The Return of Moumousique. Part II

July 08–10, 2009

I managed to locate a CB radio company in Novosibirsk, at 36 Marx Street. So I drive over, but the last building on the street is 30. I call the company. The guy on the phone says their office is near the ring road and Blyukher Street. I drive down the ring road and turn onto Blyukher Street. He asks what I see. I tell him I see the intersection with Vatutin Street. He says they don’t intersect. I get out of the car to check with my own eyes—they do. We begin to compare notes on other landmarks. Five minutes later, I realize I’m reliving the story in the Soviet film The Irony of Fate: despite all the coincidences, the company is actually in Omsk.

You often see people selling something by the side of the road here. Some are peddling brooms; others offer cornflakes in rabbit-shaped plastic bags. The biggest mystery about all this is why no one seems to have any desire to increase their sales. It would be incredibly easy: just set up a cardboard sign on the side of the road that says “Apples—500 meters.” And then set up shop with your apples 500 meters further down. Instead, people prefer to remain a blur out the car window, with unidentified goods in their indistinct dusty pails. The best example of this unwillingness to make money is the old lady lying on the side of the road with a book.

Omsk

The following day, I arrived at 36 Marx Street in Omsk and quickly got a new car antenna hooked up to replace the one that was barbarically ripped out at the certified official Land Rover dealership in Krasnoyarsk.

Omsk is still meh.

Hideous buildings are gradually popping up all over the city.

There’s only one interesting detail here: the storm drains are set back from the road in special sidewalk bays. Cyclists can rejoice.

The purpose of having a CB radio in your car is to communicate with long-haul truckers. Why did a semi truck just hit the brakes and let a car hauler quickly pass him? With a radio, you know right away, because this maneuver was preceded by an exchange on the air:

“Sure, I’ll pull over a bit. You have time, don’t worry.”
“Thanks, brother.”

Long-haul truckers live in their own special world, one that consists of freight, route assignments, avoiding the cops, driving, rest stops and weeks of living away from home. Everyone constantly wishes each other luck. The use of CB radios to report the situation on the road is an interesting social mechanism. Truckers warn each other about speed traps not out of altruism, but because it also gives them a potential opportunity to find out what’s happening on the road ahead of them. For example:

“Guys, whoever’s headed towards Tyumen, there’s a bear-mobile working the intersection.”
“Thanks. It’s a clean shot for a long way out ahead of you.”
“Thanks, good luck!”

“Bear-mobile” is slang for police car. Passenger cars can only communicate with their headlights, but truckers have a radio network covering a 5–10 kilometer radius around them. It might seem like long-haul truckers are courteous for no reason, but this is a false impression. They communicate to exchange mutually beneficial information with oncoming vehicles. That’s the backbone of this long-term strategy.

Whenever someone forgets to warn others about a police trap, the oncoming drivers are indignant.

“Hey, you run out of credit on your radio or something? Can’t be bothered to let others know about the situation? There’s a Volvo that just got caught on the bridge with his pants down.”

This serves as a lesson for the young and inexperienced.

“There’s a bear-mobile with a camera ahead of you, guys.” The semi drivers have no idea they’re talking to the small green Moumousique. In return, they tell me what the deal is up ahead for me.

Trucks travelling together also use CB radios to communicate with one another.

“Pete, why you turning?”
“Cause I’m about to pass the fuck out.”
“All right, let’s take a coffee break and let these babies cool off, shall we?”

By the way, this year the situation on the roads in Russia improved in at least one aspect: if there’s roadwork, signs are now set up somewhat in advance (previously, they’d only appear one meter before the beginning of the actual roadwork). This is a huge step forward.

There are new signs on all the roads with the new Russian single emergency number for police, fire and ambulance. By the way, you can’t call 03 (the old Russian number for an ambulance) from an iPhone, but you can call 911.

Emergency phone number: 112

Tyumen

Our PSAs have appeared on the streets of the city. Naturally, the municipality placed them in the worst spots, on billboards obstructed by trees, but it’s still a good start.

Our daughter’s a big girl already. We never make her buckle up

Like in Omsk, the storm drains in Tyumen are tucked into the sidewalk.

Yekaterinburg

The cityscape.

A tongue twister.

HOTEL SVERDLOVSKTRANSAGENCY

A municipal lollipop.

The main distinctive detail here is the fenced-in tram stops.

The city was spruced up and given a couple of new futuristic structures and a good scrubbing in advance of the summit that took place here earlier this year.

They even went so far as to add a steam train pictogram to the directional signage for the train station.

K. Liebknecht Street | Train Station | Malyshev Street

Karabash

This is the place people scare their kids with. Karabash-barabash. The most polluted place in all of Russia.

It didn’t quite live up to the hell on earth I was expecting to see. A factory stands in the middle of the Martian landscape. I would have normally driven by and not noticed.

I found the small town just over the hill. Some children were playing on a construction site for a panel apartment building. This cast my mind back to the days when children could still play on construction sites, putting nails on the rails of the crane tower and running across concrete slabs. Suddenly one of the boys noticed the strange logo-covered car in front of him. “Hey, check out the craaaazy fucking car!” he yelled to his buddy.

That’s when I really paused to consider the living conditions in Karabash.

Kasli

In order to somehow justify its fame as place known for its wrought iron, particular attention is paid to swamp fences here.