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IPPNW Baltic Bike Tour 2006
- Medical Students Cycle for Peace -
August 21st - September 6th
D.
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Day
11
Thursday, August 31st
Going broke - from Vyborg to Torfjanovka
The group at Vyborg's
Swedish castle
 Today
the group
faced the first day on the tour that began and ended with rain. As it
turned out later, the weather wasn't the only indication of bad luck
for the day though ....More to that in a bit. After getting up early to
a hardy tortilla-breakfast prepared by Alex,
the participants headed for the Finnish border.
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 Shortly
after they left Vyborg, the
group's tour bus broke down and wouldn't allow its driver to change its
gears any longer. With a lot of luck and patience Alex made it to the
border somehow in first
gear, where the others
were already waiting with the bikes. The time it took
the towing service from Vyborg to get to them,
the group had already unloaded the car. While Alex and Andrzej got
towed back to town in the bus, some of the participants snoozed off at
the border after all the excitement and the day's tough ride through
the rain. Once at the car
shop in Vyborg, the boys had to 1.try to understand the
exact problem being explained to them in "Rusinglish" and then 2. give
their Russian negotiation skills a kick to strike a good deal for a new
automatic clutch. As Alex said later, it was his luck that the shop
owner didn't know that his Russian visa expires tomorrow ;) It might be that
the spare parts needed to repair the car are only available in
St.Petersburg. Fortunately for the boys, Dmitry is still there and
could get the parts, put them on a train to Vyborg, where the boys
could pick them up.
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 The visa
issue being the next "little" problem to solve.... Hopefully, the
attestation of the auto shop owner will convince the border patrol that
it wasn't Alex's bad will to stay in Russia longer than he was
officially allowed to. With the unalienable hope of the car getting
fixed by tomorrow, the boys headed back to the others. A nice Chechen
truck driver was nice enough to stop and give the drenched bikers a
ride for the last few km. On the picture, you
can see Alex and Andrzej hitchhiking russki-style...
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 Now, if you
thought that was all the bad news for the day you are mistaken! In
addition to the car breaking down, Alex's
visa running out and it raining from dusk till dawn, Josh lost his
immigration form and the group was informed that they aren't allowed to
cross the border by bike or on foot for that matter. All the answers to
these unsolved problems will hopefully be found
tomorrow. We will definitely keep you updated. For now, however, the
group decided to book a few rooms in a small motel (fittingly called
"Camping") near the border in order to regain their stength and make
for the border early in the morning...
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Will we ever reach Helsinki?
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 The good news of the
day:
Thanks to Alex
buying a special skillet in Vyborg before the car broke
down, André sitting over the dough for a few hours and Nino's
great talent at turning pancakes in midair (see picture), the group had
homemade blini for dinner ;) A long discussion over the situation
within the group and the goals of the tour for the final leg of the
journey healed a lot of wounds of the past few days and set the group
back into optimsim mode, despite the uncertain future...
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Recipe
for Russian Pancakes - "Blini"
"Thin
layered blini with melted
butter.. a true Royal Russian treat!
Best eaten with sour cream,
jams and honey...
...or alternatively with mushroom
sauce and chicken
Preparation
time:
35 minutes
Servings:
20 blini
Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 tablespoon
white sugar
1/3 teaspoon
salt
1/2 cup
all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups
milk
1 tablespoon
vegetable oil
1 tablespoon
butter
Directions:
1. In a
medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar and salt.
2. Sift the flour
into the bowl, and stir in along with the milk.
3. Mix until smooth and
well blended. The batter should be thin.
4. Heat a
griddle or skillet over medium heat. Lightly oil the pan.
5. Pour about 2
tablespoons of the batter into the pan.
6. When edges are crisp looking
and center appears dry, flip and cook for about 1 minute on the other
side, or until golden brown.
7. Remove
blini to a plate.
8. Put a little butter on top, and continue to stack the
blini on top of each other.
9. To serve, spread with desired filling, then
fold in half, and in half again, to form a triangle.
10. Enjoy your
blini. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmhhhh! |
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The TOP 10
List of the Day
"The
Top Ten things to definitely try while you're in Russia"
1. Real Russian caviar (especially served
on a pier jutting out into the Baltic Sea at sunset)
2. Baltica Beer No. 7 (No. 3 and No. 5
are also not bad - No. 0 has no alcohol ;)
3. Blini with mushroom sauce and chicken
(avoid Blindonalds!)
4. Stuffed Pilmeni for breakfast (why did
we never repeat that brunch-orgy?)
5. Kolja's special homemade Kasha over an
open fire
6. A steamy night at the Russian banya
7. Getting beaten with birch branches in
the banya (thanks, Kolja and Dmitry...)
8. Russian fish soup with vodka (get the
good kind, too...)
9. Sirka sichka (smoked cheese)
10. Krimskoye Shampanskoye ;)
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MEDIA COVERAGE
As of now there
have been several press reports about the Baltic Bike Tour 2006 in
Tallinn. Also, the participants who already resided in Tallinn ahead of
the tour's start on Monday, gave a radio interview there and might have
convinced a local television station to report on the start of the tour
and appear for live coverage (more infos on that on Monday). For all
those of you who are fluent in Estonian or Russian - here the first
published articles on the Tour. No worries for all those who don't
understand one of the two...more links to media coverage on the event
are to follow soon.
August
18th in the
Estonian Magazine "Postimees":
http://www.postimees.ee/190806/esileht/siseuudised/213838.php
August
18th in the
Estonian Magazine "Eesti Päevaleht Online":
http://www.epl.ee/artikkel/351329
Mentioning
of the BBT found on August 20th on the homepage of the "Gruene Liga
Berlin":
http://www.grueneliga-berlin.de/
August 22nd You can see news
with Alex and Meelis interviews on the internet:
http://www.etv24.ee/index.php?0534940
21.08.2006 - Aktuaalne kaamera (vene keeles) + Eestimaa Vene Muuseumi
ekspeditsioon:
Saksa 2 - in russian (clip starts 10:32)
21.08.2006 - Aktuaalne kaamera kell 21:00 - in Estonian (last clip)
August 22nd
in
the biggest Estonian
newspaper "Postimees":
http://www.postimees.ee/220806/esileht/siseuudised/214176.php?r
August 23nd in
the German newspaper "Rheinische Post"
(Interview with Alex):
http://www.ippnw-students.org/baltic/rpartikel.html
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For
all those of you who would like to send the bikers personal messages,
words of motivation or who would just like to say something in general
about the Baltic Bike Tour, please write your contribution to the
following E-mail address and it will be updated in the guestbook.
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