My Next Adventure: Ride South to North Across Russia and Former Soviet and Warsaw Pact Countries

In mid-August of next year I am planning to ride north from Odessa, Ukraine, to Helsinki, Finland, by way of several former Soviet and Warsaw Pact states.

The trip is in honor of my paternal grandfather.  He escaped the Cossack slaughter of Jews under the Tsar at the end of the 19th Century, got to America, then returned to Odessa in August of 1914.  The biggest mistake of his life.  He was going to drafted into the Army and only escaped by walking from Odessa to Finland.  It took six months and he barely got out of Russia alive.  The story is here.

I am hoping for an easier trip, which is why I am not traveling by the shortest route north through eastern Ukraine and western Russia. Currently, my route has no active conflicts.  But I am going to write to every U.S. Embassy along the route to let them know an American tourist will be riding through these countries in August of next year.

Here is the route:  From Odessa, I will ride northwest through Moldova and eastern Romania.  Then I will ride north through western Ukraine and eastern Poland.  From there I ride northeast through Belarus, then into the three Baltic States: Lithuania, Lativia and Estonia.

From Estonia I will take a ferry to Helsinki, Finland, then another ferry to St. Petersburg, Russia.

I plan to ride a single-speed road bike about 100 miles per day and complete the trip to the Baltic Sea in two weeks.  Then Helsinki and three days in St. Petersburg and back to Finland.

From Finland I will take a ferry to Sweden then ride into Norway and take another Ferry to Denmark.  From Denmark I will go to Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and France to see friends then fly back home.  The entire trip should take a month.

If you have advice, besides stay home, I am listening.  

Book 18 of 2016, "SIN" by Zakhar Prelepin

Among the many praises of Leo Tolstoy is that he was a real combat soldier who maintained the sensitivity to write about both war and peace.  Which he did most grandly in a famous novel with that very title:  War and Peace.  Tolstoy fought in the bloody Crimean War in the 1850s.

One hundred and fifty years later Zakhar Prelepin fought in the War in Chechnya in a Russian Special Forces unit.  In 2007, barely three years after returning from the war, Prelepin published the Novel in short stories, "Sin."

Amazon has a excellent summary:

In the episodes of Zakharka’s life, presented here in non-chronological order, we see him as a little boy, a lovelorn teenager, a hard-drinking grave-digger, a nightclub bouncer, a father, and a soldier in Chechnya. Sin offers a fascinating glimpse into the recent Russian past, as well as its present, with its unemployment, poverty, violence, and local wars – social problems that may be found in many corners of the world. Zakhar Prilepin presents these realities through the eyes of Zakharka, taking us along on the life-affirming journey of his unforgettable protagonist.

At the end of the series of stories that make up most of the book are several poems and one final story about several soldiers in a lonely outpost.  Although the entire book was vivid to the point I could almost smell some of the scenes, this final story puts the reader right in the middle of a group of soldiers who are cut off from their unit, have no orders and no information.  They don't know whether to stay in the outpost or return to the base that is clearly under attack.  Their relief unit is hours overdue.  The sound of fighting gets more intense.

Do they have a unit to return to?  They are running out of food, running out of options.  The sergeant in charge of the detachments leads his men back to the base.  They confront and kill a group of Chechens on their way back.  They now have a truck.  They return to the base and the story ends with a twist that I did not expect, but after I read it seemed like the perfect ending to a Russian war story.

The poetry that preceded the final story also gave me a sense of Prelepin's control of language.  I am sure the final story was even better with the images from the poems in my head.

So I recommend this book highly, especially to soldiers, especially those who have had trouble returning to civilian life after war service.  I also recommend reading the poetry and the last story first.  The view of war we get at the end makes the stories of peace more intense, and more sad.

"Obama's Going to Take Our Guns" In the Army Paranoia is Normal

At the end of January 2009, my unit mobilized for deployment to Iraq.  We trained for two months at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, before flying to Kuwait then Iraq.

From the day we landed in Oklahoma, I heard "Obama is going to take our guns."  I heard it in the barracks, I heard in the mess hall, I heard it in the motor pool and especially in the lines we stood in to draw equipment and gear.

The majority of the soldiers I deployed with either fully believed or had some inclination to believe that President Barack Obama was going to begin confiscating guns while we were deployed to Iraq.

At first I thought they had to be kidding, but it quickly became clear that between what they heard from the NRA, Fox News, and Conservative Radio, many of my fellow soldiers sincerely believed Obama was coming for their guns.

Now more than 2,700 days later, I just heard a Conservative saying that Obama will be "coming after our guns" before he leaves office.  In the Army paranoia is normal, and that makes sense.  Security requires that as few people as possible know sensitive information.

To put it another way:  Ignorance saves lives.

But ignorance is the breeding ground of rumors and rumors are the fetid soil that grows paranoia.  So it made some terrible sense that so many people would believe something as crazy as "Obama is coming for your guns."  But they did.  And now that Obama has been in office 2,700+ days, some of those soldiers still believe Obama is coming for their guns.