Gunnar Rundgren på resa / on tour

Simferopol 28 November,

Den 27:e slog jag nytt rekord och cyklade 178 km, svag medvind, men det var anda femtio kilometer langre an tidigare....

178 km
The morning the 27 November it was nice weather. It was sunny, around zero and there was a weak wind from the North. I realise that this would be the last chance the upgrade my day trip record, as what was ahead of me was 170 km of plains and after than the terrain in South Crimea, which is the touristic part, is mountainous, and there is no chance that the day trips will be long. So I set my mind on reaching a place North of Simferopol, which would make the distance around 160 km. Unfortunately I started a bit late, around 8 in the morning. And as days are short and sun is down already at four but up already at seven (personally I think they should adjust their time zone one hour earlier) It is not so smart not to use that first hour of light. Anyway, I was in good shape and did nothing but riding my bike and take short breaks, two food breaks and two more the take in and let out liquids. Yes and then I stopped for my only shot with the camera for that day, see below. I reached the outskirts of Simferopol at around four and felt fit enough to continue into the city center and look for a hotel there. Once in the city center I ran into a Mc Donalds and suddenly felt an urge for hamburger and french fries and took such a meal before going to a hotel. When I reached hotel Ukraina I had done 178 km - 50 km longer than any day before. The total distance by bicycle is now 2218 km.

I passed the border to Crimea in the beginning of the day. There is actually a border post, but nobody checked anything. Crimea is an autonomus republic within Ukraine. I think there are many different opinions about how autonomus this autonomus republic should be and it is a political minefield. I just note the following:
-During my two days on Crimea I see few Ukrainian flags and many Crimean flags
-Russian is more common language here than Ukrainian (both of them are "official")
-I see a lot of USSR monuments and things intact, such as statues of Lenin, streetnames etc.
-I see many Mosques (this is linked the the Crimean Tartars that long time ago constituted a majority of the population here).
 
The Northern part of Crimea looks pretty much the same as the plains I have been travelling through the last ten days. It is almost completely flat, and irrigated with the same water from the enormous Kachovka reservoir in Dnepr - I am told this is the biggest irrigation system in Europe. 

In Poland and Lithuania they sell mushroom and honey along the streets. In Ukraine it has mainly been apples all along, But here there was also quite some fish trade - here carp.



I think me story would bot be complete without showing one of these (whatever they are called in English). They are very common in Ukraine. Sometimes the side-thing is not for passangers but just a flat surface for loading, e.g hay, fish, apples or a goat (I have seen all of them)


Today:scouting
Obviously I was a bit tired today after a long ride yesterday. In addition it was very cold today. In any case I had planned to spend two days based in Simferopol scouting the Southern part of Crimea, where the mountain range, the famous beaches and palaces are. So I started today going Eastward to Feodosia and Sudak. I combined bus, taxi and hitch-hiking. As I said before in Ukraine they expect to get paid for picking you up. I rode 40 km with one guy and he had the car full all the time, as soon as one left he picked up another one. There was no discussion about the fare, everybody just gave him a bill. I don't know if there is a "fixed" rate, if you pay per km (like the buses) or if it is a bit that you pay after your ability?

It was freezing cold the whole day. But I had a nice walk and a meal in Feodosia, I crossed the Crimean range to Sudak and there I visited a very impressive ruin of a Genoese fort. I was more inspired by the view tha the fort itself therefore I have no picture of the ruins.



Here it is: The Black Sea! Seen from the Fort in Sudak.

Internet and ATMs
Don't think I mentioned these two things. There are many more ATMs in Ukraine than in Sweden. Even in very small places you find a number of ATMs. In most of them my card works, but in quite a lot of them I can't withdraw more than a few hundred hrivnas (divide by eight for a euro) at the time. I seem to get most money out of the Raffaisen bank machines......

In many places the Post office or Ukrtelecom have internet caf'es. Mostly there are pretty basic, sometimes there are big ques. Now is Friday evening and the youngsters seem to prefer partying as there are many computers free here. This in Simferopol is the biggest place I have been to, they have 40 computers. 3 UAH per minute seem to be the regular rate for this kinds of internet cafes. A few hotels have business centres, like hotel Ukraina and there they charge 20. In the smaller town there is no internet, forget about it. WiFi hotspots seem to spread. The toilet at the beach of Feodosia was a WiFi hotspot!