Total travel time: 09:43 hours
Total travel distance: 588.94 km (365.95 Mi)
Average speed: 60.7 km/h (37.28 Mph)
Starting Point: Zhukovsky (my home)
Finishing point: Novgorod oblast
GPS Track: [OneWay.ru]

Well, our little adventure started a little bit boring. Some of our crew returned late from a party and, well, it was too cruel to get up at 4-5 AM for early start. So, when we get up, brushed our teeth, get a breakfast and load Koshak with travel gear it was past 11 AM. And that meand Moscow traffic jams was already there to catch us, and we could lost several ours just to travel around the city by MKAD to get to M10 highway.

So I took a long road around Moscow, on a fabled A-107 ring highway, also called by locals as “Small Concrete Ring of Moscow”. That highway has a long story, being build after WW2 as a part of S-25 Berkut air defense program. This ring with 45 km radius was build for mobile surface-to-air complexes to change their positions after shooting down first wave of attacking planes and missiles. For now those strategic roads long ago covered with asphalt, last of S-25 missile complexes being retired just after my birth date and replaced by newer defense complexes. But ghosts of a Clod War still echoing in this roads, with a cracks at regular intervals where was loose places between old concrete plates underneath.

After some hours we was on our intended M-10 highway, traveling north inside constant stream of heavy trucks hauling goods between two largest cities of Russia (Moscow and St. Petersburg). Dusted villages, traffic control, huge bridges... well, boring and tiresome road. The only thing that lighten it and lighten our travel in such crowded condition was CB transceiver I installed recently. Constant chatter of long-haul truck drivers giving away road conditions, traffic jams, locations of speed control radars and police was a real help and, it also brighten our road. Well, the language of those drivers could be, er, a little less … salty, but those guys work in this kind of traffic conditions every day. For months. And even I from time to time can't hold swearing when some mf bi***.... never mind (and I'm really a well-mannered and civilized tiger, thank you).

We had a quick dinner somewhere near Torzhok town in Tver Oblast, in a field not far from a highway. And rode on.

It was apparent that we won't reach Karelia any time soon, so we decided to make a stop and camp somewhere. I remembered a cozy spot some near Holova river (Russian: Холова), just past Dolgii Most village (Russian: Долгий Мост) on M-10 highway, where we camped a year before. About two klicks of a forest road (suitable except maybe last hundred meters by every standard car) and we arrived at river bend with a old campfire and makeshift table made by hunters. That place actually was inside a hinting reservation on a territory where all unauthorized hinting is prohibited, but since we was after a different kind of adventure than killing some beasts for fun it was okay to camp there.

The place meet us with a bit of rain followed with full-scale thunderstorm. We made our supper on a portable gas stove (every bit of wood was wet) and go to bad, listening on a constant clutter of rain against our tent. So hard to fall asleep with all those sounds, even through we were tired we still lie for a while and listen. Waked up later that night cute_dog and I even tried to bath in a river. Water was cold, banks were slippery and mosquitoes were ready.

P.S. For those of you who happens to travel through Russia (or, well, almost every other East Europe country) by car with CB transceiver installed, international long-haul truck drivers channel is 15C E AM channel (27,135 MHz amplitude modulation), through some could work at 15C R AM (27,130 Mhz) Belarus drivers for example.