Day-2 – of the journey

Day 2 of the journey

July 7, Wednesday

The night was cold. I clearly didn’t have enough clothes on, and I was freezing badly. Usually in such situations I would get up and walk around to warm myself, and sometimes I would make a fire. But this time the situation was different. I had never slept in a truck bed before, and I hadn’t thought through the difficulties of such a night in advance. I didn’t want to wake the driver, so I kept wrapping myself in my duvet.

Several hours passed like this. Sometimes I managed to doze off for a short while, but more often the cold kept me awake. Dawn was breaking, but it didn’t get any warmer. Moreover, a new problem appeared: dark clouds began to gather in the sky. I had no idea how I would deal with rain in such conditions, and I was already preparing for the worst.

But then the engine suddenly started. I immediately jumped up, started putting on my shoes, and packing my things into my backpack. The mat took the longest: it had to be not only tightly rolled, but also carefully strapped to the upper loops of the backpack. When everything was almost ready, the vehicle started moving. As soon as Slava slowed down at the exit of the parking lot, I jumped out of the truck bed and climbed into the cab. The driver muttered a few disapproving words about my slowness, and we continued toward Omsk.

In the morning conversation, we talked about computers. He said that an acquaintance installed pirated software for him and charged up to a thousand rubles or more. I advised him to be more careful with such acquaintances: most likely, he was simply being cheated, and those programs cost much less.

On the way, the driver gave me matches and bought me mineral water — thus providing me with two of the most necessary things on the road. I actually left the mineral water in the car. Without water, traveling is harder than without food, but I believed that God would still provide an opportunity to refill my supplies.

I hope our shared journey was useful not only for me but also for the driver. In any case, I always try to leave people with only good impressions.

Immediately after getting dropped off, I went into a small forest area. There, after eating some biscuits and bagels, I continued along the highway. Normally from Omsk I would travel toward Petropavlovsk, but this time I decided to head toward Kurgan via Tyumen. Geographically, going through Petropavlovsk was shorter, but due to the double crossing of the Kazakhstan border, truck drivers avoided that route.

Around six in the morning, a Moskvich car picked me up. It didn’t take me far — only to a gas station — but the driver explained that this was where other hitchhikers usually successfully caught rides.

I don’t know what kind of cars my fellow hitchhikers managed to stop, but I got an ordinary маршрутка minibus. I said I was heading to the Black Sea, and the driver agreed to take me along the highway.

At first, everything was going well. The bus was moving steadily forward, gradually bringing me closer to my destination. But suddenly it turned sharply south. Highways sometimes curve, of course, but I became uneasy when I saw place names on road signs that I didn’t recognize at all. A growing anxiety took hold of me: where was I going?

However, we didn’t travel long — about twenty minutes. That’s how I ended up in an unfamiliar village called Fadino.

It was only seven in the morning. The sleepless night was taking its toll, and I was extremely tired. After passing through the village, I went into a small forest, spread out my mat on the grass, and lay down to rest. The sun was already warm enough to sleep comfortably.

I slept for about three hours. I still felt like sleeping more, but I decided not to waste time. A pleasant surprise was a strawberry field nearby, covered in berries. After eating my fill, I gathered my things and went back to the village to get water.

There I became ten rubles poorer but gained a 1.75-liter bottle of mineral water. I couldn’t find Fadino on my atlas, so I decided to continue along the highway toward the nearest signs of large settlements and figure out my location from the map there.

Walking along the road, I kept hitchhiking, hoping that drivers would either take me or at least explain where I was.

At noon, a small Oka car with a trailer stopped. As usual, I asked for a ride along the highway and said I was heading to the Black Sea. The driver agreed, and I was convinced I was moving in the right direction.

He turned on the music and had to lower the volume every time I asked something. So soon I stopped asking questions and rode in silence. The car was moving fast, and it felt like the day was going well — I would be able to travel far.

The signs with unfamiliar city names still worried me a little, but I blamed my poor geography knowledge. It was inconvenient to take out the atlas — it was buried deep in my backpack.

Soon we reached Pavlogradka, and I optimistically continued on, not yet suspecting that I would spend almost an entire day in these areas. I couldn’t find Pavlogradka in my atlas either, although it was a small settlement.

Before continuing, I decided to take a break. While I had no water, I tried to eat as little as possible to avoid thirst. Now I could afford to eat more freely: bread, biscuits, and candies. And since I had water again, I also opened one pack of salted nuts.

It also became clear that my backpack was starting to fall apart: the straps were slowly tearing due to a cheap purchase. While I was repairing it, a light rain passed. I waited it out in my jacket while continuing my work.

After the break, I went back to the highway and was surprised to see very few cars — much fewer than I was used to on Moscow roads. By my estimate, I was either on the road to Tyumen or, in the worst case, toward Petropavlovsk.

The driver of a milk truck that stopped asked me several times where I was going.

— To the Black Sea.

— Do you even know where the sea is?

— In the west.

— And where are you going?

After that, he explained that I was on the road toward Pavlodar and needed to turn back.

When he left, I finally found my location on the map and decided that the most reasonable thing to do was to return to Omsk.

So I headed back. Passing through Pavlogradka, I looked for water pumps — mineral water was running out quickly in the heat.

The area was beautiful. I climbed into tall reeds and took a photo. Then, after an hour of unsuccessful attempts to stop a car, I went into a small forest.

In the heat, I didn’t want to do anything and felt sleepy. After a modest snack of biscuits and bagels, I spread out my mat and fell asleep. After sleeping for more than two hours, I set off again.

It was only 18:30, and I hoped to reach Omsk by evening. Later I found out that I was almost 90 kilometers away from it and already close to the Kazakhstan border.

After returning to the highway, I couldn’t stay there for long. A crow running along the road wouldn’t leave me in peace. My diet could hardly be called proper, and I really wanted to diversify it somehow.

It seemed the bird had been slightly hit by a car, so it couldn’t fly and was only running along the roadside. I’m not a fan of graphic details, so I’ll just say that twenty minutes later I was carrying a dead crow in a bag toward the forest.

At that time, I had a little over half a liter of water left. There was no way to pluck, cut, and clean the bird properly. So, trying not to touch it too much, I started roasting it on a stick, feathers and all.

The scene was quite unusual. I even took a photo for memory, although because of the fire the crow was hardly visible in it.

The forest was not as deserted as it seemed. A local woman mushroom picker came out of the woods because of the smoke and asked for a cigarette. After hearing my refusal and looking suspiciously at what I was cooking, she quickly left.

I wasn’t hungry enough to eat the whole bird. After thoroughly roasting it, I cut off a small piece of breast meat and left the rest in the forest. Now the next few hours would show how safe and nutritious eating roasted crows on the road actually was.

While eating and returning to the highway, there was almost no time left to find a car. After an hour of unsuccessful hitchhiking, I went into a more or less deserted forest area.

It was still light, and I began preparing for the night. Taking into account my previous night’s experience, I decided to make a warmer shelter. I gathered a large pile of dry leaves using improvised “rakes” made from branches and stuffed them into my duvet cover, creating a kind of blanket.

The water had already run out after the crow dinner, so I placed my bowls in an open area, noticing that rain was coming.

From eight to nine in the evening I prepared my camp. During that time, I ate a little instant noodles, regretting how wastefully I had used my water. It was still light.

For the first time during the entire trip, I finally calmed down after the road chaos and opened the Bible — specifically the New Testament. I decided to read the Gospel of Luke during the journey.

Although I had read the entire New Testament more than ten times, I knew I would still find something new in the Scripture.

After reading a chapter, I thought about Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. Because of his disbelief, he asked God for a sign and became mute for several months. Do I not also ask for signs too often?

His answers could have been difficult for me, but I was ready for any sacrifice in order to hear God’s answer in advance. I wanted to understand why the church had banned the children’s Christian club and what I should do next.

After prayer, I covered myself with my blanket and went to sleep.