Day 17

Distance Covered: 282 miles

Total Distance Covered: 3315 miles

Early start to beat the border traffic proved in vain but eventually left the Ukraine and apprehensively headed to the Russian checkpoint. Our concern worsened when first we sat in a seemingly meaningless queue for the best part of an hour and then met an Austrian team who had been in no-mans-land for 5 days (more on this later). However we needn’t have worried as it turns out Russian officials are just as excited as the rest of us by big yellow ambulances with working lights and sirens! After letting them play around for a bit they help us no end when filling out our customs paperwork and gave us good advice on modifying the van to pass any future police checkpoints (we now have rather fetching blankets over the lights and have taped over any mention of the word ambulance). We then said our goodbyes to the guards and the Austrian team, who are having issues because they have export plates on the vehicle and so the Russians have told them that they must pay  31,000 for a full military escort to the Kazakh border. On the road again we warded off another official with our ‘no speaky Russian’ technique and headed for Volgograd. Several hours and 2 time zones later we arrived in Volgograd before promptly leaving when we couldn’t find anywhere to park and the level of smog and traffic was unappealing, instead we settled for a truck stop on the road out of town.