Aug 3rd Onwards to Mokba!

We wake in the morning after a night undisturbed by squeegee merchants, refreshed and ready for today’s challenge.

While we get organized, team Plane Broke drive past beeping their horn and waving, already on their way.

A check of the car shows no more oil leaks but, a piece falling off the carburetor. Neil steals a screw from ‘elsewhere’ and tightens it down again and off we go.

Not that many miles down the road we encounter our first Russian police stop. This consists of a man in a hat pointing a white stick at you and waving to the side of the road. Neil gets out of the car taking all our documents fearing the worst after what we have been told about Russian traffic police. Without so much as a look at our paperwork he waves his arm and walks away. Not totally sure whether we are free to go Neil drives away very carefully as the Russian traffic police are legally entitled to shoot people who fail to stop.

With Neil settling back into driving, we have not covered more than 30 miles when coming down a hill we are pulled over by traffic police who were concealed by a bend, one of who has what appears to be a radar gun (or a very large hair dryer). Prepared with all our documents Neil gets out of the car and shakes hands with the younger of the policemen who introduces himself as Serge. After a quick flick through the documents, Neil is waved over to the police Lada where Serge’s boss is sitting waiting. Once sitting next to him all our documents are scrutinised, then leaning back the boss utters the immortal word ‘money’. Neil returns to the car to get his wallet and a packet of red Marlboro to ease the negotiations. Once back in the Lada Neil asks how much the ‘speeding fine’ is. The boss just shrugs and opens the glove box revealing a pile of rouble notes. Not knowing where to start Neil puts 2 x 50 rouble notes into the glove box and to his surprise, after a short pause, the boss nods and closes the box. Lighting himself a cigarette, Neil offers the boss one and leaves the packet on the dashboard, and then they both walk over to examine Marvin. For the first of many times the bonnet is opened to the amusement of the Russian police, who seem amazed that what they are looking at is an engine. After handshakes all round, we attempt to drive off, but Marvin has other ideas and refuses to start. Jan moves over to the driving seat as Neil AND the police prepare to bump start us. Neil tells Jan to put the car into second gear but confused by Citroens idiosyncratic gear layout Jan inadvertently selects first gear and on dropping the clutch at a good speed, Marvin shudders to a halt! Neil comes to check what went wrong as Serge looks in the passenger side window and growls at Jan, repeating Neil’s words…… ‘SECOND GEAR’!! This time the bump start is successful and after Neil jumps back in, off we go leaving two waving policemen in our wake.

Miles and miles of wooded hilly roads pass by. We stop somewhere to pick up some food, as we head towards tonight’s destination – Moscow.

With the accelerator pump(?) determined to make a bid for freedom Neil is kept busy under the bonnet as the miles, uneventful police stops and subsequent bump starts continue.Marvin is becoming more and more difficult to start and we often have to stop for half an hour to let the engine cool down before we can continue. This probably confuses the trafffic police because everytime we stop the first thing we do is prop the bonnet up to let the engine cool down. However this does give them the oppurtunity to marvel at the awsome sight of the engine!
By the time we are approaching Moscow it is getting dark and we head for the centre aiming to meet up with Plane Broke and any other teams that have made it to the second check point, a restaurant called Holki Polki, close to Red Square. The three lane road into the centre is a nightmare, as it has no road marking and apparently five lanes of traffic!! This is made worse by the fact Marvin now wants to stall everytime the speed drops below 20mph, requiring some deft left foot braking to keep the right foot blipping the throttle. The fact that people are continuously beeping their horns worries us, until we realise they are merely trying to attract our attention to take photos of us and give us ‘the thumbs up’. After several laps, we admit defeat and head or the first hotel we see. Neil stops in the next door casino car park while Jan runs inside to see if they have a room available and secure parking! While waiting, Neil is approached by three armed security men from the casino, but is relieved to find all they want is to have their photos taken alongside our exotic car. Meanwhile Jan rejoins Neil and directs us to the parking area, secured by a uniformed guard wielding an AK47 (ARGH!!), and we book in, handing our passports over for immigration control registration. The room was expensive by Russian standards at around £40, but in the state we were in we would have happily have paid more. After taking our travelling kit to our room, which consisted of bedroom, en suite bathroom and sitting room, we head to the bar for a few well deserved drinks and after texting all and sundry we retire for another nights sleep.