Detours
After over one month of living like a Muscovite, I hit the road again to the south. In Moscow, I had focused on some of the longer-term projects while moving around predominantly with Moscow Metro. From now on, I’ll be constantly driving each day as I explore the Caucasus region, probably until I finish visiting Armenia by the end of November.
Russia is very big. And sometimes there is no ‘next big city’ during the next five hours of driving, which is the amount of time necessary to drive across the longest length of my home country. After some experimenting, I realized that my ‘happy’ daily maximum is 4 hours of driving, especially during the driving season. It might seem little, but I drive to travel, not vice-versa.
Sun already sets before 5 pm around here, and I try to avoid driving after dark (even though I secretly enjoy it when I have to). So this means that I have only around 2-3 hours of sightseeing during the day as I go. But as a matter of fact, there is not much to see around small or mid-sized towns in Russia, at least from the conventional sense. Usually, there is one orthodox church in the center, and probably several parks around it, and if lucky there is a small history museum with everything displayed in Russian. But if you already have visited ‘super’ cities like Moscow or St. Petersburg, these offerings are far from winning your attention. But the good news is that I am not trying to be impressed in the conventional sense anyway – after having seen numerous ‘beautiful’ things and places, I have become more interested in collecting my feelings in different places, whether they are popular destinations or not.
On my way to the Kudikina Gora park, an amusement park known for its huge dragon installation, I spotted just another Russian orthodox church in the distance. Compared to the park area, the church seemed lonely, and I couldn’t see any paved roads leading to it. Probably because of that, I was intrigued to get there despite the hilly dirt roads.
Of all the experiences out of this multi-year travels, the memories of unexpected detours are the most special to me. There was a sense of curiosity, loneliness, excitement, and anxiety, and I think these feelings will help me recall and savor those moments for a long time.
On my travel location-tracking app, Polarsteps, they sometimes display overly-romantic quotes about traveling. I think the following is one of them, but there seems to be some truth in it: “The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see.” – G.K. Chesterton
@ Lipetsk Oblast, Russia, October 29, 2019
