Update: Mon 00:10

Sunday, 11 September

I discovered last night that Izhevsk is on Moscow time, ie. two hours behind Yekaterinburg, Kazakhstan, Xinjiang etc.. In the first case this meant that I'd arrived at 5:30pm not 7:30pm and therefore the pub next door wasn't open for a while. The other aspect should have been that I got an extra two hours sleep which my body took and then wanted more! Not good for an early start.

Having posted this morning's update I dumped all my bags in behind reception (I don't think they realised how much stuff I take off the bike) and walked across the park (actually a square) to the Kalashnikov museum in the pouring rain.

Having bought a ticket I was pointed at the cloakroom where they took my dripping jacket off me and gave me some little "shower cap" style overboots. Not just me in my big boots but everyone including the women tottering about in their four inch heels and skirts all the way down to their navels. I don't know if it's a Russian thing but it's not the most common attire I've seen in museums.

Anyway, a worryingly thin (front to back) woman tottered over to explain her English wasn't very good but I could have a special excursion round the museum if I wanted. For extra money, of course. The person who would be doing it would be back in ten minutes. Oh, OK.

In the meanwhile I'd been befriended by a woman from Tatastan (the local region) who explained she was something of a tour guide and regularly brought foreign delegations here to the museum. Via a few other tales she had me looking at photos of her friend from France whom she was going to visit and some of her painter, architect and healer friend and mentor whose work I could go and visit. It's not far, just three hours from wherever. Erm, I'm rather stretched for time...

Saved by the guide I handed over more money (actually only another 150R, the same as the entry price) and we set off round the museum. The first room was actually the most interesting with example local weapons demonstrating their evolution: the first four being a muzzle loaded flint-lock which evolved into a muzzle loaded percussion capped firing mechanism which evolved into a rifled muzzle-loaded percussion cap which evolved (by now some fifty years later in the mid-nineteenth century) into a cartridge loaded (7.62mm!) rifled weapon. Essentially all they'd done was change the action end of the barrel and put some rifling in.

Kalashnikov's early life was suggested. They do know the family was encouraged to leave Russia and take free land in Kazakhstan (I think) in the early twentieth century whereon the Communists appeared, declared the family to be doing rather too well for revolutionary comrades, took all their land and possessions and deported them to Siberia. One hand giveth, etc..

A lucky break in the Second World War (lucky being a serious shoulder injury) saw him escape being a tank driver to go design automatic weapons. His first few designs failing in the multi-year competitions they had for new weapons. Competitions such as drop it in water/mud/etc. and see how well it gets on after that. His design of 1947 (AK-47 -- Automatic Kalishnikov) was taken up by the army and he never looked back. The Russians still use the AKM-74 (Automatic Kalashnikov Modern design of 1974) today. The old boy still staggers up the stairs to his fifth floor office at the factory at the age of 91 today!

So that was an interesting little diversion. It did make me late starting and I hit the road around two heading from the temporarily rain-free centre of town into the rain-ravaged countryside. From what I could tell the rain was being blown East to West so I was chasing everything I'd already suffered. Yuck. Just as soon as you thought you might get blown dry during a gap the rain would come back harder than ever. On the run in to here it was veritably pinging off me. I've not felt that before.

The woman on reception was very polite about me dripping dirty water over her nice floor and desk. For reference, this very comfortable 3* hotel is 3000R (ie. $100). Dinner was surprisingly cheap at 405R possibly because I only had one beer, possibly because there was no English menu and we figured something out by our limited common vocabulary (naturally all English) and they felt suitably sorry for me.

I must discover the whereabouts of the cable that connects my heated gloves to the battery. Not particularly because it's cold (13C today although cold water and wind chill (not to mention the wind itself) are no benefit) but because there's some small hope that in the gaps between rainfalls I might get the gloves to dry out. When you pull your damp hands out of gloves they tend to pull the lining with them which makes them hard to put back on.

Currently at lat/long: n55 47.374 e49 7.381

Hayall Hotel, Kazan