Aug 9th to 11th - Our Final Aktobe Days

Our friendly kidnappers turn up at the arranged time and take us back to Marvin. We notice that various things have gone missing from the car overnight but a quick word gets the radio put back! Unfortunately the opinion of our bush mechanic is Marvin is dead. Not wanting to let us down, Marvin is hitched up to the Lada again and towed to another garage but after much discussion, poking and prodding they shake their heads and walk away. The engine has little or no compression, and made the last few miles into Aktobe with next to no oil. Bitterly disappointed we decide to call it a day. One of the ‘captors’, Nurken by name, who can hardly speak any English keeps repeating ‘beautiful car, beautiful car’ and we decide he is to be Marvins new owner. We have never seen anyone so happy to be given a dead car! The next trip is to a compound surrounded by 10ft high chain link fence with a tower that’s home to a man with a big gun! We all take pictures of each other with Marvin and then with a tear in our eyes we leave him for the last time. Back at the hotel Nurken explains through Nurgul, our interpreter for the day that he wants the handover of ownership to be done legally and above board so we arrange to spend the following day sorting it out. The following day is spent trawling around official building that would have been marked for demolition if they had been in England. Nurken takes us back to our hotel and we arrange to meet him again the next morning to continue the process. He turns up with a friend who drives us around to various places to get Marvin signed over. They take us out for a meal and then back to our hotel after a tiring day and once again arrange to see us the next day. We spend much of the next day being driven around Aktobe to sort out more paperwork – it seems never ending. We go to lots more dilapidated buildings and we stand around a lot while the paperwork is being sorted and they need us to sign Marvin away. Our last visit that day is to Aktobes equivalent of Scotland Yard and we wait until the Chief of Police finishes his business lunch and returns to the office, in a new modern building, there is more paperwork to sign and we head back to the hotel. Later we go to a local travel agency and book flights back to Moscow and then onto London.

We have a few days to wait so we book into the hotel and have our laundry done and relax for the rest of the day. As we walk around Aktobe with nowhere to go, we just take in the sights and it seems the locals are doing the same, everywhere we go the locals stop to look at us, it takes a while to work out that we must look pretty strange to them, Neil is 6’ 3” with long hair and a beard, dressed in striped baggies and Jan is almost 5’ – we look a bit like a mop and bucket, whilst the local men are clean shaven with short hair, no wonder we draw attention. That evening we head to a pizzeria we had spotted and all through the meal people are watching us and pointing, children come to stand at our table to look at ‘the strange foreigners’, a BIG man with long hair and a beard seems to be more interesting than their meals. Back at the hotel, we have a couple of drinks and head to bed early, we seem to have spent a lot of time sleeping, which isn’t surprising because of the heat.

We spend the following morning wandering around and doing a little shopping then later that afternoon Nurken turns up with friends, Clara speaks English, and we share a drink and a laugh in the bar opposite the hotel. Clara is determined she will meet and marry a Frenchman ‘because they look good and have money too’ she explains. She also tells us that they only see one English person a year in the bank where she works, again we realise why we have drawn so much attention. While we are there a security guard comes over to inform us that another rally team has turned up at the hotel so we wander over to say hello. We catch up with each other’s news and they head on their way. Another drink with Nurken and his friends and they head off until the next day, we head to our room and spend the rest of the day drinking and watching television, then after a meal, made from things on our shopping trip, we retire for the night. The next morning we set off again to complete the legalities of leaving Marvin and with only one more office to visit, Nurken takes us back to the hotel and takes all our paperwork with him to get the final signature needed. He arranges to be back at 9pm that night to hand all our paperwork back to us – but he doesn’t turn up. We spend a couple of hours trying to phone his friend who is at work and whose family can’t understand English, then worried and tired we head off to bed for our last nights sleep in Aktobe.