Promenade aboard the Coucousique. Part II

December 1–10, 13–20, 2009

Perm

There’s a company filling Russian Post orders behind the circus.

They produce franking devices for post offices using methods from back in our grandparents’ day. They select the letters, following which a metal master die is carved out using a special pantograph engraver.

Let’s move on to the next workshop.

Smoking area

They also produce postage meters here. It turns out that there is such a thing. Companies that send out lots and lots of letters buy them for their own use. In order to avoid having to stick a stamp on each and every envelope, the company will get a postage meter. A sum of money, programmed into the machine in advance, is deducted for every stamp issued. The postal service has huge numbers of staff whose job it is to visit these companies and top up their postage meters. It goes without saying that everywhere else in the world this is all done via the internet (the company transfers the money and the machine is topped up via cable). However, in Russia we haven’t learnt how to do this yet.

They used to make classic Soviet postboxes here.

Today they make Russian ones. Boxes awaiting a lick of paint.

Text will be added at a later stage.

Do not disturb, stenciling in progress

The end result is extremely beautiful. A workshop full of YPV- N-Ps — standard wall-mounted indoor postboxes.

You can also get extra-capacious freestanding postboxes. I’ve only seen these outside big post office branches.

You also get yellow postboxes “For first class mail”. They’re called YPV-N-Ss (the S stands for special).

Temperatures dropped below −40 °C. Driving around became difficult because of the heat coming out of car (and in particular bus) exhaust pipes. Especially at night. The heat turned into a cloud of steam, completely obstructing our view.

They next morning the Coucousique wouldn’t start; the car battery couldn’t stand any more torture by freezing cold. I posted a cry for help on LiveJournal. Barely 20 minutes later, Kolia turned up.

A further 20 minutes after that so many people willing to lend a hand had congregated that a traffic jam formed on Petropavlovskaya- Kommunisticheskaya street. This was in part because the local “Echo of Moscow” radio station announced what had happened on air.

So then these kind souls towed the Coucousique to a carwash, where she could warm up. It transpired that the spark plugs had gotten wet. We bought and installed new ones. To be on the safe side, I dropped by the official Toyota Service center — turns out that the spark plugs we put in were too short. Having spent a day longer than I’d planned in Perm, I headed back to Moscow in my freshly inspected car.

Izhevsk

I was here in May 2001 at some point, but didn’t see anything aside from the territory of the IZh plant. It comes as no surprise that in the Udmurt language “Izhevsk” sounds just like “IZh car” does in English.

IZHEVSK IZH CAR

The town is fairly dreary.

Ice being harvested from the pond, everything exactly as it was in the XIX century.

The rubbish bins are green and made of mesh.

Having said that, they have grey ones too.

Pretty trolleybus stop sign, almost like the one in Yoshkar-Ola (although clearly neither one comes even remotely close to the one in Kremenchug).

I managed to get the answer to a question that has been plaguing me for ages: why does the inside of bus stop pavilions remain unlit, even when the pavilions are right next to a fully electrified kiosk? Nothing beats a lit bus stop.

Of course, the main tourist attraction in Izhevsk is the weapons mastermind Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov. In the centre of town there’s a Kalashnikov museum. In front of the entrance to the Kalashnikov museum, there’s a monument to Kalashnikov. One of the avenues is named after Kalashnikov. Everyone knows about the AK- 47. Yet despite all this, Kalashnikov is alive and well. It’s kind of like if Santa lived in Izhevsk.

Intriguingly, the majority of people believe that soldiers ran around with AK-47s during World War II, although the Soviet Army only adopted the weapon in 1949.

The museum is truly dreadful. From the outside it looks like a big flower tent.

On display inside you’ll find an icon in the corner of a stylized isba, as well as Kalashnikov’s original 1980s study.

The museum could readily be awarded the title of most boring and mediocre museum in Russia. Its redeeming feature is the basement shooting gallery where you can fire an AK-47 using live rounds.

In town there are traffic lights with a countdown in white numbers in place of the yellow light.

Aside from that, the city is having an unofficial contest for best message to the authorities painted on a fence.

Reservation site Built in 1857

We can only guess what some of the messages are supposed to mean.

Meanwhile, others are pretty straightforward.

Where’s Vitalik?
Putin is a tosser

That’s Izhevsk for you.

Kazan

Little has changed since we were last here.

Tatarstan’s courts are condoning the theft of kindergarten land No to lawlessness in the RT

They were getting ready to hang up a red light bulb about my size opposite the kremlin.

Green fir tree set against the green metro logo.

Buses in the city are painted red. They’re all manufactured by different companies. It’s the first time I’ve seen a Kamaz brand bus.

Green payphones.

All construction hoarding has red checkerboard squares on it.

The rubbish bins are all green.

Why is everything red and green here? Because those are the colours of the Republic of Tatarstan flag.

Although you also find other, unexpected hues.

Let’s hit the road.

Nizhny Novgorod

All city surfaces are cloaked in snow. Suddenly I saw Nizhny in a new, completely unexpected, beautiful light. Or perhaps it was because I drove into the central neighbourhoods, where I had never ventured before. I got the urge to stay on.