A Photo Album of Our Trip

Check out the link on the right for a photo album of our Cross-Europe bike trip

Ending Our Trip with Delightful Dubilets

We spent Sunday boxing our bikes for the flight home, visiting the Hermitage, and dining with recently found relatives Michael and Elena Dubilet. Michael was particularly interested in the newly created Doubilet-Dubilet Genealogy Group on Facebook, consisting of descendants of Ukrainian Doubilets (translated from the original Cyrillic spelling as Dubilet in non-English-speaking countries). Michael, a 30-year-old cinematographer, was born in the Ukraine, lived much of his life in Cyprus, and now lives and works with his wife Elena, an animator, in St. Petersburg. Over a spectacular Armenian dinner, we had a lively conversation in which we learned a lot about the corrupt, dysfunctional Russian political system (a "kleptocracy") that enriches government officials while stunting growth and innovation, about the Greek-Turkish divide in Cyprus, and about the Dubilets in the Ukraine.

We're now on our way home, putting together this last blog entry in flight. A major challenge that we're starting to think about is how we can come up with a trip next year that can match, or even approach, the incredible adventure we just finished.

At the Hermitage

Cutting cardboard to make boxes for our bikes

One bike box half done

Both bikes in boxes

Street scene in St. Petersburg

Peter, Carol, Michael Dubilet, Elena Dubilet

We Made it to St. Petersburg!!

Today (Saturday), our last day of cycling L , was a short ride from Peterhof to St. Petersburg. The outskirts of the city are full of massive apartment blocks: ugly, dilapidated, Soviet-era ones, as well as fairly nice modern ones. The Russians are clearly into these enormous buildings. We peddled through the streets of St. P to our hotel, and shortly afterwards bade farewell to our excellent Estonian guide, Toomas Lelov, who rode with us for the past 5 days to help us make it through the Russian segment of our trip.

We spent most of the rest of the day trying to solve an important problem: how to package our bikes so that we can take them with us on our Monday morning flight to Boston. Despite Toomas' help, we were unable to locate a bicycle box at either a bike store or the airline we'll be flying on (Air France). So we took the subway to a large home improvement store (very much like Home Depot) and bought 10 fairly large cardboard boxes (but each considerably smaller than a bicycle) and a variety of supplies (tape, box cutter, string, etc). Tomorrow, we'll assemble these boxes into containers for two bikes, take apart our bikes, and package them for the return trip.

Once our "business" is done tomorrow, we'll spend some time sightseeing and getting together with a Doubilet relative (Michael Dubilet, whom we "met" via Facebook). Then, sadly, our adventure will be over.

Taking off on our final day with Toomas

A beautiful church on route

A massive, modern apartment block on the outskirts of St. Petersburg

In the home improvement store, using the phone app Google Translate to display "big cardboard box" in Russian. By showing this to the salesperson, he knew what we wanted and took us to the appropriate place in the store.

Our shopping cart with 10 boxes

Taking the subway back to our hotel, with our cardboard boxes

A Memorable Day in Russia

Today (Friday), the second to last day of our cross-Europe bike trip, was the longest and wettest day that we've had. We rode 84 miles (10 of them resulting from getting lost when trying to locate our destination hotel), most of them in heavy rain, and many of them into the wind. But the most notable aspect of the day was the horrendous state of disrepair and neglect of almost everything on route. We rode through the countryside, which was largely empty, with relatively few houses and only rare villages. Most of the land we saw was covered with weeds, some as high as 8-10 feet tall. Only a tiny fraction of the land is used for agriculture. Most houses and stores were quite decrepit. Some of the roads were well paved, but many were full of cracks and potholes. Garbage at times littered the edges of the roads.

Our destination today was Peterhof, the site of a series of spectacular palaces and gardens laid out on the orders of Peter the Great in the early 1700's. Unfortunately, because of our very long ride today we were only able to get a brief glimpse of one of the palaces.

Cycling beside tall weeds

One of many houses we passed that has seen better times

Crumbling concrete stairs to this store

A bus stop that's in bad shape, with garbage on the road beside it

Our one view of a Peterhof palace

Peter's legs after taking off his socks at the end of a very rainy ride, often on roads in poor shape. The grime on his legs is evident in comparison to his feet and ankles that were protected by socks.

We Made it to Russia!

33 miles into our ride today, we crossed the border from Estonia into Russia, and then rode 18 miles into Russia. It was the first border crossing of our cross-Europe bike trip that involved stopping at border control, since the prior nine countries we've been in were all European Union members. Fortunately, the bureaucracy was not too inefficient, so the crossing took us less than an hour. Trucks crossing in the opposite direction, however, have no such luck, and instead must sit along the side of the road in a several mile lineup to cross the border, probably involving a wait of well over a day.

The change from Estonia to Russia was dramatic. One online tourist guidebook that we read a few days ago described Estonia (especially Tallin) as "Scandinavian sleek mixed with Soviet concrete", the latter from the period of 1944 to 1991 during which Estonia was part of the Soviet Union. As soon as we crossed the border into Russia, the sleek disappeared and ugly, dilapidated concrete abounded. The apartments are not only drab and formless, as well as in large conglomerations with no landscaping around them, but they are also built very shoddily. In the parts built with bricks, the bricks are unevenly placed, not sitting properly one on top of the other. In the parts built with concrete, the concrete is cracked and falling apart, likely due to use of poor quality material.

The cars and buses are also a major step down from what we've encountered in the previous parts of our trip, even in Poland. Many of the cars are ancient, heavily rusted, Soviet-era Ladas.

None of that, however, prepared us for what our hotel would look like. The outside and the staircase are a decrepit mess, though they do appear to be in the process of being repaired. Fortunately, once we climbed up to the third floor, where our room is located, the corridor and room were decent (except for the massively leaking shower that left puddles in and adjacent to the bathroom after we showered).

We did have a delicious dinner – a Caucasian barbeque consisting of various meats. In this part of the world, "Caucasian" refers to peoples of the Caucasus region, a cluster of Russian republics at the border of Europe and Asia that includes Chechnya, Dagestan, and several others.

Our guide Toomas leading the way, in Estonia about 1 mile from the Russian border

The bridge we crossed to get from Estonia into Russia (viewed from the Estonian side)

Carol & Toomas in "no man's land" between Estonia and Russia

Entering Russia (pictures were prohibited, but we couldn't resist)

A typical Soviet-era apartment building, with cracked concrete and disheveled bricks (easily seen at a closer distance than from where this picture was taken)

Our first hotel in Russia

Staircase from the lobby to our third floor hotel room 

Site of our Caucasian barbeque

A Beautiful Ride in Estonia, Bringing Us Close to Russia

Today's 71 mile ride, from Palmse to Toile, Estonia, brought us close to the Russian border, which we will cross tomorrow. Our ride through the countryside included fields, forests, restored estates, seaside views, and a waterfall. Our destination hotel is a spa, featuring pool, sauna, and massage (though we didn't partake of any of those amenities).

Riding with our guide Toomas

A restored manor; hotel is adjacent to it (not in this picture)

A restored manor, run as a British Inn

Biking along the Baltic Sea coast, on the Gulf of Finland

Passing by a German bike group

Our spa hotel

Video of a waterfall beside the Baltic Sea

Cycling With a Guide

When we first conceived of this bike trip from London to St. Petersburg almost a year ago, we were warned by many people (including a number of Russians) not to cycle in Russia. Even though the Russian part of the 2000-mile trip is only ~100 miles long – from the Russian-Estonian border to St. Petersburg – we were told that Russia is a lawless land, and that we would have to deal with pickpockets, thieves, kidnappers, and corrupt cops trying to shake us down. We considered our options, including: (i) ignoring the warnings and biking to St. P; or (ii) taking the warnings seriously and ending our trip in Tallinn, Estonia. In the end, we chose a middle ground: we got the name of an Estonian bike tour guide who has guided trips from Tallinn to St. P, and made arrangements with him to guide us on that part of our trip (the last 5 days of our ride).

After months of email communication, we met our guide, Toomas Levov, a 36-year-old triathlete and owner of a bike rental and tour business in Tallinn, when we arrived in Tallinn on Sunday. After a rest day on Monday, Toomas picked us up at our hotel this morning (Tuesday) and we set out with him. A side benefit of riding with him, besides having him help us navigate the perils of Russia when we get there on Thursday, is that we learn a lot about Estonia from him. For example, he told us that Estonian and Finnish are quite similar, though words often have subtly different meanings in the two languages (e.g., the word for "marriage" in Estonian means "trouble" in Finnish). We also heard about his experiences until age 15 under Soviet rule, a period from which he has several recollections about availability of food items: a special day was the rare day when bananas were available; you had to have "connections" to buy oranges; when you went to the food store to buy cheese, you simply asked for "cheese" because there was only one variety (as opposed to now, when our visit to a Tallinn supermarket revealed a 30-foot-long display of dozens of types of cheese).

Our destination today is a marvelous hotel in Lahemaa National Park in Estonia. The hotel is on the grounds of an estate that is beautifully preserved, with ponds, manicured lawns, and an outdoor stage where a 60's-era rock concert is being held tonight. The songs (e.g., Catch the Wind, Sloop John B, You Really Got Me, End of the World) are all sung translated from English to Estonian.

Toomas' Bike Rental and Guide Office

Toomas picking us up at our hotel

On the road, with Toomas as guide

Our hotel

Another building on the grounds of our hotel

More on the hotel grounds

Yet another building on the hotel grounds

Video/audio from the evening concert (click to play)

Tallinn: Remarkable Combination of Old and New

Tallinn, a city of approximately 400,000 inhabitants, has a long and interesting past and a very impressive present. The oldest recorded mention of Tallinn dates to 1154, when Arab Cartographer Al-Idrisi marked it on his map of the known world. By the 13th century, it had become an important port for trade between Russia and Scandinavia. From 1549 to 1625, it boasted the tallest building in the world: St Olav's church & tower, with its 159-metre spire.

Over the centuries, Estonia rarely existed as an independent country, instead ruled by (or part of) Denmark, Sweden, Germany, or Russia. Since it gained its independence from Russia in 1991, Tallinn has been its capital. The city has done a remarkable job maintaining its old world charm in the historic old part of town, as well as transforming itself into a major high-tech center. Tallinn's Old Town was entered on UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1997 as an "exceptionally complete and well preserved example of a medieval northern European trading city". The wall around this part of town is remarkably intact. The Old Town draws vast numbers of tourists, some arriving via cruise ships that dock in its harbor, which in turn has led to innumerable restaurants, many with outdoor seating on walking streets, and many hotels.

An important step in Tallinn's transformation into a high-tech center occurred in 2003, when Skype was founded using software developed by three Estonian software engineers who were also behind the peer-to-peer file sharing software Kazaa. Since then, Estonia has had a large high-tech sector teeming with startups, concentrated in Tallinn. In 2005, the New York Times characterized Estonia as "a sort of Silicon Valley on the Baltic Sea". In 2007, a listing of the top 10 digital cities in the world ranked Tallinn as #7, sandwiched between the only two American cities on the list (#6 San Francisco & #8 New York City).

Just outside the Old Town are ultramodern high-end shopping centers, complete with large selections of computers and other electronics. Also close by is the Rotermann Centre, a trendy shopping and cultural zone, with a central square that hosts many festivals and concerts. In the early 20th century, it was the site of the Rotermann factories that were the heart of industrial Tallinn, but this area was in terrible shape by the end of the Soviet era in 1991, littered with old derelict factories. The current Rotermann Centre, a major makeover of that area that melds the old buildings and modern architecture, opened in 2007.

Viru Gate into Tallinn's Old Town

Once the tallest building in the world

A walking/dining street in the Old Town

Town Hall square in the Old Town

Flower shops

Part of the Rotermann Center

Another building in the Rotermann Center

An Adorable Estonian Toddler

We were going to take a day off from the writing a blog entry, but we couldn't resist posting a picture of this adorable 2-1/2 year old, especially because he's wearing a doo-rag like the one that I (Peter) wear under my helmet to avoid getting sunburned through the helmet openings. We met him in a small store during our morning break. He had been brought to the store by his grandmother on the back of her bike. She enthusiastically agreed when we asked if we could take his picture, and he stood absolutely still posing for the photo.

Who's cuter?

Into Estonia: "Baltic Tiger" with a Difficult Language

Our 54-mile ride today (Friday) began in Latvia, and crossed into Estonia at mile 13. Just before entering Estonia, we stopped at a Latvian pastry shop to spend our remaining Latvian money (a few dollars in coins, which were about to become worthless to us once we left the country). The delicious pastries were so cheap that, despite gorging ourselves, we couldn't use up our Latvian money, so we gave the remaining amount to the woman behind the counter.

Estonia gained its independence in 1991. While all three Baltic States have had very impressive economic growth since that time, leading to their being referred to as the "Baltic Tigers" (a term modeled on the "Asian Tigers" of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan), Estonia has grown the fastest of the three. Estonia's GDP per capita has increased from 35% of the European Union average in 1996 to 65% in 2007. In 1994, Estonia became one of the first countries in the world to institute a flat tax (i.e., one tax rate for all income levels -- initially 26%, subsequently decreased to the current 21% -- as opposed to a graduated tax that imposes higher rates for higher incomes).  In view of the flat tax and the impressive economic growth, Estonia has been something of a "poster child" to fiscal conservatives, including those in the United States, who advocate a flat tax. Their ardor, however, has cooled since Estonia was hit very hard by the 2008 worldwide economic downturn.

Estonia's language is similar to Finnish. These two languages bear very little similarity to any other language in the world. This makes it difficult for outsiders like us to figure out what Estonian words mean when we read signs, menus, and the like. Fortunately, like their Scandinavian "cousins", many Estonians speak good English, and a lot of things are written in both Estonian and English.

Our destination town of Parnu, with a population of 44,000, is a popular tourist town by the Baltic Sea. Its town center is hopping, with outdoor restaurants brimming with customers and free live music on the streets.

Latvian pastry shop close to the Estonian border

At the border crossing from Latvia into Estonia

One of the first scenes after crossing into Estonia

Another beautiful property in rural Estonia

An Orthodox church in Parnu

Street scene in Parnu, with outdoor restaurants filled with customers

One of the live bands on the streets of Parnu