Riding along a beautiful road on Crimea's South Shore |
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Dust and Champagne
A bike-tour through Crimea
By Ivo Miesen
Prelude
As usual, a bike-trip with a group really starts a long time before. During last summer, after our bike-trip to Tichvin, Leningradskaja Oblast (Russia), the idea started for cycling through Crimea. I'd would be organising the bike-trip in my function as secretary of the esperanto cyclists movement (BEMI), and our destination was fixed as the aunnual meeting of the Ukrainian esperantists in Jalta. During the consecutive months I gathered loads of information, and the first people allready mentioned their intentention of paticipation. During autumn I got sound advise on a possible route while speaking with an old cycling friend from Kaunas, Lithuania. He cycled in Crimea about 10 years ago. Basically we followed his advise, although by advise of one of our Crimean friends, I turned the route around. So our route was fixed like following: Starting at Novoleksiivka railwaystation to Arbatka, down to Feodosia, south-east along the coast and finally a loop through Sevastopol, Bachchisaraj and Simferopol, ending with a giant descent to Jalta from the Ai-Petri pass. The visum-problems were the usual ones. Invitations we'ld receive from some esperantists from Kiev, but since they live in various districts, the invitations arrived at various times, costing many sweat and nerves. One of us, Herman, only got his invitation by fax the morning before he had to leave to Kiev, so only half a day to gather the visa!
Travelling to Kiev with bikes is a story in itself. Several European railroad frims don't accept bikes in fast trains, and/or international trains. Poland is one of the big bottlenecks (France is as worse). So it was decided to travel to Kiev by a new bus-connection from Liege in Belgium to Kiev, starting sundaymorning. But the bus- company didn't get it's permission from the various bureaucrats in time, so a new solution had to be found. Finally, our two french riders (Cyrille and Zef) took a direct bus from Paris, three of the Dutch (Yvonne, Herman and Kieg) travelled by small trains to Poland, and I would disassemble my bike, camouflage it as usual luggage, and take the fast train. Only when we entered the Ukrainian railroad system travel problems vanished. The Ukrainian Railroads (like all FSU railroads) are very civilized, and accept bikes as normal luggage.
In Kiev we lost some time with the usual OVIR-problems, they wanted to take three days for our registration, so we decided to postpone untill Jalta. Finally we arrived in Novoleksiivka. Directly some of our Jalta friends arrived, and the group gathered for the first time. In total 13 people were present, I'll present them very briefly:
Kieg, our doyen, He's a 70 years old former translator, and very experienced cyclist from the Netherlands
Zef is second in age, he's 65, and comes from Bretagne, France. He was flying the Breton flague on his bike, which was recognised by somebody in Kiev.
Cyrille is the second frenchman, a policeman from Paris.
To continue with the Dutch, Herman participated allready twice in our Russian rides. He rides the most daft bikes of all, a LWB-recumbent.
Yvonne is the only lady in the group, coming from the Netherlands also. She has quite some experience in bike- touring in the west, but hardly in the east.
I closed the line of western cyclists.
From Kiev Volodja takes part. He is an experienced esperantist, but quite new to cycling.
From Jalta a whole bunch arrives.
Misha ia a painter and experienced tourist.
Vadim works for the youth-department and is very active in the scouts-movement.
4 Cyclists from Jalta also participate, although they are no esperantists.
Sergej is all-Ukrainia champion in cycling, although being a veteran. He owns a small bike- shop in Jalta.
Jevgeni is an experienced mountaineer from Jalta.
Both the other Sergej and Valentin are good cyclists, although not being of the level of both Jevgeni and Sergei 1.
Arbatka
So we headed out to the northern parto of Arbatka. At it's norhtern tip, Arbatka is connected to the mainland by a bridge. Shortly after the bridge asfalt ends. About 10kms south of the bridge is a village which was advised to us as being an excellent place of gathering water, so we filled up completely. After that, civilization ended, as did asfalt.
The group quickly seperated in many subgroups. It proved that some of our Jalta-guys (the non-esperantists) were very fast and technical riders, so they were blasting away. Some others, like Cyrille, had huge problems negotiating the sandy patches. So the group spread out over several kilometers. Every now and then the first riders would stop at a convenient place to wait for the others. This was not allways practical, since in many places of Arbatka, there are no well defined roads. Tracks have been made by cars, and sometimes there are three or four paralel of eachother. Towards the evening we passed an ostrich-farm, and several kilometers south of it camp was made. Kieg and Volodja were not yet present, so Herman unloaded and went back. He returned when it was nearly dark, Kieg's tyre had exploded several times. Some problems started to occur within the group. The four Jalta-riders pitched camp together, and didn't want to eat with the group. Also they fixed their own departure time, way earlier than we planned. I was a bit angry at them, since I asked the group to stay together after 1700hours, to prevent problems like those happened with Kieg.
Next day, the four Jalta non-esperantist set out early alone, while the nine others continued somewhat later. The pace was quite low, mechanical problems started with the bike of Volodja (an old Turist). He broke his front-rack and a few spokes. The sandy patches forced Yvonne to walk for quite some time. But eventually we managed to survive Arbatka in two days. The Jalta guys were waiting at the southern tip of the strip, they had arrived around noon, while we arrived only in the early evening.
Camping spot outside of Koktebel |
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More group-problems emerged. They were still fresh and wanted to continue, while some of us were at the end of their forces. Kieg and Yvonne wanted to camp immediately, and, not waiting for a group decision, started to pitch camp. Cyrille got angry, grabbed his bike, and rode off... into the wrong direction. Finally we managed to convince Yvonne and Kieg to continue to a quiter village, five kilometers away. The four Jalta guys were again the fastest for that stretch, and dashed through the village. Volodja and I fetched water, and we decided to camp next to the village, containing about a dozen houses. The agreement had been clear, 5kms to the next village, and not any further. So our group was a lot smaller than in the beginning, and I was figuring out if it would be possible to find Cyrille somewhere down the road.
South-Eastern Crimea
We were only a few kilometers moving after our night in Lvove, when we met the four Crimeans again. They had pitched camp only a few kilometers further on. Herman had seen one of them (Sergej 1) inthe early morning, when he was checking where we were. So now most of the group was united again, only Cyrille was still missing. Some kilometers further on a new problem occured. The rear gear-changer of Volodja's bike commited suicide in his spokes. He allready feared for the end of his trip, but for experienced cyclists this is only a minor problem. So we quickly got his bike riding again, albeith with only one gear.
Some kilometers further on we stumbeld over Cyrille. He was having breakfast at a road-side restaurant serving Tatar- food. Now the whole group was united again we had a discussion on the riding-style. The conlusion was simple. The four Crimean-esperantists were both strong and lightly loaded. This meant that the slow pace of some of us was a big problem for them. Also their style of riding was more racy, while we took the tourist approach. So we quickly decided to split up. They would continue on via some very difficult mountain-tracks, while we qould stick to the south-coast, taking a slower speed.
Camping spot outside of Koktebel |
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In Feodosia Volodja managed to retrieve a new gear-changer, so while the others were visiting a museum, I changed the part. Leaving Feodosia meant entering the lower mountain- ranges. There proved to be far more mountain-passes than our western map predicted. Cyrille was very glad to spot them. Most of them were not mentioned on the map, so official altitude and name was not known. Since he collects mountain-passes, as a member of the 'Confrerie des Cent Cols', he noted all of them, and checked the altitude with his altimeter. So during this cycling-season some extra mountain-passes will be registered among the appopriate cycling bodies... While descending the first pass some problems occured. The descent was very bumpy, and quickly one of my front-panniers parted company. I managed to stop unharmed. about 1km further I saw Volodja standing at the side of the road. It appeared that his rear-derailleur was tangled in his rear-wheel again, resulting in a blocked wheel. Also he managed to escape a crash. Misha knew an excellent camping-spot in Koktebel, so we decided to finish there. It indeed proved to be excellent, at the far side of the beach, in the dunes, just underneath the glider-field.
For the next day our first official pass was scheduled, but more were on the road. Cyrille decided to skip sightseeing in Sudak, but hurry on to hunt another pass. We arranged a meeting-spot and agreed on the appropriate markers on near the road. So after we descended to Sudak in great fog, he went straight on. Seeing the Sudak-fortress appearing between the clouds and fog really was very eerie. It looked like some medieval film. I liked it a lot more than under sunny conditions. Suddenly Valentin and Sergej 2 appeared, they had parted company with Jevgeni and Sergej 1, due to the different riding-styles.
Near the fortress we found an excellent spot for lunch, to which Kieg contributed our first of many bottles of champagne. Of course champagne-glasses were missing, but anything will serve the cause, even an empty tin of mais. While leaving Sudak I finally found a good map, a Russian-language topographical map of the whole of Crimea. Kieg spotted an announcement on Tatar-music that night. He and Yvonne decided to attent the concert and take a cab to the agreed camping-spot.
With a small group we continued through the fog. After several passes, and some dangerous descents we neared the consented crossroads. Just before it Cyrille waved us down. He had skipped the pass due to the appalling weather- conditions. But he found a good camping-spot, a meadow next to a farm. So we pitched camp, and fixed our markers next to the road (a recumbent-flag + LED-light). The farmer provided some fresh products. When we nearly finished pitching camp, Valentin appeared. He decided to ride with us. Our markers had attracted him. That evening Vadim was giving him his first esperanto-course. At the end of dinner a car stopped at our spot. It was indeed Yvonne and Kieg, who really enjoyed the concert.
While awakening, it was still highly foggy, so no new conditions. Also the road proved the same, up you go, and then down again to coastal level. At coastal level it was still foggy, but the mountains again were beautifull. When I interrupted descending to take some pictures, a car stopped. A Russian couple wanted to picture me. The woman lined up next to me. Seeing her looks (suffering from make-up abuse) I didn't hand over my own camera. They really looked like new-Russians.
Fog ceased around midday. Cyrille and I had decided to assault the Anharskij-Pereval, so we again cosnented on a meeting-spot, the Partisan-monument at the end of Alushta. When we took a short-cut to the pass, we were directly confrontaded with a steep wall of at least 15%. I did hurt my achilles-tendon here, since my bike was grossly overgeared. The pass itself was quite OK, but the descent great. Finally a smooth road, so I could let it go. At nightfall I arrived near the partisan-monument. Kieg approached, he was heading for the centre to make a phone-call. At the monument Vadim was giving indications, but the group was too well hidden to find them on my own. For Volodja this would be the last evening, so we had a good bonfire together with some champagne.
The next day Cyrille was complaining of general weakness. Apparantly he had been overdoing it on the Anharskij-Pereval. My achilles-tendon was also still aching, so we decided to skip our plans for the mountain-road to Jalta. In stead the whole group (minus Volodja) would take the sea-road. But first some group-pictures at the Partisan-monument before Volodja parted.
After the bear-mountain we headed for the coast over very small roads. Vadim new the roads through the Artek-youthcamp very well, so he guided that part. Taking many detours and some sight-seeing resulted in 40km in a full day! In Jalta we headed for the house of Jefim Zajdman, the eminence grise of the Jalta-esperantists. No camping for that night, we would be housed among local esperantists, Cyrille and myself were quartered in at Vadim's house.
During the morning we collected again at Jefims house. Some people were still sorting-out luggage. Especially Kieg left half of his weight in Jalta. Some discussion arose about our plans. None of the locals could bike the next day. Vadim had to go to a Jamboree, while Misha had to tend some business. So we would meet again in Sevastopol, where Herman and Cyrille would be taking the train. Cyrille had checked the time-tables at home, according to him the train left around 3pm. So we planned getting past the Badjarpass and entering Sevastopol around noon the next day.
Since everybody tended his businesses, we only left Jalta at 1pm. Kieg had departured earlier on, he did't want to wait. Our plan would be to gradually gain height and not unnecessarily loosing it. So we would choose our road each time again based on these preconditions. From Jalta to Foros there are basically 3 roads. The sea-road, which sometimes merges with the middle road. For the first part the main-road is the highest one, but later the main-road is in the middle, hovering between 100 and 300ms altitude. The sea-road sometimes merges with the middle-road. In Alupka Cyrille didn't see the front-riders turn right to evade loosing altitude. He dashed past in the descent. There was no possibility to catch him, since he's the fastest descender in the group. The main bunch followed the old Sevastopol-road. Somewhere past Alupka we were having lunch, when Cyrille suddenly appeared. He had been riding through central Alupka, visiting a castle on the way. It was lucky coincidence, since we would head for the upper road only a couple of kilometers later.
The map informed us that the upper-road was nearly uninhabited. So in the last village (Opolznevoje) we had to replenish our supplies. While exiting the shop a local woman spotted Zef's Breton flag. She asked which Republic that would be. Apparantly she held us for inhabitants of some strange Autonomous Russian Republic. When she heared that Zef was from France, she could hardly believe her ears. After a short while we continued on. The road proved to be the best stretch of the whole ride. We were genuinely surprised about the absence of motorised traffic, apart from some lorries. The scenery was stunning. Mostly rocks and clifs on our right hand, towering several hundreds of meters above us, and to the left a steep mountain downwards. Clouds were blocking the view of the sea, so it could very well have been at 2000ms altitude somewhere in the mountains. Now and then we had to negotiate some damaged roads, due to land-slides. At 2 instances the road was impassable for 4-wheeled traffic, but not for us. First the road was suddenly 1m lower than previously, later on a stretch of only 30cms of asfalt was left over. We had hardly any idea where we were exactly, but after several hours civilization became visible. Some climbers passed us, and a while later the first house appeared. The last kilometers were downhill untill the old Sevastopol road again. When I looked back at the junction I spotted a 'closed road' sign. Well, the road was not closed for us.
Climbing the Badjar-pass we had some superb views both on the natural scenery as on the Resurrection church. At the top we gathered the group again. The first village in the valley was decided as the place to camp. Those being first on the top entered the descnet first. In the village I informed at a local restaurant about drinking water. The 'Pushkin-well' was shown to me. When I returned with the water, the others were allready seated at the restaurant. The owner, upon hearing where we came from, opened a bottle of champagne. He was a Crimean Tatar, and really showed off their hospitality. Sadly his kitchen was closed, so we couldn't become real customers. Just after the village we camped again, after the best day of the ride.
Since we were allready quite close to Sevastopol, we took it easy during the morning. While we were having breakfast a van appeared, and went to the next meadow. The van-people returned when we were packing. They obviously had problems restarting the van, so after a while we were asked to give a push. They took it for completely normal that a group of cyclists was camping next to the road.
Entering Sevastopol proved very easy, no sign of controls, even the GAI-outpost, normal for Russian cities, was missing. In Sevastopol we had to ask several times for directions. While searchng a way to cross the railroad-tracks, we heard a familiar sound. Misha had appeared. He directed us over the tracks, and directly Kieg reappeared. So we were reunited again. Misha, Herman and Cyrille went inside to arrange tickets. While checking their tickets, Cyrille suddenly remarked that the time indicated was completely wrong, so a light panic arose. This soon became full panic when the enquiries showed that the train around 3pm was leaving from Simferopol, not Sevastopol. With hardly an hour to go a frantic search for solutions began. Quickly it was decided that a car would be needed, so we went to the Railway-forecort. Several cars were waiting, and the largest was selected. The driver agreed to bring them lightning-fast to Simferopol for 70 Hrivna's + possible speeding-tickets. Everybody assited in loading the car and of they went.
When they were off we spent some time chatting with Kieg and Misha and finally decided to celebrate with a lunch somewhere at the waterside. Misha showed us around. He did his military-service at the Black-Sea fleet, so he knew the city. His old ship even still was in the harbour. We even had a nice talk with a fleet-captain. The restaurant was less pleasant, many people were approaching us with different proposals. But the champagne was good as ever. After lunch we phoned Volodja to inform him about the departure of Kieg and Cyrille. They had just phoned him and apparantly they missed the train by 5 minutes. So they booked for the evening-train, and Volodja would check things out with the bus-company. We lef Sevastopol with a small boat heading north, and camped somewhere north of the Sevastopol-Simferopol road.
Behaving like decent tourists
The next day we headed for Bachchisaray. The riding-order was reversed now. A headwind showwed hte diferent strenghts of the riders, Yvonne, our heavyweigh champion now was first in line. In Bachchisaray we stopped at a bakery, serving easter-bread. Too good to miss. The palace was also excellent. It was in fact the first place were we spotted other westerners since Kiev. A French teacher, a group of Polish backpackers and a group of elderly germans were also visiting it. Misha stayed with the bikes and started painting while we went inside. For me it was especially interesting, since the Karaim parts of it were known for me from Lithuania. In the palace Kieg had a long conversation with a Tatar-woman. She had been deported to one of the Azian rpublics in her youth, an area where Kieg had been touring. Language-crazy as he is, he was grilling her about various Crimean-Tatar words.
After the palace we followed the valley to the monastry. Kieg and Yvonne opted for a lunch at a cafetaria, while we were three to go up to the monastry, and lunching after it. Misha spotted a small outlet selling skull-caps, so he directly bought one. He is a boudhist, so it suited him very well. While lunching we spotted many backpackers heading to Chufut-Kale. We briefly considered camping out there, but the village nearby was not comforting enough from the security-point of view. So we headed out for Manhup-Kale. After some searching we managed to find the good sidetrack to Manhup-Kale. From there on it was unpaved for several kilomters. Since darkness was approaching rapidly we decided to camp at a large field at the foot of Manhup. A huge group of young people from Zaparozhie (?) was allready camping there. We agreed our planning for the next day. Jalta was only 70-odd kilometers away, so we could afford to take it easy next day. We'd split up for Manhup. Kieg, Zef and Misha would go up first, while Yvonne and myself would go after they returned. In that way allways somebody would attend the camp. Since I was in the second shift I joined the big group when the others went to sleep. It was nice to be in the good tourist-group atmosphere again. Some of them spoke passable English, so a conversation was possible. It was well after midnight when I decided to return to my tent.
The next day I only awoke when the others returned. They told us about the hike up, and Yvonne decided not to go. She slipped while crossing the railroad tracks in Bachchisary, and her ankle was still hurting. Also her shoes were not fit for the walk up. Being left alone I decided to bike up, and after getting directions from Misha (keep to your right) I set off. So I kept to my right, but way to early. After half a kilometer of dragging and lifting my bike over obstacles I concluded that this was the wrong right-road. Indeed it was. A rideable jeep-road was available. From there on it was quite possible, only some loose stones forced me to walk a little bit of the time. When doing the final approach of Manhup, I again saw some backpackers. Manhup itself was nice. Especially since it's not spoilt for tourist-purposes. You can wander around freely, and have to search in the guide-books to find out what's what.
After descending from Manhup we broke up. We planned to take an unpaved shortcut to the mainroad to Jalta. Rapidly it proved less passable than imagined. Yvonne turned around since it was impassible for her. Anyway we had agreed about a meeting-place in case we would split up. The four of us pushed on. After some oneandahalf hours of dirt-tracking we arrived at a cross-roads. Misha asked directions from a local farmer. Directions which proved to be completely impassable. 'She must be some sort of partizan' Misha remarked as we retraced. In fact we passed the side-track to Manhup at 6pm, about 3 hours after we left it....
Yvonne now was well ahead of us. Now and then we asked if people had seen her. At the meeting-point she was nearly 2 hours ahead, but had carried on. We pitched camp in a hurry, since it was nearly dark. After dinner Kieg went back to the village. He wanted to attend easters-mass (it was easters-night now). Somwhere at night he returned.
The next morning we leasurely set out. It was only 50kms to Jalta, and due to the different climbing-speeds we knew that we would meet-up with Yvonne somewhere during the ascent. In the last village before the ascent we stopped for ice-creams and sweets. While we were eating and drinking three shining cars stopped. Out came some very fancy women and broad-shouldered men, no question about their source of income. They hardly remarked us. While starting the ascent we again met dozens and dozens of backpackers. At the bolshoi Kanjon we stopped at a waterfall, and about 100ms further on spotted Yvonne. She had been walking around in the Bolshoi Kanjon. We agreed upon meeting at the top of Ai-Petri pass, in the cabin of Misha. We all ascended on our own pace. In fact the Ai-Petri is not so typically Crimean, it's more like any pass in a Western-European middle-mountain range. At the top the giant radar-domes of the military installatins were visible. When I arrived at Misha's cabin tea was allready boiling. After some two hours everybody was present and we started to check the bikes for the downhill. It would be a steep one, so brakes and luggage had to be checked. I enjoyed the downhill, very technical, just he way I like it. At the Uchan-Su waterfalls I stopped to wait for the others.
The rest of the ride to Jalta was uneventfull. When arriving at the scheduled hotel for the esperanto-meeting there was a note that it would be at another one, at the coast. It cost us a while to find it, but soon we would find ourselves in the warmth of a typical esperanto-meeting.
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