up enough time to at least spend a day in Moscow.

*The Keeper of Keys of the Gorhi-Terelj National Park, Mongolia*

So we had just 9 days to make it from East to West. Covering over 5000 miles (1 quarter of the planets circumference) & according to google could take 5 days of non-stop driving, which obviously wasn’t feasible as we would need sleep, food & fuel. In these 9 days we would navigate wrong turns, get stuck in snow storms, narrowly dodge crashing trucks, run out of fuel consistently, struggle to find places to stay & the mental torment of prison if I overstay my visa by one second…I honestly cannot portray enough the constant mental stress I was under. Drive for hours every day & nearly die or risk the GULAG! But these stories would have to wait for the TV series. Our main obstacle would come in the form a pathetic crash into a Siberian river…

We were now a few days into our mission across Russia. Our navigation system was the reliably unreliable Maps.Me which is an offline Google Maps. So you could use it without going into debt with your network provider. It was great in some aspects with finding camping spots & hidden hotels, but would also take you down roads that didn’t exist or off a cliff just for a laugh. Specifically, in our case it accidently took us into Kazakhstan! This added to my stress & annoyance because I had purposely tried to avoid cutting through Kazakhstan, because although a British citizen could enter or leave as they please…My Ex wasn’t British & wouldn’t be allowed to enter! Effectively this meant we had driven 600 miles for NO FUCKING REASON! When I realised it was the border & that Maps.Me had made the Taj Mahal of fuck ups, I nearly jumped over the barbed wire in the hope that the border guards would shoot me…The stress was next level.

*Camping near Omsk, Russia*

Our only option now was to drive back the single-track road 600 miles, which meant losing out on another day. We now only had 5 days left & I was mentally already eating prison food. We stopped for a rest & started to reform a plan of whether there was another way. It turned out there was only one shortcut, which was about 200 miles back the way we had come. But would take us onto the main road to Moscow. Having already wasted most the day, we thought we would risk taking the shortcut because at least it would feel like progress…

Once again Maps.Me would screw us over as we reached the road to turn off. As it transpired, it was normal tarmac for about 20 minutes & then 4 hours of gravel, potholes & mud. No joke our average speed went form 55mph on the main road to 30mph on this farming track…In hindsight it would’ve been quicker to go back the original 600 miles…To give you an idea of how bad it was, we were halted at one point as 2 Russian blokes with gold teeth were attempting to fix the road with pieces of slate & loose rocks. One of them was in a 4x4 truck & wasn’t able to drive over this 100-yard section of churned up concrete & mud. It was like an earthquake…The mud came up to my shoulders, but we were literally stuck between a rock & a hard place. We could either turn back & risk a puncture on the dodgy road or at even greater risk, floor it & hope we could make it through earthquake avenue…

With so much already going wrong on this day, I couldn’t face the thought of driving backwards…Although it probably would’ve been quicker…I reversed 30 feet & prepared a run up to drive through the churned up stretch of road. Even the Gold Teeth Russians were sceptical as one of them sidled up to my window in an attempt to offer me advice…The only thing I understood were the words ‘SEND IT’ which was weird, So I did. Keeping it in 2nd gear to maximise traction, we immediately flew up into the air & were bouncing all over the place…The mud was filling up our wheel arches, we damaged the axel & definitely bent our sump guard…But miraculously we made it through! I felt like prime Colin McCrae! We gave the car a once over & checked for any damage, removing as much mud as possible. It survived & we survived………. for about 77 minutes.

We now come to the meat of this over-cooked pie. Just after we had completed stage 4 of the Siberian World Rally Championships, another obstacle appeared. It was a very small village, which didn’t show up on the map…Another classic **Maps.Me** cock up to add to the list. The road had changed from gravel to several inches of thick juicy mud. The village had a population of around maybe 40 people & the average vehicle was a heavy-duty tractor.

Now as I explained this village didn’t show on our map, so we attempted to navigate & find an exit. But what happened as we slowly drove up & down the wet muddy farmland? We crashed into a Siberian river! So much mud had filled in the wheel arches, blocked up the suspensions & then covered the tyres that the car became a pebble on an ice rink…Albeit pathetically slow, the car was pirouetting like The Nutcracker, to what must have looked incredibly confusing to any local villager. Trying to correct the steering as the car would 360 around the middle of the road, we eventually ended up head first in a ditch with water flowing. The car was now at a 45-degree angle with the engine taking on water like the last 20 minutes of The Titanic. I did exclaim out loud, “could this day get any worse” in the same fashion as a late 80s John Candy film, Uncle Buck springs to mind…

In times of danger or extreme pressure, the brain go’s into survival mode. Fight or Flight, this was no more appropriate than now, with the constant fear of not getting out the country in time & facing 6 months without trial. But in the battered wing mirror I saw what looked like a white 4x4 jeep. I immediately sprung into action, crawled into the back of the car trying to find our tow rope. I wound down the driver’s window & climbed out, now knee deep in sewage. The white jeep was now gone from view, but nonetheless this was our only chances of being pulled to safety. Imagine Terminator stuck in the mud, but still racing at top speed ultimately not getting very far. That was me. As fast as I could move in the bog, I raced with rope in hand to try & find this white vehicle. I was hoping I would still be able see it around corner. I was now running in hope than any actual practicality that the white jeep would still be in proximity. But to my surprise what turned out to be a Police 4x4 was parked across the junction. Out of breath, but very relieved & delirious I went up to the wooden house where the jeep was parked & in desperation banged down the door…Now word of advice, when you’re in the middle of Siberia DO NOT BARGE INTO A RANDOM HOUSE. I was promptly greeted by two young officers pointing AK-47s at me…There was a 20 second Mexican standoff, in which all parties were silent. Without saying a word they saw the rope, looked outside & figured out what was going on…They drove me back down to our submerged car & towed us out the ditch to a better-quality road leading us out the village & back on route…This was quite possibly the most stressful 5 hours of my life, with so much going wrong in a short space of time you’re left with no choice but to keep getting back on the metaphorical horse & ride it out. On top of this the car had so many mechanical faults, it wasn’t even worth attempting to find a garage…

*This is what driving through Russia looks like 90% of the time…*

Weirdly as I sit here writing this in 2022, is the realisation of how much I suck at normal life. I sometimes struggle to confidently order a coffee at Costa let alone having weapons pointed at me while having crashed into a Siberian river…I think this is why I prefer to take the path less travelled. It forces you to become Superman rather than getting too comfortable as Clarke Kent at The Daily Planet. The most confident, fulfilled, useful & assertive I am is when I’m in foreign situations (both meanings). It’s this lust for adventure that agitates a divide in my consciousness. A painful mental battle between a sensible life with a mortgage & alternatively being at my optimum state, but plunging my bank balance into unforgettable adventure. It’s genuinely a daily curse for me, normal UK life doesn’t tick any boxes for me. Yet I am stuck in being cautious & that is probably for the best.

Let’s conclude this saga. We made it to Moscow with 1 day to spare, in which we explored the capital, The Kremlin, St Basils & felt human again after 9 days of intense endurance driving nearly 5,000 miles. On the last day we were up early as my partner had booked a flight from Moscow to London. Always fearing the clock & especially on the last day, we made a quick escape to the airport. My plan was to drop her off & drive across the border into Belarus. Of course, things didn’t go to plan…

As we approached the airport & as I was following signs for Departures after nearly a 4 hour drive out of Moscow. It was the perfect opportunity to hear the words “I think this is the wrong airport” from my partner in the passenger seat. YOU HAD 1 JOB! I broke out into a fit of rage & had it been anyone else, I would have chucked them out the car…I was now cutting it real fine on the timeline. My Visa had about 8 hours left on it & the Russian judicial system does not fuck about…You could overstay by 3 months or 3 minutes, it’s the same punishment. So because my Ex hadn’t bothered to check the Airport, I was now looking at the all too realistic Prison sentence coming my way…Thank You very much, I drive you across the world, I pay for everything, I get us rescued & I get repaid by getting ARSE-RAPED in the showers of PUTIN’s Penitentiary!

How I managed to remain calm, I will never know. Anyway a few exploded blood vessels later, we navigated to the CORRECT airport North of Moscow & quickly made my getaway in the westerly direction of Belarus. According to Maps.Me I would be due to make it with 2 hours to spare…But it wasn’t over yet. Stopping off at the services to refuel both the car & myself, I managed to log in to some Wi-Fi. Some friends I had met earlier on my travels were asking where I was going via WhatsApp. When I said Belarus, there was a lengthy pause while the classic three dots & typing animation appeared at the top of my screen. After what felt like eternity, my friend sent a couple paragraphs of how they had tried to get into Belarus a month previously. He let me know that they do not allow foreign cars into the country & that you need to apply for a visa 6 months in advance. FUCK FUCK FUCK!

*An interesting choice of camp, somewhere in Mongolia…*

I went into a brief state of shock before reconfiguring myself & my phone. We had 4 hours left on the Visa & I thought I was safe being only 2 hours away from Belarus. I had two options, Finland or Ukraine…Finland was closer but had windy roads instead of a main highway & I feared crashing into another river. So, I opted for Ukraine, which was exactly 4 hours away to the closest open border. But it did have a motorway all the way & I would have to push this already beaten car to the limit. If I could average 60mph & avoid the massive trucking convoys, I might just make it. Without time to reply to the message & now heavily reliant upon the shitty Maps.Me app guiding me to safety. I was now hoping the app that had caused me to crash, drive into Kazakhstan & led us to some pretty suspect hotels would finally come good…As you can imagine, my heart was beating like an Antelope being chased by a Lion. By nothing short of a miracle, I made it across what is currently the most dangerous border in the world, with 10 minutes to spare.

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