Cycle camping Russia
- Thread starter Somerset
- Start date
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steveindenmark
Legendary Member
I may be wrong but I think visiting Russia is quite complicated. You need to start doing some research.
This may help to start.
http://waytorussia.net/RussianVisa/Registration.html
This may help to start.
http://waytorussia.net/RussianVisa/Registration.html
midliferider
Guru
- Location
- Northampton
I cycled in Russia, in the area known as Golden Ring, in June last year. I am going to Saint Petersburg and Kerelia region this summer.
You need a visa. Please see Russian embassy website for details. It looks very complicated but the there is a process to follow.
I cycled with Russian Cycke Touring Club. So I had an invitation to visit the country. But you can get it if you book hotels.
I have no experience of camping as I was in hotels. As the rural places to stay are so cheap, there is no need to camp.
You can get a room with breakfast on airbandb for 10-15 pounds outside main city. At the end of cycle tour, I am taking the train to Murmansk. Room with breakfast is just 14 punds
Road conditions are not very good.
You need a visa. Please see Russian embassy website for details. It looks very complicated but the there is a process to follow.
I cycled with Russian Cycke Touring Club. So I had an invitation to visit the country. But you can get it if you book hotels.
I have no experience of camping as I was in hotels. As the rural places to stay are so cheap, there is no need to camp.
You can get a room with breakfast on airbandb for 10-15 pounds outside main city. At the end of cycle tour, I am taking the train to Murmansk. Room with breakfast is just 14 punds
Road conditions are not very good.
midliferider
Guru
- Location
- Northampton
I think Eurovelo goes through Belarus. Again, you need a visa.
physical
Active Member
I'm planning on doing the same thing next summer (2020) - I either want to cycle from Brighton to Moscow, or if that's too difficult I want to return.
My current investigations seem to be OK until I hit Belarus / Russia where the information is somewhat sparse.
Any advice / suggestions would be appreciated.
This couple are cycling round the world, there is half a dozen videos of them going through Russia,
All but the very first videos have English subtitles, that's if your German is'nt that good
Nearly forgot the link
. View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es7VBYn9p9s
Here is the link to their site, forgot to put it in last post.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAj8pkpiE9NUp2yzoNbLJeQ/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAj8pkpiE9NUp2yzoNbLJeQ/
physical
Active Member
Many thanks for this C.J.
My cycling options next year (2020) are to cycle across the USA - which is well documented and easy to get information on, or Brighton -> Moscow.
The Moscow thing seems more romantic and fun.
I've previously done the JoG, Brighton -> Gibraltar and Brighton -> Sicily.
My cycling options next year (2020) are to cycle across the USA - which is well documented and easy to get information on, or Brighton -> Moscow.
The Moscow thing seems more romantic and fun.
I've previously done the JoG, Brighton -> Gibraltar and Brighton -> Sicily.
smith4188
Veteran
- Location
- Spain / Isle of Man
In 2013 I cycled into Russia from Estonia with the intention of spending three weeks there, hoping to reach Saint Petersburg via Moscow. I only lasted four days before I ducked back into Latvia and breathed a sigh of relief. The roads were awful. The biggest problem is that there aren't many of them and so the most useful ones are where the trucks are, especially on routes to Moscow or Saint Petersburg (i.e., all the main routes in the west). The tarmac is badly broken up (but not as potholed as Ukraine), especially at the edges and so I needed to weave in and out more than was comfortable with the traffic, especially with the way the trucks drove. They seemed to get off on how close they could get to me. I tried to use the shoulder but it was filled with sand and small stones of differing depths. I was thrown into the road by sudden deep pockets of sand a couple of times, ending in bleeding hands and knees but I was lucky not to have been squashed by a passing truck. I stopped riding in the shoulders and took my chances with the trucks again, pooping myself until I gave up. My bike tyres were normal touring bike thickness. On a mountain bike, the shoulders might have been more doable, or there might have been a route across Russia on the gravel back-roads but it would have been much, much farther and very, very slow. I'd never have reached Moscow before the visa ran out.
If the scenery hadn't been totally monotonous then I might have persevered a little longer but, had I survived, it would have been a tedious three weeks. Hour after hour of flat, dense forest quickly gets dull. Also, even in the far west of Russia, towns are well separated. From memory, crumbling settlements of a few thousand people were 40-odd miles apart but I struggled to get simple spare bike parts in them. The guys in the video above looked like they were cycling into Russia from Georgia, going north then east. That route would have much more attractive scenery, through the Caucasus mountains, and with less traffic. (I've only seen the mountain from the Georgian side, but they're gorgeous.)
That said, as everywhere the people I met were lovely and kind and, as another poster said, hotels are cheap. Just don't expect hot water. In one hotel there was no water at all. Think of them as a shelter with a bed rather than any other sort of service. Some Russian is almost necessary. I got lucky by meeting a retired English teacher in one village but no one else I met spoke any English at all. Just learning the alphabet can bring more rewards then you'd expect. Once you've converted the letters in your head, some Russian words are guessable.
Vodka is cheap. Maybe that's the way to survive Russia. Pickle yourself each morning so that it doesn't seem so terrible.
If the scenery hadn't been totally monotonous then I might have persevered a little longer but, had I survived, it would have been a tedious three weeks. Hour after hour of flat, dense forest quickly gets dull. Also, even in the far west of Russia, towns are well separated. From memory, crumbling settlements of a few thousand people were 40-odd miles apart but I struggled to get simple spare bike parts in them. The guys in the video above looked like they were cycling into Russia from Georgia, going north then east. That route would have much more attractive scenery, through the Caucasus mountains, and with less traffic. (I've only seen the mountain from the Georgian side, but they're gorgeous.)
That said, as everywhere the people I met were lovely and kind and, as another poster said, hotels are cheap. Just don't expect hot water. In one hotel there was no water at all. Think of them as a shelter with a bed rather than any other sort of service. Some Russian is almost necessary. I got lucky by meeting a retired English teacher in one village but no one else I met spoke any English at all. Just learning the alphabet can bring more rewards then you'd expect. Once you've converted the letters in your head, some Russian words are guessable.
Vodka is cheap. Maybe that's the way to survive Russia. Pickle yourself each morning so that it doesn't seem so terrible.
physical
Active Member
Thanks very much for sharing your experiences - reading between the lines of your post, not exactly a ringing endorsement.
Unfortunately (and somewhat not stereotypical) I'm an Irish Rugby supporting none drinker - so the vodka option is not one that I'll avail of.
I've just come off the phone with the Russian embassy who assured me that the visa process was not too difficult and I can get a Russian voucher which allows me a visa and while I won't tell fibs about the hotel I'm trying to stay in - I'm just not sure that my first port of call will be the hotel address in Moscow that I will use on the application form. Again the person in the embassy said this should not be an issue.
It's only 320 from Viciebsk in Belarus to Moscow - that's only three / four days of cycling. I'm hoping that I can do this with relative ease.
I'm somewhat concerned about "lorries" driving very close for fun.
The Kamoot map has over 90% of the journey on state roads. I have an agreement with my wife that I will not die on these trips - and if it's super dangerous for cyclists on the state roads I don't want to do it.
Does anyone else have some experience of driving on State roads in Russia - specifically between Belarus and Moscow.
Unfortunately (and somewhat not stereotypical) I'm an Irish Rugby supporting none drinker - so the vodka option is not one that I'll avail of.
I've just come off the phone with the Russian embassy who assured me that the visa process was not too difficult and I can get a Russian voucher which allows me a visa and while I won't tell fibs about the hotel I'm trying to stay in - I'm just not sure that my first port of call will be the hotel address in Moscow that I will use on the application form. Again the person in the embassy said this should not be an issue.
It's only 320 from Viciebsk in Belarus to Moscow - that's only three / four days of cycling. I'm hoping that I can do this with relative ease.
I'm somewhat concerned about "lorries" driving very close for fun.
The Kamoot map has over 90% of the journey on state roads. I have an agreement with my wife that I will not die on these trips - and if it's super dangerous for cyclists on the state roads I don't want to do it.
Does anyone else have some experience of driving on State roads in Russia - specifically between Belarus and Moscow.
No experience, but you can view the roads on google earth
Look decent enough condition on the Russian side, but dual carriageway with a hard shoulder, so not that great for cycling.
Also the view will be trees, more trees and then some trees....
This couple are cycling round the world, there is half a dozen videos of them going through Russia,
All but the very first videos have English subtitles, that's if your German is'nt that good
Nearly forgot the link
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es7VBYn9p9s
He is German. She is Russian.
smith4188
Veteran
- Location
- Spain / Isle of Man
Thanks very much for sharing your experiences - reading between the lines of your post, not exactly a ringing endorsement.
It's only 320 from Viciebsk in Belarus to Moscow - that's only three / four days of cycling. I'm hoping that I can do this with relative ease.
Hopefully the roads are better between Belarus and Moscow. I'm not sure if the idea of a dual carriageway is more or less terrifying. As long as the traffic isn't awful you should at least be given more room. Please let me know how you get on. It's always rankled that I never reached Moscow and I'd love to know of a non-lethal route there.
Belarus is interesting, by the way. They don't get many foreign cyclists. At least they never used to. Don't you need a visa for there as well? Back in 2013, that one was even harder than Russia. I only managed to get mine because a well-connected friend of a friend of a friend knew the British ambassador.
Ivo
Well-Known Member
- Location
- Maastricht
Unlike Smith4188 I have very good experiences with riding in Rusia. I've toured there half a dozen times and did some audaxing in Russia.
The route you plan will have some similarities with the ride I did in 2013, riding from Vilnius via Pskov to Moscow (reverse direction for you). You can get some impressions in my photo report:
https://www.zonerama.com/Link/Album/5164728
The route is on gpsies:
https://www.gpsies.com/map.do?fileId=sgbcyxlxtvbnvxgi
The route you plan will have some similarities with the ride I did in 2013, riding from Vilnius via Pskov to Moscow (reverse direction for you). You can get some impressions in my photo report:
https://www.zonerama.com/Link/Album/5164728
The route is on gpsies:
https://www.gpsies.com/map.do?fileId=sgbcyxlxtvbnvxgi
smith4188
Veteran
- Location
- Spain / Isle of Man
That's very interesting. Although you hit Russia quite close to where I did, that's a very different route to Moscow than the one I planned. What sort of roads were you on and what sort of bike/tyres? I (thought I) did tons of research and found only one possible route for my normal touring bike tyres and it wasn't anything like your route.
