11 - 07 - 2006

Irbit - Tyumen

In the morning, my laundry is still wet. The police come to my room and want to see my passport. They speak to fast and the terminology is to specific for me to make any sense of. I do not understand them. We go down to the lobby and everybody that passes is asked to help explain the situation to me. There is a problem with the registration, apparently. I assure them I will leave town and head for Tyumen today, since that appears to be what they want. The owner of the hotel joins the conversation and thinks that I have been bothered long enough and instructs me to have my breakfast and she sends the police packing. After breakfast I call the factory and they will send someone over to pick me up. I noticed the bar served Stella Artois and decide to indulge myself and buy a bottle. Mind you, half a litre since that is the smallest quantity of beer you can buy in Russia as far as I have seen.

My interpreter for the day shows up and although she wants to get going, I make her wait for me to finish my Belgian beer. It tasted great.

I follow the taxi, in which she arrived, to the factory and after parking my motorcycle we go inside. A typical Russian factory I guess. It was once much busier and nicer, but it still works. I meet Andrey, a manager of Ural. I think he oversees production. We watch some videos on the computer of the Ural in action. We talk about production numbers, history of the factory, future aspirations, and current situation. It was very interesting. Andrey gives me a tour of the factory. I loved every minute of it. It is good to see that the factory is still open for business and putting people to work. New machinery will gradually replace the old equipment. A good sign. I hope this means the future is prosperous. Sadly the final stage of the tour could not be completed. There were no assembled Urals, they had already been crated for shipping. I hope to see this awesome sight when I am on my way home. The factory also replaced my front tire and my air filter. I forgot that I needed an oil change, so I will have to get this done in Tyumen. I would like to thank the people at IMZ (Irbit Moto Zavod) for their help and hospitality.

I am escorted out of Irbit by the guy that serviced my Ural. I arrive in Tyumen in the evening and flag down a biker after driving around the city for a while. This is Alexey. He is a really nice guy and although his English is as good as my Russian, we communicate perfectly. He awards me a medal for ‘long travel’, I will wear it with pride. He gets on the phone and two more bikers show up. They take me to a cheap hotel to unload my gear and park my motorcycle. I hop on as a passenger on one of the bikes and they take me to Route 66 Kafe, the local biker hang out. There I met Doug, an American doing a tour around the world on a 1948 Indian Chief. I got his contact details because we are heading the same way. He thought it might be a good idea to drive together for a while. But we didn’t have time enough to say more than hello, because I am dragged away to be fed. Nazareth, biker and owner of the kafe, and Alexey take good care of me. Alexey and some other bikers show me around beautiful Tyumen. This city is really something else than what I have seen up to now. It is clean and tidy. Probably the petro-dollars have something to do with that. All the bikers are proud of their city. Rightly so. I get to bed very late.