As you probably know from 4 albums about
Ukraine, in May 2003 I with my friends went to Crimea by car and than
returned to St Petersburg (St Petersburg - Moscow - Voronezh - Zaporozhie - Energodar - Yalta - Bahchisarai). And though the
album is called "Highway..." it's not about the E95/M2 highway because we
went mostly by small roads.
Most of the pictures that you will see are taken from the car window at
100 km/hour speed, so the quality may be not that good.
The first picture was taken between St
Petersburg and Moscow, not far from Vishnii Volochek
In the cities that have factories people
sell goods that are produced on these factories at self made stalls
along the roads.
There you can see toys as well as towels with erotic pictures. People
sell what they get. And they get those goods as a salary and have to
sell them to get money.
In Elets (a town near Voronezh) they sell TV sets (it must be very
colorful at night), mirrors, toys.
In Vishnii Volochek we had to stop and
wait for cows to cross the road.
A very life-like picture.
By the way
sometimes you can see people plowing with a help of horses in the fields
or a cart drawn by a horse. And in Ukraine you can see it more often.
I don't think the Church would like it :)
Tver’ region
The house looks very good
(according to the table on it, it's an administration of something) but
on the whole it nodded (I guess it's somehow connected with the rotation
of the Earth) and it's a bit hoary.
We bypassed Moscow by MKAD road (Moscow belt-line highway) but I didn't
take any pictures.
But it must be said that the infrastructure around Moscow is very
impressive: shopping centers like IKEA look like airdromes with hangars,
new houses and shopping centers are being built. Everything looks like
another country.
Than goes the part of Moscow - Voronezh road with
more fields and less forests as you can see in the picture.
Also this part of road is characterized by a larger number of toilets
that look like several walls made of bricks to protect from wind and
watchers. Inside... Foreigners are better not see it :)
Sunrise
A very pretty church (and not a remake)
at the Voronezh entry point
Than we travel from Voronezh to Ukraine
This is Belogorodskaya region. You can see sand of the color very
distinctive of this region.
In the background you can see sand open-cut mining.
One of many recently built church.
There are a lot of them being built along the highway.
The names of some villages and towns are
worth to be collected. (Name of this village can be translated as
"Knolls")
And also people who often travel by car can collect pictures of bus
stops because sometimes they look very interesting.
Belgorod.
This is a building of new
Belgorod State University.
Another church nearby.
Look like three heroes- warriors from
Russian tales.
A cow grazing near the highway crossing.
I tried to take picture of a horse but now I can see that it's a cow.
A monument to heroes of the Great
Patriotic War (1941-1945)
There are a lot of them in Ukraine (at least
not less than on Russia)
Another one nearby
Here you can see a typical for Ukraine
landscape: fields and few trees, mostly poplars that were planted there.
A crane near cafe
In Ukraine road police was prohibited to hide when they measure speed.
So now they stay near hills that are rare in Ukraine
And drivers blink their headlights like in Russia.
(Here I, the translator, must stop and explain this
Russian peculiarity. I will do my best though it's not that easy. In
Russia traveling by car you can see the police car aside the road
measuring speed and fining drivers. Usually it's hidden and is hard to
see. So the drivers who pass it blink their headlights to show to the
oncoming cars that they should slow down)
Tilled field
Energodar - Crimea
The sign says:
"Nova Kahovka 18
Herson 84
Odessa 288
"The names of villages and towns are mostly in Ukrainian
In Crimea it can be both in Russian and Ukrainian, or only in Ukrainian
or only in Russian.
After Moscow - Voronezh road there are much fewer toilets along the
road though they are would be very useful because there very few trees
A tired lorry carries scrap metal
A monument "Legendary tachanka (machine-gun cart)" in steppe near Novaya
Kahovka.
The monument was fixed up in 1967 in honor of heroes who
fought against the enemies of Soviet Union in 1918-1920
Here was the forward edge of Kahovsky springboard
There should be flag but it was stolen.
Here instead of poplars you can see power transmission line towers
Locals go somewhere. They look quite
unfriendly
Spring, peach trees in bloom.
Or they are apricot trees
Sunset in the field
It's interesting
that such beautiful sunsets cannot be seen in St Petersburg because of
high buildings or trees. Only at the bay
There are no trees here
And it's very convenient to watch stars.
Wild tulips
The cow and its owner grazing near the
road
From Enorgodar we went on two cars, one
with Russian identification number, another one with Ukrainian
(zaporozhskim one). The first one was often stopped and checked by the
road police (hopefully without any consequences) while the Ukrainian one
was ignored.
Crimea, the stop
"Luchistaya" before Alushta
Here we end this
album. Everyone interested can look at the first and second parts of the story
about Crimea
I also want to thank our drivers
Vitaly Lunyov and Aleksey Pritula.
