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2016: Balkans, Russia and Baltics.


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Some pics i made last September on our three week trip with our bikes through the BalKan countries (Bulgaria, Romania),

up to Ukraine and Russia, Finland and the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), then Poland, Slovakia and Serbia. Followed by

some short comments. If anyone is interested, i can provide some more info.

 

 

 

Day 0. Last minute preparations.

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Day 1. Central Balkans mountain passes in Bulgaria.

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Day 2. Memorial of Glory in Tiraspol, capital of Transnistria which is a de facto independent territory within Moldovan borders.

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Day 3. Leaving the breakaway country Transnistria and entering Ukraine. I love borders. 

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Day 4. Left Ukraine and finally entered Russia. Good thing we had tons of mp3 downloaded for the endless empty country roads.

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Day 5. Hard drinking at night may cause parking your T-34 tank in the middle of a square in Kursk.

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Day 6. Red Square.. 7 C degrees. 

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Day 7. Dancing in russian trails.

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Day 8. Velikiy Novgorod, the birthplace of Russia.

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Day 9. Endless roads as we are heading to St. Petersburg.

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Day 10. Grey sky over город-герои ленинград, the Hero City.

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Day 11. Just to Helsinki.

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Day 12. Tallinn for some dark tourism. Exploring an abandoned soviet prison.

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( here you can read my post about this abandoned ex-soviet prison:55 minutes in Patarei prison )

 

 

Day 13. Exit Estonia, but first some mud..

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Day 14. Thank you Latvia for being so sunny and generous. Time for Lithuania.

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Found this site of pilgrimage in northern Lithuania. There are said to be brought more than 100.000 crosses and crucifixes and they have been placed here symbolically for bodies perished during 1831 and 1836 rebellion against rusian authorities.

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Castle hill in Vilnius, Lithuania.

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Day 15. After a visit to "Wolf's lair", the A. Hitler's headquarters in Masurian woods, we got to this amazing city..Gdansk.

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Day 16. Left Gdansk for Krakow and our first stop to Malborg and the Teutonic castle.

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Day 17. We found Krakow a bit touristic, so we hit the road for the polish mountains.. Bieszczady,,here we goooo!!

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Enduro 0.01 level skills put to the test :)

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Day 18. We leave Bieszczady to enter Slovakia today. But riding hilltop trails we found this church in Ulucz, a tiny village by the river San, some 20 km north of Sanok. I red it was built in 1510 and is considered to be the oldest and finest of the Boyk "cerkwie" located within polish territories, as other of similar style are all in Ukraine.

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Day 19. Trip is coming to its end as we are returning back to Hellas (GR).. anyway.. now to Bratislava.

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Day 20. Last night of our trip we deserved something good. Belgrade, Serbia.

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Hotel Jugoslavija is my favorite place in New Belgrade, maybe because it stands for Ex-Yu nostalgia and wonderful lifestyle. .
The building was directly hit by 2 missiles, during the night of 7/8 May 1999 as part of the NATO operations - bombing of Yugoslavia. The west wing of the hotel was totally destroyed. The reason is not really evident for bombing the hotel, as it wasnt military target. . Greek investors purchased the hotel site in 2010. The project of reconstruction is currently in the pipeline because of the necessary building permits are to be issued. This investment is worth between 120 and 150 million €.

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Finally back to our home town Thessaloniki, Hellas (GR). It took us 22 days to cover 8.150 km, riding through 15 countries of eastern Europe, baltics and Russia. Although my mind is still drifting away, projects of new trips are born..

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One thing, maybe the most important, that guarantees a successful journey without distractions is the person that take care of everything when you are away..  usually staying behind the scene and take no credit. So, many thanks to you baby for the support and being there for me.

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Edited by Stara__Varos
more pics by mistake..
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31 minutes ago, beemer bunny said:

nice! thank you 👍

i was in russia and the southern republics in 2016. loved the country. can't wait to go back!

hey @beemer bunny , thanks for the reply!

Yes, Russia is awesome, even with those totaly flat and vast areas of nothing :D

We also want to be back, heading this time to the central and east parts. The ''-Stans'' is a dream trip for me.

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