Vladimir Putin drives across Siberia, Russia

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin embarked on a journey last year along a new highway in Russia’s Far East in a bright yellow Lada Kalina Sport.

Accompanied by television cameras, Putin set out on a 2-thousand kilometre (1,242 mile) drive from Khabarovsk towards Chita in Siberia, previously only reachable by rail or air.

Talking to reporters before the start of his journey, the premier said the route has historic significance – providing a vital link between western and eastern Russia.

“Our country has the biggest territory in the world and despite that it never had a full highway connection,” he said before getting into his yellow Russian-produced Lada Kalina Sport car.

He said he’ll be observing the results of the long-running project from the driver’s seat, and inspecting key construction sites on the way.

Putin was filmed stopping at a petrol station and having a snack with locals, discussing the rise in bread prices with them.

Among the key sites Putin was to visit during his journey was a hydroelectric plant, one of the biggest in the country, and a soon-to-be constructed space launch pad, Russia’s second one.

 

 

Driving the Trans-Siberian in a £300 Ford Sierra

Date of road trip: 03 May 2003. Vehicle: 1.8 litre £300 Ford Sierra with 100,000 miles on the clock. Length of journey: 11,514 miles from UK-Vladivostok. Duration: 6 weeks. Hotel : 2 nights.  Slept in the car: 45 days.  Did they meet many freaks? Many. Robbed? Nearly. Was it an adventure? ….Oh, yeah!

Driving from the UK across Russia and Siberia to Vladivostok along the Trans-Siberian Railway in a 1.8litre £300 Ford Sierra with 100,000 miles on the clock  was all too irresistible. Our family and friends thought we had finally lost the plot when we told them about our idea of driving to Vladivostok. They thought we were taking this new lifestyle of ours a little too far. OK, so maybe we were going a bit over the top. I mean, just because we had driven across the US six months before, it didn’t really give us the right to worry everyone or give us the confidence to play fools and take on the world with this massive overland adventure. We hadn’t even met anybody who had been to Russia before, let alone driven across it. Were we kidding ourselves? You could say it would be suicidal to even attempt such a journey, especially as we hadn’t spent weeks researching the roads, or invested money on the correct equipment that would be required for such a huge expedition. Of course, we made sure we had oil, a few spare tyres, a GB sticker and an SAS Survival Guide, which Simon bought from Oxfam for 50p, but apart from this, we took the attitude that we’d just see what happened along the way. A few weeks before our departure, we jumped on the internet to see if we could find any websites by fellow adventurers who had driven along the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok. It was quite worrying as I only found a few. They were driving huge 4×4’s and both had been heavily sponsored. It showed pictures of them driving over dusty potholed roads and crossing deep rivers. It looked impossible, and neither of them had managed to complete the journey to Vladivostok without putting their vehicle on the train. What really put doubt in my mind, was the fact that there appeared to be a 650 km section of highway called the Zilov Gap in Eastern Siberia between Chita and Khabarovsk that was still under construction. What chance did we have if the highway was still being bulldozed? How would we be able to make it across Siberia without a 4×4? I mentioned this to Si in passing, but he just shrugged his shoulders and told me not to worry. Deep down, I knew that if we were going to do it we might as well take the bull by the horns and go in blind. Adventurers: Simon Raven & Chris Raven.

Crossing the Zilov Gap – Driving the Trans-Siberian (Russia)

In May 2003 the Raven brothers took on the ultimate road trip with this epic 11,000 mile journey across Russia and Siberia in a £300 Ford Sierra.

“We’re above China now, and have passed through a staggering eight time zones. We’re closer to Tokyo than Moscow and nearer to Seattle than London.”

By Simon Raven & Chris Raven

The idea of driving from the UK to Vladivostok in the Russian Far East,  materialised whilst stacking boxes of frozen oven chips in a -30°C freezer. Chris had bought a big white rusty Ford Sierra a few weeks before for £300 from some dude with a twitch, and even though it had over 100,000 miles on the clock, the idea of attempting to drive the 1.8litre mean-machine halfway around the world seemed all too irresistible. This was a massive overland adventure, which was heightened by the fact that we had never even met anybody who had been to Russia before, let alone driven across it. Were we kidding ourselves? You could argue it would be suicidal to even attempt such a journey, especially as we hadn’t spent weeks researching the roads, or invested money on the correct equipment that would be required for such a huge expedition. Of course we made sure we had oil, a few spare tyres, a GB sticker and an SAS Survival Guide, but apart from that we left feeling quite unpreparred  A few weeks before our departure, I jumped on the internet to find out what we were letting ourselves in for. I searched on Google to see if I could find any websites or blogs by people who had driven to the Far East. It was quite worrying as I only found two. They were driving huge 4×4′s and both had been heavily sponsored. On their websites it showed pictures of them driving over dusty potholed roads and crossing deep rivers. It looked impossible, and from what I gathered neither of them had managed to complete the journey to Vladivostok without putting their vehicle on the train. What really put doubt in our minds was the fact that there appeared to be a 650 km section of the highway (Zilov Gap) between Chita and Khabarovsk in Eastern Siberia that was still under construction. What chance did we have if the highway was still being bulldozed? How would we be able to make it across Siberia without a 4×4? I mentioned this to Chris in passing, but he just shrugged his shoulders and told me not to worry. Deep down, I knew that if we were going to tackle this unfinished highway deep in the Siberian wilderness we would have to take the bull by the horns and go in blind.

Zilov Gap, Chita, Siberia 2003.

Chita, a city closed to the outside world until 1988 and deep in the arse end of nowhere is located on a dusty, windswept plain 6200km from Moscow and is the last major stop before the Trans-Manchurian train line branches off for China 100km east. We leave Chita and race through the barren countryside; the rusty Sierra is running well considering we have driven it all the way from Northamptonshire in the UK to Calais onto Belgium, Germany, Eastern Europe, through the Baltic States into Russia, over the Ural Mountains,  and around Lake Baikal. Siberia is BIG. In fact, it’s so big you can scoop up the whole of the USA and drop it into Siberia without even touching the sides. Add to this Alaska and all of the European countries, with the exception of Eastern Russia, and still there would be an incredible 300,000 square miles of territory left. We’ve been on the road for four weeks now, we smell, we’re tired and we have only slept in a hotel twice. The first hotel was in St Pertersberg and the other was in Vologda at the Sretenskaya Church Dorm, an old 1700′s church that has been converted into a dormitory for students by the Ministry of Culture’s study program. Apart from strange noises coming from under the bonnet and a missing bolt (or metal screw thingy connected to the engine) and a few close encounters with the GAI (traffic police) and a roadside robber trying to sell us a red Ruby ring, the journey across Russia has been as smooth as a ballerina’s bottom. The road suddenly becomes stony and unsurfaced as it stretches out towards the horizon. We drive for twenty miles without seeing a single vehicle; we have arrived at the road under construction. Unsure if we’re heading in the right direction, we decide to pull over and wait for signs of life. Staring out across the dry empty landscape towards Mongolia, there is an eerie silence. Not one single bird, not a single house or telegraph pole. We’re completely alone, vulnerable – just the dusty road, the Sierra and us. I begin to feel like we’re the last humans on the planet, and if it were not for the dry grass clinging to the rolling hills, we could well be on Mars. We wait for what feels like an eternity. Half an hour slowly becomes an hour, an hour becomes three hours. I pace around the car and take a leak at the side of the road. Chris stops drumming an irritating tune on the dashboard and suggests we continue on to the first settlement on the map, but I feel nervous about what might happen if we breakdown out here. Fifty miles in the wilderness is a long way without rescue. We need to be sure that people are using this road. We have to wait for passing traffic. Our morale deteriorates with each passing minute – doubt fills my mind. This route across the top of China has always been impassable, only the construction of the Trans-Siberian train line – an incredible feat of engineering which cost thousands of lives, has managed to connect the cities of Chita and Khabarovsk across the swamps and deep valleys of this hostile terrain. After waiting an hour we suddenly see cars appear on the horizon. They pass by one by one, and we notice they are all right hand drive vehicles imported from nearby Japan. None of the cars have proper registration plates, instead they just have a number taped inside the front window screen. We watch as a second convoy speeds past. We will name these drivers our Guardian angels. Some of them wear white gloves, others are stripped to the waist or wearing shades. All of the brand new cars have protective covers over their headlights and masking tape wrapped around their bumpers. As the dust settles we head off in the opposite direction, passing more cars travelling in convoy along the new dirt road. We see brand new Toyota saloons and Mitsubishi estates with tyre blowouts, and watch the drivers change the wheels at great speed like mechanics in the pits at the Grand Prix. We continue on, heading across a wide-open plain. We slow down and watch as a Mongolian sheepherder crosses the road in front of us with his flock. He carries a crooked staff and skillfully drives the dozens of curly horned creatures safely to the other side. They look unlike any sheep I have seen before, with huge wooly coats that protect them against the harsh Siberian winter. I look in awe at the old man’s weatherbeaten face. It looks like it has been carved from wood. He takes little notice of us and continues on his journey. I can’t help wondering where the hell he’s taking his flock, as there is literally no sign of life in any direction.

Several hours later, we eventually reach a remote frontier town called, “Yephbiwebck”. Our guidebook is useless here, and without an English translation for the Russian names on our map we’re very much on our own. The town is a grim looking place and consists of tin-roofed shacks and a concrete block of flats around a large industrial factory. Keen to take advantage of what could be our last opportunity to buy fuel, we stop at a junction and gather our bearings. Just as we’re about to pull away, some dude in an old brown Larda pulls up beside us. He sticks his white scruffy head of hair out of the window and babbles something in Russian.

‘Nyet Rooskeey,’ Chris grins.

The guy falls out of his car and staggers over to us, it looks like he’s had a few drinks. He peers through the passenger window and glances around inside. I move towards Chris and smile falsely. His breath stinks of booze and cigarettes and his teeth are brown and rotten. He laughs hysterically.

‘Hello!’ I cry.

I show him the map and point to the symbol for a petrol station. He leans against the car door and points over his shoulder.

‘Banya!’ he shouts, pointing to us both.

‘What’s he say?’ Chris chuckles.

‘Banya, I think. It’s a Russian sauna and steam bath. I think he wants us to join him for a sauna.’

Chris screws up his face. ‘No way!’

The guy frowns and begins to laugh. Despite the fact that we probably look as though we need a good wash, we politely decline. He then points at a grotty concrete tower block a few hundred yards away and begins to flick a finger repeatedly against his throat. We get the distinct impression he wants us to go back to his place for a glass of vodka. Not wishing to offend the poor guy, I nod and smile and indicate to him that we’re in a hurry. It turns out this is a wise decision, as he starts behaving strangely and proceeds tapping his wrist and simulates jacking-up with heroin. Smiling falsely, Chris slowly rolls the car forward. The guy lets go of the door and stumbles back to his Larda. Finding the petrol station, which is basically a couple of ancient petrol pumps next to a tin hut, we top up the tank. A brand new Toyota pulls up on the other side of the pump and a tall Russian guy steps out and smiles at us. His mouth is full of sparkling gold teeth, and he looks not unlike the character ‘Jaws’ from the James Bond movie Moonraker. Tucking his smart polo shirt into his jeans, he greets us over the roof of the car. I point at his Toyota and nod approvingly. He taps the top of the roof, and I can tell he’s ecstatic to have made it here from Vladivostok in one piece. The car is covered in dust, but with a wash and a few minor repairs I imagine he will be able to fetch a very decent price for it. We try to ask him about the road ahead, but he just grins and shrugs his shoulders. We shake hands and part company. Leaving the town, we drive for twenty miles along the yellow dirt track before parking up for the night behind a large Volvo digger. There really is no turning back now. If we breakdown out here we’re well and truly screwed. All we can do is try and keep an eye out for the Russians, our guardian angels, who will hopefully show us the way to Vladivostok. We devour a tin of fish with some of the bread we bought in Chita, and Chris proceeds to scare the shit out of me with statistics about how far we’ve travelled and how far we still have to go. We’re above China now, and have passed through a staggering eight time zones. We’re closer to Tokyo than Moscow and nearer to Seattle than London. Vladivostok is still a great distance away, which leaves me wondering as I snuggle inside my sleeping bag, what the hell lies in between?

***

The following morning we find the road ahead is blocked. A sign with an arrow pointing to the left diverts us down a narrow dirt track leading into the dark forest. We have absolutely no idea where we’re going. We just have to hope the diversion will take us up and around the road works and back onto the main road under construction. Si insists we play it safe, so we wait half-an-hour for a guardian angel to pass by. Seeing the lone car swing around the corner, we feel confident we’re heading in the right direction. Potholes are our main problem here, as the exhaust pipe underneath the Sierra takes a pounding every few metres. We cringe with every scrape, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference how slow we go or how hard we try to avoid the potholes, the Sierra is just too low to the ground. With no option, other than to turn around and head back to Chita, we’re forced to grit our teeth and hope for the best as we push deeper and deeper into the thick forest.

After fifty miles of careful driving, we’re brought to a sudden halt by a river.

‘I hope you’ve brought your arm bands?’ Si laughs.

I reverse the car and rev the engine.

He drops his smile. ‘You’re not seriously going to drive through that, are you?’

‘Of course I am. What else are we going to do, wait for the water to evaporate?’

‘Well, shouldn’t we check to see how deep it is first?’

‘It can’t be that deep.’

Si frowns. ‘How do you know?’

‘I don’t…’

Slamming my foot on the accelerator pedal, the wheels spin as the Sierra speeds towards the river. With a gigantic splash the car nosedives into the river. The water hits the window screen with a loud thud and sprays dramatically into the air. The buzz is unbelievable as the car burns through the water and flies out onto the other side of the bank. After sometime we find ourselves on a relatively flat stretch of road. It carries us through a tiny deserted village and beneath a bridge supporting the Trans-Siberian train line. It’s surreal to see signs of civilization out here in the remote wilderness, and following the train tracks for a few miles we stumble across a pretty little house and café at a bend in the road. We’re in serious need of some refreshments, so we decide to check it out. Walking through a small yellow gate into the back garden, we find a few wooden tables and chairs dotted around on a patch of freshly cut grass. A Chinese woman looks over at us as she rocks a baby in her arms inside the doorway to the house. We sit down at a table and smile in her direction. She stares vacantly at us and continues to rock her baby gently in her arms. On the other side of the garden, a man wearing a camouflage jacket drives a wooden post into the ground with a sledgehammer.

‘Are you sure this is a café?’ Si whispers.

‘Yeah, I think so.’

‘Maybe we should leave? I think we’ve just walked into someone’s back garden.’

The woman calls over to the guy building the fence. He drops his sledgehammer to the ground and marches over to us. He sweats profusely as he dusts himself down. With dark features and thick stubble, he looks more Italian than Russian. We order two bowls of borshch, the refreshing beetroot soup, and some coffee (kof-yeh). He smiles and disappears into the house. After our little feed the man walks over and points to our map. He seems to take interest in where we are from. Si points to England and the man points to Azerbaijan.

‘Caspian Sea,’ I beam.

The man nods vigorously. ‘Da, Caspian!’

He points past the house and over at the train tracks.

‘Chita?’ he grins.

Si frowns. ‘Chita?’

The guy points to us both. ‘Chita?’

‘No, no,’ Si replies. ‘Vladivostok.’

He looks surprised.

I try to ask the guy which direction is Vladivostok, and he encourages us to follow him across the garden. He swings open the garden gate and waves us over. We follow him across the dirt road and through knee length grass onto the railway tracks. Two train lines run parallel to each other, one going to Moscow and the other heading in the opposite direction to Vladivostok. With caution we stand on the wooden sleepers. The guy points up the line towards the horizon.

‘Vladivostok,’ he smiles.

The train tracks stretch out into the distance, and I look with excitement in the direction of a city we’ve been driving continually towards now for over five weeks. The man slaps Si on the back and smiles before returning to the café. I take one last look around and savour this incredible opportunity to stand with my feet on the legendary Trans-Siberian railway line. Returning to the café, we pay the bill and shake the guy by the hand. We walk back to the car and just as I’m about to jump inside I suddenly hear the roaring sound of an approaching train.

‘It’s the Trans-Siberian!’ Si grins.

We sprint as fast as we can back through the long grass and stand at the side of the tracks. The guy from the café runs to the garden gate and points in its direction.

‘Vladivostok!’ he cries.

The train grows bigger and bigger until it thunders past us at great speed, whipping Si’s hair across his face. Each carriage zips by one by one and we jump in the air and dance around like excited kids at a fun fair.

As we continue on through the forest the road suddenly becomes incredibly narrow and steep, and we’re forced to use the whole road in order to maneuver the Sierra over craters that are literally the size of the car. This tends to be a disruption for the guardian angels driving down the hill in the opposite direction, as they have to wait for us to pass by. It occurs to me that we must be the first people ever to cause a traffic jam in deepest Siberia. From the state of the road, it’s clear this track has been heavily used for quite some time. The potholes are worn away more steeply on the far side, making it nearly impossible for us to pull the car out of the pothole without scraping the exhaust pipe along the ground. This becomes a major problem, and we can’t drive for more than a few meters without getting stuck. Forced to drive into one particularly deep crater, Si revs the engine and accelerates up the steep side of the pothole. There’s a loud crunch. Jumping out, we run around to the back and examine the damage. The exhaust pipe hangs in two pieces beneath the car, the join in the middle has been completely torn apart. We come up with the idea of plugging it back together, so we quickly gather together the equipment and within a jiffy we’ve connected the two pipes together, sealed them with exhaust paste and wrapped kitchen foil and wire around them for extra strength.

***

Reaching a remote village at the bottom of the mountain, we drive past a cute house with blue shutters and a derelict building, three dirty little faces suddenly appear over a mound of rubble. The hostile looking savages, who can’t be older than five or six, are stripped to the waist and scramble rat-like towards the car. I wave at them out of the window, but they respond by hurling bricks and concrete at us. One jagged piece of slate scuffs across the bonnet of the car and Chris sounds the horn and accelerates away. The village is perfectly simple, and it’s clear it has been completely locked away from the outside world until now. It feels like we’ve travelled back in time a hundred years, and I wonder what they make of all these futuristic vehicles suddenly descending on their world and ruining their tranquility. An old man staggers out of his garden gate and flags us down. He grips onto the side of the car and rants and rages at us. Si tries to ask him which direction we need to go for Vladivostok, but looking confused he blinks at us – quite understandably really as we’re still thousands of kilometres away. He won’t let go of the door and continues to shout at us as we try to explain to him that we don’t speak Russian. Chris points to England on the map, and this is all too much for a man who has probably spent his entire life in the remote wilderness. He looks about eighty-years-old, and it suddenly occurs to me that he was a young boy of about ten when the Gulags (labour camps) were put into operation. As part of Stalin’s grand plan to turn the USSR into an industrial power in 1929, he forced collectivization of agriculture with the aim of getting peasants to fulfill production quotas, which would feed the growing cities and provide food exports to pay for imported heavy machinery. Farmers who resisted were either killed or deported to labour camps and this guy must have lived through that entire period. Looking into his pale grey eyes, I wonder what stories he has to tell about that time. He seems pretty upset by this sudden invasion to his world. He finally loses his grip on the door and throws up his hands in despair. I feel guilty as we pull away. I guess he has spent his whole life out here building a new life in a community that had been up-routed and forced to work for the good of the nation. In his mind perhaps, especially in his old age, he felt at least he should be given the right to enjoy peace and quiet in a place his family had been forced to call home. We leave the town and head back through the countryside towards the new highway, and studying the map I console myself with the thought that before long the Amur Highway will be complete and this village will be returned to the wilderness once more. We eventually find our way back onto the highway and cruise at 20mph along a stony, but relatively good section of the road until it gets dark. We’re physically exhausted. I take a picture of Chris behind the wheel, his hair and clothes and the interior of the car are covered in dust. Pulling up close to the impenetrable forest, we pass out from nearly sixteen hours on the road.

At sunrise the next morning, Chris crawls under the Sierra and patches up the torn kitchen foil wrapped around the exhaust. He does a pretty good job and putting some air in the tyres with the squeaky foot pump, we feel confident to head back on the road. We drive through the morning until we reach a stretch of the highway that is in full construction. Enormous diggers shovel tons of earth as they clear a path for the road. Volvo dumper trucks tower over the Sierra, transporting rocks and stones along never ending stretches of the highway. We feel nervous weaving beneath their huge wheels and crawl along tracks that tail off into deep canyons. We battle against the road works from dawn until dusk, at an average speed of roughly five miles an hour. Sections of the road force us to drive up steep hills at a frightening angle of 45 degrees, and we approach each turn cautiously for fear of colliding with a digger. Reversing and shunting, we carefully manipulate the car along the edge of sheer drops and around huge boulders. At one point we nearly tip sideways down a twenty foot drop. It takes incredible concentration, and pounding the underneath of the car against sharp rocks and smashing the bumper into the ground, we curse out of anger and laugh out of insanity with every knock and scrape. Desperately trying to stay sane we head slowly towards the never-ending horizon.

We pass through the small town of “HeBep” around noon the next day. The place feels like a city after more than three days on the Amur Hellway, and we grin with excitement at making it this far without any major setbacks. That said the car looks like it has been in a battle and lost. The front bumper hangs close to the ground and is held in place by little more than some electrical tape and a fist full of rubber bands. The bodywork is caked in mud and blue exhaust fumes leak from under the car. To make matters worse there appears to be something wrong with the starter motor, because when we turn off the ignition the car rattles and shakes for about thirty seconds before the engine stalls. We fill up with petrol, grab more supplies from a small shop and try to find our way out of the town. We quickly become lost and find ourselves heading up a road, which Chris thinks might be the M56 to Yakutsk and Magadan. In 1932, Stalin sent thousands of prisoners to Magadan to build docks and piers, so they could transport gold found in the Kolyma region. It became a major marshalling point for the prisoners who were sent there to work in the mines. Being sent to Magadan was a death sentence. Of over the estimated 20 million people who were shot, starved, beaten, tortured or worked to death in Stalin’s Gulag camps an estimated one fifth died in camps around the Kolyma region. The road to Magadan is even called the Road of Bones because of the thousands of prisoners who died building it. Back on the right road we begin to pass fly-overs that are under construction and cross over fast flowing rivers and wide canyons. Workmen wearing yellow hard hats sweat in the heat as they move huge concrete pillars with cranes and shift millions of tons of earth. This is the first time we’ve seen fly-overs on the Amur Hellway and it’s a very surreal sight. We follow a dirt track that skims alongside these huge concrete pillars, which sprout out of the ground like bizarre monuments. The highway that will run over the top hasn’t even been built yet, and it’s amazing to witness this incredible feat of engineering with our very own eyes. In a couple of years this dirt road we’re driving on will disappear, reclaimed by the forest and returned to the wilderness once more.

After four long days, and nearly a month on the road, we finally reach tarmac and arrive in Vladivostok happy, but physically and mentally exhausted. Our mission to drive a rusty £300 Ford Sierra across Russia and Siberia along the Amur highway has now become a reality. It’s amazing we made it – it’s amazing there was a road at all. Handing the car keys to a young guy working at the Vladivostok Hotel, we grab our rucksacks and head for China; from one insane journey to another.

Buy on Amazon!

UK Amazon.co.uk:The Linger Longer: Driving the Trans-Siberian – the Ultimate Road Trip Across Russia

USA Amazon.com:The Linger Longer: Driving the Trans-Siberian – the Ultimate Road Trip Across Russia

 

Auschwitz and Birkenau (Driving the Trans-Siberian)

Simon Raven pays a visit to the chilling Auschwitz and Birkenau Natzi Germany extermination camps during a road trip with his brother across Eastern Europe.

By Simon Raven
Photography by Chris Raven

An extract from the book: Driving the Trans-Siberian >

The sound of a truck’s horn wakes me with a start. Vehicles of all sizes roar past on the busy main road, the swooshing of their tyres against the wet tarmac frightening us into action. Waiting for a gap in the traffic, Chris quickly swings the car out onto the main road and turns into the gateway of the Auschwitz car park. An attendant dressed in jeans and wearing a high-visibility vest waves us through and we pull up beneath a giant oak tree. Taking a moment to get my head together, I open the car door and feel drops of rain on my face. I sit motionless allowing the water to refresh my tired eyes. Ruffling my hair, I climb out of the car and touch my toes. My back aches and I’ve got a stiff neck from resting my head at a strange angle against the window. Collecting the empty crisp packets and sweet wrappers stuffed into every available orifice of the car’s interior, I empty the ashtray and begin to fill an empty Tesco’s carrier bag with rubbish. Chris begins to fold up all of the loose items of clothing; coats, damp socks and jumpers strewn across the back seat. Tying up the plastic bag, I walk over to a bin beneath the large oak tree and toss it inside. The lid slams shut with a satisfying clang. Feeling heavy droplets of rain water splashing into my hair from the branches of the tree overhead, I take a deep breath and watch in amusement as Chris struggles to change his T-shirt in the small confines of the car. Deciding to freshen up a bit before heading off to the museum, I rub some toothpaste on my teeth and change my socks and T-shirt. In an attempt at looking a bit smarter and possibly more studious, I dig out my blue roll-neck jumper from the bottom of my rucksack. Switching on the radio, we listen to some soothing classical music on a polish station and munch happily on some stale crackers. It stops raining, but thick black storm clouds hang menacingly overhead. We walk across the car park adjacent to the high perimeter wall, and quickly reach the main entrance to the red brick building. Poking our heads inside, the main foyer is completely empty with the exception of a young girl wiping trays behind the counter of a small cafeteria. Walking around the foyer, we study black and white photographs of the concentration camp hung in a line along the walls. Suddenly, a well-groomed middle-aged woman in a long black raincoat enters the room. She shakes her umbrella and smiles over at us.
‘Hallo,’ she beams. ‘I’m sorry, but you are a little early. Please take some time to read the information.’
‘Thank you,’ I reply.
The information on the boards has an English translation, and we mill around the room devouring facts. A coach party files into the building and they greet us as if they were entering our home.

Feeling a little traumatized, we exit the cinema and are led into a quad. Looking around, I recognize it from the documentary and I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end. Nothing has changed. It all looks exactly the same as it did in the film. I look over at the patch of grass adjacent to the sinister barbed wire walkway, where many of the prisoners were executed by firing squad, and shiver at the harsh reality of what took place here. Breaking away from the other tourists, we pass a tall watchtower and I find myself giving it a wide berth. The spotlight on the top follows us around like a large eye. I shiver again at the realization of how terrible it must have been to be imprisoned like this; to live in constant fear of being shot by a bored SS guard with a rifle who’s watching your every move. We walk inside one of the main gas chambers, a small grey building with a distinctive brick chimney. I feel a little shaken by the thought of what happened here. It was mostly women, children and the infirm that were murdered, the ones who couldn’t work. I walk over to the window and peer out through the metal bars. We’re stood in the room where they had been ordered to remove their clothing, believing they were going to take a shower and be disinfected. I feel physically sick as I follow Chris into the main chamber. Dim orange lights hang from the ceiling, and a vase of flowers has been placed in the middle of the concrete floor. I touch the damp walls and can hear the screams of the thousands of men, women and children who perished in this very room. I can see the terror in their eyes as the Zyklon B pellets, a crystallized form of hydrogen cyanide, fell around their feet from vents in the ceiling, killing them not instantly, but after fifteen to twenty painful minutes. I feel suddenly nauseous and follow Chris through an open doorway into the next room. The sight of the two furnaces is too much to take in, and I find myself backing away. All I can think about is how anybody could think it was right to do this. How could they physically carry out orders to extract gold teeth, collect rings, jewellery and even shave the corpse’s heads before burning the bodies in these furnaces? On average 8,000 people were gassed every day at Auschwitz and Birkenau. By the end of the Holocaust, a horrific six million people had been murdered, six million innocent lives taken away.

Behind glass in another block, mountains of hair, false teeth, shoes and suitcases are on display. Their belongings were stored in giant hangers, nothing was wasted. Even lamps were made out of skin cut from the dead. In the next block, framed photographs of people imprisoned at Auschwitz hang on the wall in a long line on opposite sides off the corridor. I’m shocked by how similar they look to people I know at home and from the freezer, how similar they look to the young guys with shaved heads we saw on the way here. The pictures are so clear and sharp they could’ve been taken yesterday. I stare into their eyes and they stare back blankly at the camera in their stripy prison uniforms. Under each photograph there is a date of how long they lasted at the labour camp. Some died after two years, some after only two weeks.

Returning to the main gates along the train track, I look over my shoulder at the camp one last time. I had never had much faith in humanity; Auschwitz and Birkenau only confirm this to me. As a species, we have a long way to travel along the evolutionary chain before reaching anything close to what we might call perfection.

By Simon Raven
Photography by Chris Raven

An extract from the book: Driving the Trans-Siberian >

 

Fresh Fish (Wilderness Survival)

As the Raven brothers head across Eastern Europe in a battered old Ford Sierra, they decide to experiment with wilderness survival by trying to catch their own food. In this hilarious scene from the epic travel comedy ‘Driving the Trans-Siberian’, the brothers share a moment of clarity that anyone who lives in the confines of the modern world can relate too, in a society where we’ve lost the very basic skills necessary for human survival.

By Simon Raven and Chris Raven

An extract from the book: Driving the Trans-Siberian >

I feel fresh. My clothes smell clean, my hair has been washed with the finest Polish shampoo and my armpits are dancing the Salsa. With a skip in my step, I make a tasty salt and vinegar flavoured crisp sandwich while Si merrily sucks the vitamin C out of a big juicy orange. With breakfast out of the way, we hesitate no longer than necessary and waving farewell to the trucker’s café outside Oswiëcim, we head north for the Great Masurian Lakes.

By-passing Warsaw, we race across the flat open countryside and begin to see where the wealth of Poland hides. Large houses with acres of land and expensive 4×4’s litter the roadside. Even the girls working in the petrol stations look cuter and less repressed somehow, which is great.

‘Right, that’s it,’ Si smiles. ‘I’m going do it.’

‘Do what?’

‘I’m going to catch my dinner.’

I turn to him, and laugh. ‘Catch your dinner? You’re joking, aren’t you?’

‘No.’

‘Are you going to use traditional hunting methods such as trapping a wild pig or spearing a deer?’

‘Uh, no, I’m talking about grabbing a rod and going fishing.’

‘Si, the last time you tried to catch a fish you fell in the river.’

‘I slipped.’

‘You tripped more like. If you think about it, we wouldn’t last five minutes in the wilderness without food, would we?’

Si shakes his head. ‘Not a chance. In fact, I’d give us two days max before we’d be heading off in search of the nearest McDonald’s. Although, you’d think it would be a necessary part of a child’s education to learn how to survive in the wild.’

‘Yeah, but then I suppose in our society it’s not seen as relevant anymore. I mean, why waste valuable time learning to fish or hunt, when you can pop down the local fish ‘n’ chip shop and buy yourself a nice piece of battered cod.’

‘Chris, fishing today isn’t just about obtaining food for survival, it’s a sport and a hobby as well you know, it’s about keeping the skills alive. Remember that kid at school, who used to jump lessons so he could fish pike down the reservoir. His fishing knowledge was passed down to him by his old man, just as his father had taught him.’

‘So, fishing isn’t just an excuse to get away from the nagging wife, then?’

‘Oh yeah, of course it is, but some people just love to fish all the same.’

Si grabs the pocket SAS Survival Guide from his bag and flicks to the first page. ‘Listen to what John Wiseman says here, “survival is the art of staying alive. Combine the instinct for survival with knowledge, training and kit and you will be ready for anything.”’

I peer down at the book. ‘Who’s John Wiseman?’

‘John is the author of this book. He served in the SAS for twenty six years.’

‘I bet he’s seen a bit of action in his time.’

‘Damn right. You don’t make it into the SAS unless your balls are made of steel.’

‘Heavy.’

‘Do you think you could make it into the SAS?’

‘No problem,’ I nod with a snug grin. ‘I might have to quit the cigarettes first, though.’

‘Oh, yeah, you’d have to. Those boys can trek for weeks with a pack the weight of a baby elephant.’

‘Bollocks!’

‘It’s true. It’s all about training. If you put your mind to it you can accomplish anything.’

‘What, even if you’re a natural born pussy like yourself?’

‘If it’s a matter of life and death, then, yes,’ Si nods, straightening his posture.

‘Maybe we should study this book a bit more before we get to Russia. I’ve got an awful feeling we’re going to need it.’

‘Study all you like, but don’t worry too much.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, some things are just out of your control.’

I frown. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, take death for example.’

‘Jesus, Si, enough about death, I’m still traumatized by our little visit to Auschwitz.’

‘Death affects us all, my friend. There’s no point ignoring it.’

‘“Ooh, hello everyone, my name is Simon Raven and I’m here to liven up the party!” You prick.’

‘Hey, don’t get me wrong, I’m not purposefully trying to sound morbid here. It’s just death is a reality we have to face everyday. There are so many ways it can happen and no way of totally preventing it. Sure, you can limit your chances of it happening by living a safe, healthy life and by teaching yourself a few basic survival skills. But at the end of the day, when that large piece of masonry comes crashing down on your head, there isn’t a hell of a lot you can do about it.’

 

Driving cautiously over an old disused railway track, I can see the sparkling blue water of Lake Wigry through the trees. Pulling off the road, we crawl down a bumpy path leading to the water’s edge and ditch the Sierra close to a wooden jetty that reaches out across the flat surface of the lake. Walking cautiously over the wooden slats, I squat down at the end of the platform and glance out across the tranquil lake. I hear Si clomping clumsily behind me, and brace myself as he pretends to push me off the edge. Disturbed by the commotion, a large Canada goose hiding in the dry reeds beats its wings and lifts itself a few feet into the air before crashing clumsily back into the water. It disappears with a honk.

‘This place is beautiful,’ Si smiles.

I press a finger to my lips. ‘Shush…you’ll scare away the fish.’

Si lowers his voice, and pauses in thought. ‘Do fish have ears?’

‘No idea,’ I shrug, ‘but I’m sure you’re supposed to be quiet. Maybe they feel the vibrations.’

I tiptoe along the platform and sprint across the grass to the car. Popping the boot with the ariel, I rummage through the junk and grab hold of the fishing rod that we’d thrown in at the last minute; along with a load of other crap we thought might come in useful. I untie the faded plastic bag wrapped around the reel and extend the telescopic rod, a revolution in fishing equipment introduced sometime in the 1980’s, and untangle the line. Inside the faded carrier bag, which has probably been tied around the rod since we last went fishing about ten years ago, I find some spare hooks and more line. Placing them on the ground next to the rod, I scratch my head and try to think what else a man needs in order to catch a fish.

‘Bait,’ I grin.

Reaching deep inside the boot, I manage to grab hold of a small shovel wedged underneath our bags. Pulling it free, I stumble backwards and accidentally step on the rod lying on the ground. I hear it snap.

‘Fuck!’ I spit, glancing down at the floor.

Removing the broken end from the line, I real in the hook and hold what’s left of my rod in the air. It looks ridiculous, a mere stump compared to the length it should be, but tossing the broken end back into the boot I’m keen to get my hook in the water while the fish are still visible. Slamming the boot shut, I walk back down the path and notice Si waving vigorously from the bank.

‘There’s loads of fish,’ he beams, pointing excitedly at the water. ‘You can see the bubbles. Look I found three worms, I’ll dig up some more, go on, get fishing!’

With the tangled ball of worms in my hand, I smile at Si’s enthusiasm as he begins to eagerly dig a hole by the water’s edge. I find a suitable spot at the end of the platform, and crouching down on my hands and knees I thread a nice juicy worm on the end of the hook and make a float from a discarded ice lolly stick. Weighing the bait down by tying a stone to the line a few inches above it, I remove the spare reel from the plastic bag and attach a hook to the end. Following the same process, I make another float, but this time from a piece of bark that I manage to peel from the edge of one of the wooden planks used to make the jetty.

‘Good lad,’ Si smiles, admiring my handy work.

Opening his hand he reveals another seething mass of worms.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Squatting down, I extend the fishing line and carefully lower my worm into the water. Happy with the length, I toss the stumpy rod over my head and catapult the bait a good four metres away. Watching the stick bob up and down on the surface of the water, I feel instantly relaxed. Glancing over at Chris, I watch as he swings his hook backwards and forwards like a pendulum, and gathering enough momentum he lets go of the line and casts it rather unsuccessfully into the lake. I lean back against a wooden post and smile. Like Huckleberry Fin and Tom Sawyer, minus the straw hats and dungarees, we bask in the sunshine at opposite ends of the jetty. Persuading myself that it’s unlikely we’ll catch anything, particularly as neither of us had managed to in our lives before, I close my eyes and enjoy the peace and quiet.

 

Around the same time I had said my final farewells to Emily in Hampstead, I returned to London a few times during my time in Daventry. On one such occasion, I drove to Queen’s Park for the weekend to visit my good friend Dermot. Dermot lived in north London with his girlfriend in a flat overlooking the Salisbury Road. We would drink in his local pub, The Salisbury Arms, and then stumble back to his place after closing for a good old fashion smoke and a singsong with his guitar called Gareth. Waking up on his sofa one morning with a killer hangover, I decided to head out and grab something to eat from the Organic Café around the corner. Walking into a blustery winter’s day, I wrapped my scarf tightly around my neck and half ran, half jogged down the quiet main road. Entering the cozy café I made myself comfortable and ordered the eggs benedicts from the menu and a large cappuccino. I grabbed a newspaper and waited patiently for my food. Just as I was about to read an interesting article about the Parque Nacional Tayrona in northern Colombia, I suddenly noticed a guy enter the café with a very familiar face. I peered over my newspaper; it was none other than my ex boss, Lawrence Cox. This was a man who had made the early years of my working life a misery, and was an individual who can only be described as a complete and utter tosser. Ducking behind the newspaper, I closed my eyes and prayed for him to disappear. He didn’t. I lowered the newspaper and we made eye contact.

‘Simon!’ he grinned, looking surprised.

‘Lawrence!’ I replied, trying to look even more surprised.

‘How are you?’

‘Great.’

Lawrence grabbed a chair and swung it over to my table. ‘Mind if I join you?’

I rolled my eyes, and sighed. ‘Course not.’

A waitress walked over and took his order.

‘So, you’re back from your travels I see?’

‘Yeah, I got back a couple of months ago.’

‘That’s fantastic. How was it?’

‘Incredible. A real adventure.’

‘You went to the States, didn’t you?’

‘That’s right, and to Mexico.’

‘What was Mexico like? I’ve always wanted to see the cliff diving in Acapulco.’

‘I didn’t go that far south, but the Yucatan is beautiful.’

‘Sounds fabulous,’ Lawrence smiled, slipping off his coat.

‘How’s Global?’

‘Wonderful. We’ve just finished a complete redesign. It looks fantastic. A lot has changed since you left. I’ve been promoted, actually. I’m now the Production Manager, overseeing the development of all new content. Big step, but I’m enjoying the challenge.’

‘Congratulations.’

‘Thanks. So, now you’re back what you got planned?’

‘Well, I was thinking…’

Lawrence quickly raised his hand. ‘…I’ve got to stop you there, Simon. We’d love to have you back at Global, but I’m afraid there just isn’t the head count right now.’

‘Really?’ I replied pretending to sound disappointed.

‘I’m afraid so. Hey, you never know, a position may well pop up in the future. Although, don’t hold your breath. I mean, the competition is rife at the moment. There are truck loads of young, talented, committed graduates eager to push themselves to the top and take the industry seriously….so, uh, anyway, where are you working now?’

I hesitated before answering. ‘I’m working in the Midlands at the moment.’

He frowned. ‘What are you doing in the Midlands?’

‘I’m working in distribution.’

‘Distributing internet software?’

‘No, frozen food.’

Lawrence smiled. He wasn’t sure if I was being serious or not. ‘You’re distributing frozen food?’

‘Yep, I help distribute frozen oven chips and pizza to the nation. I’m working temporarily in a freezer-packing warehouse.’

‘Golly, quite a change from Global.’

‘You could say that.’

‘Why on earth would you choose to do that? Didn’t you want to move back to London?’

‘I’m happy where I am at the moment, thanks.’

‘Where are you based?’

‘Daventry.’

‘Don’t know it. Got a flat?’

‘No, I’m living with my mum at the moment.’

This was almost too much for Lawrence. He bust out laughing and slapped his hand on the table.

‘With your mum?’

The waitress arrived with his order and placed his food in front of him.

‘Oh, dear,’ he beamed, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. ‘I haven’t laughed like that for ages. I don’t mean to appear rude. It must be hard sliding down the career ladder like that. You’re certainly putting on a brave face. I’m just sorry I can’t do anything to help you out.’

I suddenly felt my blood reach boiling point. He had pushed me too far this time, and without warning I exploded in a torrent of rage.

‘Listen here, you cock sucker,’ I hissed, grabbing his shirt and pulling him close to my face. ‘I wouldn’t waste another minute of my life working with you, even if you paid me a million pounds a year and lent me your ugly whore wife to fuck over my desk all day. You may think behaving like a cunt is an acceptable existence, but believe me, buddy boy, there’s a whole world out there that’s passing you by.’

Jumping to my feet, I snatched a sausage off his plate and took a large bite. He looked up at me in stunned silence.

‘So long, Cox.’

Storming out of the café, I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins. The next chapter of my life had begun and there would be no turning back now.

 

Disturbed by a splashing sound, I open one eye and see bubbles on the surface of the water. Following the line from the end of my rod I notice that it has gone taught and, jumping into action, my instincts take over. Chris leaps to his feet.

‘You’ve caught one!’ he cries.

‘Have I?’

‘Yes! Quick, reel it in before it gets away!’

Leaning over the side, I grab hold of the line and give it a firm tug. I can feel the weight of the fish as I begin to reel it in. Standing up, I’m able to lift the hook out of the water and I can see the white belly of the fish thrashing against the surface.

‘Don’t lose it, Si.’

Tugging at the line, I heave the fish out of the water and swing it through the air into Chris’s hands. Wrestling to get a grip, he removes the hook from its mouth and drops it into a carrier bag. Deep green in colour, the fish lies motionless on its side and gasps for air. Prodding it with my finger, I jump in surprise as it flips into the air and leaps out of the bag onto the wooden jetty. We both pounce on the fish and head butt each other on the way down. Rubbing our temples, we suddenly notice the fish is making its escape over the edge.

‘It’s getting away!’ Chris screams.

I dive on top of the fish, but it slips through my fingers and flips over the side. It disappears into the lake with a satisfying plop.

Chris peers over the edge and drops his head. ‘Bollocks. We finally catch a fish after all these years and then you let it get away.’

‘It was slippery you little shit, there was nothing I could do.’

Chris turns away and walks over to his line. Frustrated, I squash a fresh worm onto the end of my hook. I lower it into the water and just as I’m about to reel in the line a little, I watch in amazement as another fish leaps out of the water and takes hold of the bait.

‘I’ve got another one!’ I yell, swinging the silver fish through the air.

‘Me too,’ Chris hollers.

For the next hour, we hook fish out of the lake with as much ease as Fat Larry serving up battered cod in Buster’s fish and chip shop on the High Street. The excitement of catching a fish is overwhelming and, despite struggling with the guilt of killing a living creature, we quickly get used to the idea.

Returning to the car with our catch, we feel like proud hunters returning to the village with a feast. Excited to taste fresh fish caught with our very own hands, we immediately find the small camping stove and heat up the frying pan on the bonnet of the car.

‘What does it say in the SAS Survival Guide about cooking them?’ Chris asks, pouring a drop of oil into the pan.

Thumbing through the pages I find the ‘Fish and Fishing’ section. ‘Now, let me see. It says here that all freshwater fish are edible. Those fewer than five centimeters long need no preparation and larger fish must be gutted. Perfect. All of ours are tiddlers so we don’t need to gut them.’

‘Yours might be tiddlers. This last one I caught was massive.’

He turns the fish over and opens its mouth. ‘Look at its teeth. It was a fierce battle catching this giant.’

Following the guidelines in the book, we scrape off the scales and place a couple of the fish into the hot pan. We watch with excitement as they sizzle and curl up in the heat. I pick off a little piece of flesh and pop it into my mouth. It tastes of blood, truly disgusting. We try adding salt and loads of ketchup, but the taste doesn’t improve. With stale crackers as our only other option we grit our teeth and eat them anyway. After our fish feast, Chris climbs into his sleeping bag and falls sleep. I smile to myself and feel satisfied that although our cooking skills may need some improvement, tonight at least we had proved to ourselves that we could survive in the wild.

By Simon Raven and Chris Raven

An extract from the book: Driving the Trans-Siberian >

 

 

The Linger Longer: Driving the Trans-Siberian

‘The Linger Longer: Driving the Trans-Siberian’, an epic 11,000 mile journey across Russia and Siberia in a £300 Ford Sierra.

Driving along side the Trans-Siberian Railway, the ultimate road trip adventure.

By Chris Raven and Simon Raven

Have you ever had the desire to jump in your car and keep driving, to wave goodbye to routine and commitment and drive into the unknown with your arm out of the window, hungry for adventure? Well, that is precisely what twin brothers and UK authors, Simon Raven and Chris Raven decided to do whilst stacking boxes of frozen oven chips in a minus thirty degrees freezer. With a squeaky foot pump and an SAS Survival Guide, the brothers fired up their rusty £300 Ford Sierra and headed east. Not being petrol heads and having very little knowledge of the internal combustion engine, with luck they hoped to reach Poland and maybe even the Baltic State of Estonia – where lived, according to legend, the most beautiful girls on the planet. After driving for six weeks and clocking up over 11,000 miles, quite literally living in the car, they miraculously arrived in the Far Eastern city of Vladivostok in Siberia on the Sea of Japan. What they had in fact done was to drive  from the UK, across Europe through Russia following the Trans-Siberian Railway and drive the entire length of the amazing new Amur Highway before it was finished, which crosses Russia in a 6,200 mile swath of cracked tarmac and potholes. Along the way our trusty heroes drink vodka with Chechen criminals, escape highway robbery, trade banana flavoured condoms with Russian cops, meet the eccentric and plain weird at truck stops in darkest Siberia, endure torturous road conditions and have a race to the finish with the Germans. Surviving this journey by the skin of their teeth, the brothers are forced to confront their worst fears in this toe-curling comedy that is both gripping and surreal.

Buy it on Amazon!

(UK £7.19): The Linger Longer: Driving the Trans-Siberian

Amazon.co.uk: Click here to buy the ebook

(USA $13.99): The Linger Longer: Driving the Trans-Siberian

Amazon.com: Click here to buy ebook>

• Listen to the brothers talk about their Russia experience on Radio 4′s Excess Baggage with Sandi Toksvig.

• Click here to Listen

Chapter 1: The Cunnilingus King

Chapter 2: Daventry

Chapter 3: Thirty Below

Chapter 4: Long Face

Chapter 5: Bohemian Rhapsody

Chapter 6: Cliff’s Arse

Chapter 7: Arbeit Macht Frei

Chapter 8: Fresh Fish

Chapter 9: The 80′s Coming Back

Chapter 10: Fun Lovin’ Criminals

Chapter 11: Unavailable Funds

Part 2

Chapter 12: Land of the Tsars

Chapter 13: Animal Farm

Chapter 14: Coffee with the Cops

Chapter 15: Chasing the Trans-Siberian

Chapter 16: Bandits & Butterflies

Chapter 17: Pearl of Siberia

Chapter 18: Burn Baby Burn

Chapter 19: Guardian Angels

Chapter 20: The Amur Hellway

Chapter 21: The Final Frontier

Chapter 22: The Executioner

Part 3

Chapter 23: Lords of the East

Chapter 24: It’s a kind of Magic

Chapter 25: Foot People

Chapter 26: A Touch of SARS

Chapter 27: Back to Bateman