Day 17-20, Nizhniy Novgorod - Kazan

Day 17, 130 km

When I left Nizhniy Novgorod in the evening i saw that the landscape in the east was changing. Now I could see some hills at the horizon. 

 I also passed a typical russianamusement park where Lenin had got competition of a giant swing.

It was loaded with people who screamed loudly while it swinged them upside-down

 
Next day I soon came to the hills. Downhill I could ride at almost 60 km/h but uphill it was not so fast...
Actually there were no hills but a high-plane with valleys in between. Small rivers had cut them into the sandy soil. I was going the same direction as Volga but the big river often was 10 or twenty kilometres north of the road so I seldom could see it.

At noon it was quite warm and I was worried about if my bicycle computer had got fever. After I had it in the shadow of a café for an hour it recovered. Still it showed about 28 degrees. (The following days it even showed 42 degrees when it was exposed to the sun!)

 When I found a brook I washed and cooled myself. I took this picture with self.timer. Half an hour later I discovered that I had forgotten the camera on that place so I had to go back to get it again...

In the afternoon I found a fish market

Inside there were thousands of fishes in different sizes and shapes. I dont know so much about their names but I bought one smoked, which I ate for dinner. It was delicious!

Day 18, 110 km

The fish was so big that I even ate it for breakfast next morning. Now it was sunny and warm which made that there were not so many mosquitoes any more and I was not in a hurry in the morning.

 Near a bus stop I found the first public toilet. It was newly painted and renovated so I looked inside

 When I saw the mess I decided to use the forest instead

This day I could not ride so fast because the wind was disadvantageous and it was quite hot. In the evening I decided to leave the main-road to see a town called Cheboksary. It was close to the Volga and I really wanted to see it (her?) again,

The city was about 15 km north of the mainroad and there I found the fist bicycle path ever in Russia! After I had passed about 15 bicycles on this path (which was about the same amount as I had seen in whole Russia), I came to the conclusion that the reason why there were so few bikers in Russia was only because there were so few bicycle paths. If you want people to use their bikes you firstly have to build bicycle paths!

In the city anyway the path ended and I had to crowd amongst trucks, buses and cars. Suddenly I was caught in a trap and almost made a somersault. I had crossed grids like that and was convinced that my tires were broad enough. I was happy nothing serious happened!

The owner of a gas station at the mainroad had told me that in the bay of Volga there were beautiful fountains I should not miss. But unfortunately they were turned off that day because it was too windy.

 There I found another amusement park. On the other side of the Volga bay you can see an old Russian church.

There were many new shopping gallerias (malls) in the centre of the city and when I asked a guy if there were any old buildings I should not miss he said most of them were pulled down some years ago. Still I found some timbered wooden houses in the middle of the town.
The yellow pipes are gas-pipes. You can find them everywhere in Russia. They are not under the earth but visible above the earth, through woods and outside facades.

On the northern side of the city I found the Mega Mall, I had seen much advertisements about. It was really huge. I rode further north to the big bridge over the Volga. Under it there was a great power station (you can see it on the right sida of the next picture). From this bridge I saw a sand beach on the other side of the Volga. I decided to go there and stay over the night. Firstly I took a bath. It was quite warm!

Then I met five young guys who asked where I came from and where I was going. They wanted to take a picture of us. 

Then I found some other guys who were setting up a tent. I asked if it was legal to sleep in a tent and they said it was not forbidden in whole Russia. So I found a nice place for my tent too and took another bath. I felt happy and free at this place jogged a little and took a swim again. I washed my whole body with soap but the stripes on my feet would not disappear. 

I spent the evening drinking tea with my new friends but at 10 pm I wanted to go to sleep. What I did not know was that that was when the beach-party began. More and more young guys came. Some of them came by car and played loud music all night long. They really had fun together, laughed loudly and screamed many times. Of course I could have moved my tent but I did not know they should keep on all night long.  In the morning finally it was quite but I could not sleep anyway.
Instead I enjoyed nature and asked myself why should I go anywhere else? I had enough food with me for another day. But then  more and more people came to the beach. S group of youngsters (boy-scouts?) came and gathered arond me and asked about everything, played and screamed so I finally decided to leave that place anyway.

 I continued on the old road to Kazan, which was going on the northern side of the Volga river. Again it was a hot day but I found a good river to cool myself.

 This evening I looked for a beautiful place, not a well hidden as all other days. I found one behind a birch grove. In Russia these are even more common than in Sweden

Next day there were only 50 km left to Kazan which I rode before noon.

Even Kazan has a Kremlin, but here the brick-wall is painted in white. You can see it behind the cars.

Many things in Kazan really need to be renovated ( like the concrete of this bridge railing) but at the same time many things are being built in the centre of the city.

This pyramide in concrete and glass is a huge, modern restaurant. Behind it you see the Kremlin. 

 This is the Entrance to the Kremlin.

 inside there are many museums,

churches,

and the "white house" of the Respublic of Tartarstan. The President works there and this part is closed for public.

 Even here you hare a wonderful view over the river Volga and its tributary.

 The most famous building is the Kul Sharif Mosque:

If you want to go inside all females have to borrow headscarves and if there istoo much bare skin on their arms and legs they even have to hide this under borrowed cloths. My bicycleshorts were not good enough - even I had to borrow a skirt. We also had to buy overboots. But this was understandable, it was the reason why it could be so clean inside the building. Everything was shiny and bright, very beautiful!

There was much Islamic art everywhere but downstairs there even was a museum of Islamic history. 

When I was on the beach the day before, two of the girls said with pride in their voices that they were Tartars, which had made me curious to learn more about it. I found out that they spoke their own language which is spoken also in Ukraina and Bulgaria. they also use different letters, which I have seen on several signposts around Kazan. 

In the museum nothing was written in English, but it seems as if Kazan is the centre of  everything in Tartarstan and the place of the origin of all Tartars. 

On the way out I came to the conclusion that I think that Kazan had the cleanest and most notable Kremlins of the three I had seen.