Day 17 - Novochibksarsk to Mironezhe

Today should have been a big day. I'd been looking forward to getting to Moscow for such a long time. Foolishly I had images of photographing the Imp in front of the Kremlin or at least next to one of the "welcome to Moscow" structures that their was bound to be. Practically every town I've been through has had something. But not Moscow or at least not the way I entered the city. Instead, I had to make do with a picture passing then town entry sign. It was quite an anticlimax.

I had hoped to get far enough up the road from Moscow to St Petersburg to make reach Helsinki tomorrow realistic. However, I had expected the highway into Moscow to be much more like a motorway than a little road joining up all of the towns and cities along the way. With all of the traffic lights, pedestrian crossings and roadworks it made for a slow and frustrating day. On the bright side the car is running really well although the brakes need bleeding.

The traffic in Moscow is something else. I spent over two hours driving about 20km around the ring road. The ring road is six lanes in each direction. But that's not enough for the Muscovites, they also use the emergency stopping lanes on either side. After two hours in first gear I got to the exit onto the M10. Again, I was hoping for a motorway. It is the main road between Russia's two biggest cities. Instead it was like a long thin car park.

Eventually, the traffic dispersed and we got some speed on. I drove on to Tver Where I stopped at the BP for fuel and food. A very pleasant young Russian couple baled me up to ask questions about the my trip. They are planning a drive down to Serbia in July. I continued up the road and stopped at the first hotel I could see. It was after midnight and I'd been going since about 4:30.