Greetings in the name of Jesus!

     Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The short Russian Far East summer is already coming to a close.  In the States the symbolic end to summer is September first, when school starts again.  Here, this is the literal end to summer.  The hillsides are already blushing with dull shades of red mixed with yellow hues.  The temperature is still warm when the sun is high, but nightfall is a time for jackets and seeing your breath.

So it was in a last ditch effort to savor the few remaining warm weekends that we have left that we decided to go on a trip.  Burning within me was a fire for adventure being fueled by John Eldridge’s book “Wild at Heart.”  I was desperate to get out of the city and see something more of the surrounding beauty.  What I wanted was some good old granola get back to nature type boyish romp in the countryside.  What I ended up with was an unfettered bird’s eye view of three superpowers and a flat tire.  The peninsula that Vladivostok sits on is surrounded by the Sea of Japan on the East and the Amur Bay on the West.  On a clear day it is possible to see the other side of the Amur Bay.  Green mountains desperately rise and fall on the opposite side in much the same way that they do here.  Small settlements can be seen dotting the hillsides with tiny plumes of smoke rising from dark valleys about 20 miles away.  I hear that it is possible to drive across if the ice gets thick enough in the winter.

On the other side of the Amur Bay and further to the south lies a small settlement named Hasan.  I had wanted to see it ever since I reached post nearly seven months ago.  This little nothing of a town is the Russian border checkpoint where three of the world’s political powerhouses (for the time being anyway) join.  North Korea, Russia, and China meet at one spot, separated only by the Tumannaya River.  The only visible civilian settlement in the area is Hasan.  The fact that Americans aren’t allowed to travel to North Korea, are monitored in China, and are a novelty in the Russian Far East, made visiting this region a very exciting proposal.  The prospect of being one of only a handful of Americans to come to the town since a misguided missile exploded there during the Korean War made is impossible to resist.  Our course was set.

I went to work on Friday with great anticipation.  High noon meant that my weekend started early.  That’s when I came home and started to pack up the car in a frenzy.  Knowing that we would be there only one night I brought just the essentials.  In a small shopping bag were some deodorant, underwear, and socks...none of which I ended up using.  A tent, a pair of sleeping bags, a bucket (who knows, right?) and some dishes and we were set to go.  Roman, our pastor, rounded out our trio.  We sped towards the Second River neighborhood and picked up the fourth member of our party, Roman’s wife Tanya.

Fully knowing that Russians have no concept of a road trip Missy and I bought some of the bare necessities.  Veterans of the road trip know that a Coke, a Snickers, and a can of Pringles is hardly enough for a four hour expedition.  There is a strong correlation between the number of miles you put behind you and the calories you put in you.  We were sadly lacking in the calories, but we did the best we could with what we had to work with.  A short prayer and we were headed out of town.

The surliness of Vladivostok grew small in the rear view.  Babushkas were out in legion to sell their potato harvests on the side of the road.  We let the clean country air fill our lungs and took in the bright colors of the rural landscape north of the city.  Through one military town, over a bridge and a left turn put us onto a dirt road on the opposite side of the Amur Bay.  From here, if we thought we were lost, we could just head south and we were sure to hit Hasan, which was fortunate because we didn’t have a map.  I was depending on my innate man-sense of direction.  It has only failed me once, and only my wife knows when.

The road switched back and forth between spine shattering pitted gravel cart paths to pristine asphalt road courses.  With the air conditioning out on my Land Cruiser we were left with only the windows.  If you weren’t behind anyone then you could have them down, but only until someone approached in the oncoming lane, in which case you would hurriedly roll them up.  This was the carefully orchestrated ballet that transpired for 200 miles.  One slip up, one ill timed opening around a blind turn, or being late on the window crank with a Kamaz passing left you blowin’ stuff out your nose the likes of which you ain’t never seen.

This was the way it went for nearly three hours.  Window down.  Relax.  Oncoming Lada.   Window up.  Fry.  Dust clears, window down.  Air out ill timed fart.  Catch up to Volga, roll up window.  Retrap ill timed fart.  Roll down window in panic.  Dust encrust nose.  Sneeze.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

All was well when we pulled into Kraskeno.  A local walking his dog told us that Hasan was another 50 kliks down the road.  “Is it a good place?” Roman asked.  “Yeah, it’s fine.”  The road continued through town and along the shoreline of a calm salt-water lake.  Birds took refuge in large swaths of wetlands.  Cows grazed on the roadside unrestricted by fences or ropes.  Eerie bald peaks formed a lunar backdrop to the swamps.  The sun was getting low on the horizon and the shadows were starting to grow long.  It was about 6:00 when we reached the city limits.  We got out to take a picture next to the Hasan (spelled XACAH in Russian) town sign.  Before we got back in, Roman pointed out that our tire looked a little low.  I circled the car and concurred.  Not only was it low, but it was getting lower before our eyes.  I quickly rallied everyone back into the car and we headed into town to look for a tire repair shop.

Now, it should be noted that a tire repair place, though not essential to every hamlet in the U.S., is a mainstay of every Russian town on the map...every Russian town but one.  Hasan had no place to repair my tire.  The closest place was Kraskeno.  There, in front of the general store, the four of us watched on as my tire deflated into a mushy swell.

I reluctantly started the humble practice of changing the tire.  With the punctured tire removed I began to rummage through the back of the car.  I was searching for a spare that a coworker lent me for the trip.  He had a Land Cruiser also, but much to my dismay, his tire was mounted on a five lug rim while mine was a six lug.  In disgust I reinstalled the flat, now holding about 8 pounds of pressure.  While I was hand tightening the lug nuts a man in camouflage approached us.

The young man introduced himself to us.  He was Alexi, a Major in the army and the local FSB representative.  (For those who don’t know, the FSB is the restructured remains of the KGB.)  Through Roman I was informed that we were in Hasan illegally.  Alexi demanded our passports, which we handed over.  I nonchalantly continued to fiddle with my tire.  Being a diplomat, I knew that he wasn’t going to do anything rash to me or anybody in my party.  The Major then turned to me and abruptly asked for my travel documents.  This did make me nervous.  Before I can travel anywhere in Russia I need to inform the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of where I am going.  I had submitted the proper request in the proper format at the proper time.  The MFA didn’t reply, and so I thought no news was good news and decided to carry on to Hasan.  I had no travel documents on hand.

Still trying to keep my cool I told him that I delivered the paperwork to the MFA head, Mr. Goryachev.  I hoped that by dropping Goryachev’s name Alexi would back down thinking that I had a personal relationship with the head of the MFA.  Alexi didn’t bight.  He asked for the paperwork again. This time I had to confess, I didn’t have the papers.  I explained that the MFA didn’t think that it was necessary for me to have them this trip and that I could travel freely, which could have been true.  Then I played the only card I had left, the “hey-buddy-if-you-got-a-problem-with-it-then-call-the-Consulate-of-the-United-States-of-America-and-they-can-set-you-straight card.  This didn’t phase him either.  He and I both knew that they would tell him the same thing that he was telling me.  Without proper papers I had no permission to go anywhere, especially not within whizzing distance of the North Korean border.  Alexi asked us to return to Vladivostok, immediately.  At this Roman pulled him aside.  He explained that we just had a hard days drive and that it would be cruel to make us return so soon.  I chimed in and explained that all we wanted to do was camp and after a little back and forth the Major settled on allowing us to, but not within 5 kilometers of Hasan.  He repeated that we had to leave now.  I took this opportunity to explain our lack of spare tire situation, and said that we would gladly get out of his hostile little town if we could get our tire repaired.  This put the ball in his court.  We were unable to comply with his demand and because he was responsible for keeping the diplomatic riffraff out of Hasan, he was in a roundabout way obliged to help us.

I could see that his military brainwashing was starting to falter.  Finally a human side broke through.  “Drive me to the Army base and we can fix your tire.”  At this I experienced some cognitive dissonance.  One side of my brain told me that I was an American civilian about to be escorted onto a Russian Army base in a highly volatile part of the world.  The other side said, “Dude!”

We ambled up a bumpy road, our right rear tire quietly hissing.  A confused guard stood behind a primitive barricade at the gate to the base.  Alexi instructed us to stay put while he went and talked to the proper people about what was transpiring.  He returned and the guard let us through under watchful eye.  We went pass the barracks and around the corner, through another gate, around a garage and stopped in front of an Ooaz truck that was being serviced.  Sasha, the bare-chested mechanic, sauntered over.  Alexi asked him to hook up the compressor and run the hose through the wall.  The base was pretty tidy.  Fresh paint had been applied early in the summer.  The grounds were kept up by the enlisted men.  The equipment, though outdated and cantankerous, was neatly parked.  Laundry hung out on the barrack’s balconies.  A tall watchtower kept watch over the compound.  Or did it?

The idea occurred to me that the Russia/China border was mighty close also.  I looked at where we parked and the road we drove to get there.  I noticed that the fence bordering the road we took around the perimeter was a bit severe.  Seven feet of chicken wire laced with barbs was topped by razor wire on both sides.  This was the Chinese border.  We had driven on the 10 foot wide no-man’s-land that separates the two countries.  To verify my suspicion I asked Alexi, who confirmed.  I also asked him if I could climb the watch tower.  Roman didn’t translate.

The tire filled back up to capacity but we could still hear it hissing.  Alexi went inside and called two people in town who he thought might be able to do a temporary repair.  He returned to report the good news that someone in town was expecting us.  Alexi gave us all a cordial handshake and wished us good luck.  Sasha escorted us to his comrade’s house.  We stopped at the end of a short row of (North) Korean built houses.  A hairy man emerged with tools in hand and a smile.  Immediately recognizing the situation he told me to reposition the car so that the puncture would be accessible.  With a couple of jerking motions and a wad of thick glue the hole was plugged with a temporary rubber cement solution.  Sasha laid hold of a bicycle pump and got to it, but not before he shed his shirt again.  The rubber cement saint seized this moment to boast about his hunting achievements in the area.  He went back inside to get a small picture album that he flipped through, displaying photo after photo of dead ducks, fat fish, and hamstrung boar.

Sasha’s vains bulged as he worked that little bicycle pump until all the weight he could put on it wasn’t enough to coax in more air.  With that I pulled out a hundred ruble bill and tried to thank them both for their help.  They both refused, which I half expected.  I pocketed the bill and decided to settle on a hand shake.  The sun had dipped behind the mountains now and we still needed to find a camping spot that we knew was no less than 5 km away.

We headed back to the hills and wetlands on the outskirts (not that it had any inskirts) of Hasan.  We pulled off onto small trails that led into the trees in search of a place to put up camp for the night.  The first attempt stopped at an already occupied campsite.  Further down the road we pulled off and took an elevated gravel road through a small swamp.  An open area near the foot of a hill looked inviting, but the nearby drunken rabble of hunters (with guns) did not.  It was dark now and we were screaming down the road in desperation looking for just about anything.  We almost settled for a small abandoned rock quarry but Roman advised us to go around the bend and see if there was anything.  Good thing he did.  Down the back slope of a small hill appeared a glassy smooth pond shimmering in the deep blue of the darkening horizon.  A short path through some tall grass ended at a lakeside campsite, complete with fire pit and makeshift bench.  After we praised God for delivering us to such a wonderful spot we started to set up camp.

I put the girls to task setting up the tent and unpacking the car.  Roman and I waded through dense undergrowth to a small clump of trees.  We gathered what dry wood we could on the ground and broke off any dead branches from overhead.  Do you remember the movie “Arachnophobia” when they spray that tree and all of these insects fall out?  Imagine being under that tree.  I was doing the frenzied “spider web in my face” dance while Roman grouped our bounty together.  We managed to drag back enough to keep us burning through most of the night and again the next morning.  Back at the campsite we did a weenie roast and heated up some precooked chicken.  This was all washed down by some hot tea brought in a thermos.  Ducks meandered in and out of the reeds growing along the banks and every so often a fish could be heard jumping in the water.  I walked out just far enough to be out of the firelight and tilted my head up and kept the position until my neck hurt.  I couldn’t take my eyes off the stars.  When I was a kid in Colorado we had a similar night sky.  There was no light to drown the splendor or immensity of the Milky Way splitting the sky.  Every star ever seen by a human in the northern hemisphere could be seen shining bright on that moonless night.

The next morning we started another fire to cook our breakfast, more weenies.  Little discussion was made about what we were going to do for the day.  We knew that at about three in the afternoon we wanted to be on our way home.  Until then we were going to explore.  I had my eyes set on heading south again.  I needed to see North Korea and China and know it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Everything was loaded up and another quick prayer was made for safety.  We rumbled back onto the main road (which wasn’t any less rumbly than the others) and started to head back in the direction of Hasan.  My goal was to climb the closest hill I could find and sneak a peek at the communist hinterlands of our southern neighbors.

Within a few minutes I recognized the terrain, which meant that we were probably getting a little too close.  To our right, just beyond a set of railroad tracks, was a bald hill guarded on the north side by knobby bluffs and wildflowers.  I took us in the direction of the bulge.  We eventually came to a fork in the trail.  The road we turned down steadily grew worse and worse.  It began to narrow and I could here the dense plant life taking its toll on the undercarriage of the truck.  One mud bog just about claimed the entire vehicle.  The last thing that we needed was to be stuck in the middle of nowhere in the back woods of Russia.  I prayerfully locked the hubs and got back in hoping that the 4-wheel drive would pull us through.  I let the truck rock back and forth, each time claiming tiny bits of dry earth to feed traction to the tires.   The RPMs were screaming as the tires flung mud high over the roof.  Finally, with nothing short of divine intervention, the Land Cruiser broke free.  I got out to survey the damage but was pleasantly surprised to see that we were now riding in something that looked like it was straight out of Road Warrior.  Nothing of the blue paint job could be seen.  It had been replaced by thick black earth and tufts of grass.

Once we got back to the fork we thought it best if we went to the right this time.  Over some mud, through some mud.  Over some shrubs, through some shrubs.  We finally pulled over along the railroad tracks at the foot of the mountain.  I figured that the thick greenery would hide us somewhat from the nearby road.

We all took a hardy belt of the fresh water we brought and stripped down to t-shirts and cameras.  We quickly found out that we would have to blaze our own trail.  The tall, thick grass was up pass my head in some spots.  Downed power lines had to be negotiated as well as something that looked like trip wires.  Every so often one of us would fall out of sight if our foot found a hole.  The lead person was in charge of knocking down as much amazon as possible.  The others fell in behind and did their best to stay single file.  A quarter of the way up and I thought I would be carrying my wife.  Half the way up and my wife asked me to carry her.  Three quarters of the way up and Roman and I were giving pep talks to both wives.  Breathless and with a hot sweat freezing in a cold wind, we conquered the summit.

The four of us took in the stunning scenery at the top.  Our car was but a dot in a cover of waving grass.  Hasan could be seen about five and half kilometers away.  All around peaks popped up out of the marshland.  Sparse stands of trees crept up the sides of the mountains closest to the sea.  Further inland and they were claimed entirely by thick forests.  Vast meadows spread wide below us.

A couple of peculiar landmarks caught my attention.  Just below us was a thin ribbon of barren land that ran north and south.  It too climbed the mountainsides like the forests and went right over the peaks.  Further north it could be seen blurring into the blue green horizon.  This was the Chinese border.  From this vantage point I could see now that had we driven 2 more minutes along the train tracks then we would have run right into it.  We probably parked just in time.

The stationary border butted into a more fluid one (literally) to the south.  From the Chinese border east to the sea along the Tumannaya River was the small natural border between Russia and North Korea.  Our group could see beyond the slow river and about 20 miles into the mysterious and forbidden country (which didn’t look either from where we were, but I bet it was).  We could also see mysterious and forbidden watchtowers on every hill of size around the triad.  Not only that, we could see mysterious and forbidden watchtowers on the hills surrounding us!  Who knows who was looking?  We saw what we came to see, got photographic evidence/CIA intel, and it was time to go.  Our strides downhill were much larger.  We reached the bottom quicker than it took to reach the top.  Another swallow from the communal water jug and we hit the road.

Thoroughly satisfied with what we had accomplished and experienced in the past 24 hours we started heading back to Vlad.  I was taking it easy knowing that we didn’t want a repeat of the tire incident from the day before.  Up ahead someone else was experiencing the same misfortunes that we had.  A man on the side of the road flagged us down while a greasy buddy kept fiddling under the hood of a truck parked on the shoulder.  “He wants a lift into Kraskeno to get a fuel filter.”  We decided to take him and continued on our way.

No sooner had we gotten up to cruising speed then I noticed that I was hearing a lot of road noise, even from a Russian road.  I started to feel the steering get a little loose as the noise became louder.  My gut started to tie into a knot.  I had a sinking feeling of what was happening.  I slowed the car over to the side of the road, still within sight of our hitchhikers filterless truck.  “Opa!” the hitchhiker exclaimed.  The same tire was going flat again.  “Everybody back in the car.”  This time I knew what needed to be done.  We needed to get to the tire shop that the Major mentioned the day before, and fast.

I pushed the truck as fast as I thought was safe.  We slowed down to let the hitcher out.  He told us that the repair shop was on the other side of town (of course).  When I started to go again the tire broke away from the rim and buckled underneath.  We continued to limp through town at about 5 kph (about 0 mph) with an embarrassing slapping noise every time the tire thumped a revolution.  It was only a matter of seconds before we would be on the rim itself so I pulled over and buried my head in my hands.  Again, we silently unloaded.

Roman and I surveyed the situation.  We had one usable rim with a trashed tire.  We had another good tire on an unusable rim.  Our only option was to get both sets to a service station and put the good tire on the good rim.  Luckily we managed to hobble the car within a block of the repair station.  Unluckily, it had closed 5 minutes ago and no one was in sight.  On the brink of spewing explicative language in a manner as to lose my salvation, I stubbornly walked back to the car, my wife and friends a safe distance behind me.

Roman learned from a local that further down the road was another small station.  With the tire removed we held out our hand on the side of the road to ask for a lift.  After a short wait a young man in a truck pulled over.  He was willing to give us a hand, for fifty rubles.  Figuring his time was worth a buck fifty, I accepted the offer.  Roman and I loaded both tires into the back of the truck and jumped in the cab.  The girls’ mission was to find some ice cream and something cold to drink.

Five kilometers further was a hollow shell of masonry.  Attached to the side was a pile of bricks big enough to hold a compressor, mechanic, and tire repair machine.  We pulled in and unloaded the tires.  The mechanic, grubby overalls, trucker’s hat and all, limped up to Roman.  Looking at the tires and recognizing what needed to be done he asked, “Will you go buy me beer?  The ladies at the shop don’t sell it to me anymore because I get drunk too easily.”  We politely told him no and convinced him to attend to our tire before getting blotto.

I watched the man perform his craft and spoke as little as possible.  I assumed that if he heard me speaking English then I would get the special “Yankee” rate, exponentially higher than the local rate for anyone in distress.  45 rubles later and we were ready to head back into town.  The old tire rolled back out to us and flopped down at our feet.  The sides had been sliced by the rim from prolonged driving, but even more interesting was evidence that the tire had been repaired at least three times prior.  A friend had recently bought it for me from a used tire place and when he told me for how much I was surprised at the deal he was able to swing.  Now I knew why.

Once more we thanked God for providing for us and prayed that he would continue to keep us safe.  It would be easy to argue that we had no reason to thank Him at all.  Consider this, the day before I was indulging in another road trip tradition, “the top-speed freak out.”  Stand on the gas and feel your heart race.  Hold on as long as you can and before you “freak out” glance at the speedometer.  This is easier to do when your speedometer is in kilometers per hour and you grew up with miles per hour, which makes the numbers completely irrelevant.  My point is this, I freaked out at 175 kph (about 110 mph), easily fast enough to kill everyone in the car if your tire blows.

There was very little left that could still go wrong.  I wasn’t going to needlessly speed at the risk of losing more tires.  We wanted to take it slow and easy and enjoy the remainder of our weekend.  So we did.  The carpeted hillsides caught our attention again.  We saw unique birds wading in the calm wetland waters and old farmers hunched over basketfuls of bounty.  We even passed a woman selling pumpkins, somewhat of a rarity in Russia, on the side of the road.  Knowing that Missy wanted one I slowed down and swung wide so I could complete a standard U-turn.  Expecting to pull it off no problem I wheeled the car around and...kunk!  With my last bit of civility I got out, again.  In disbelief I stared at what had happened.  My front tire was spinning freely in the air while my front differential rested on the end of a concrete culvert hidden by weeds.  The culvert ran in an overgrown ditch that had unexpectedly sucked in the front passenger side.  This meant we were stranded in a village with the rear half of the car sticking out into the only road in town.

I automatically assumed the worst and resigned myself to camping in the village until the Consulate could fly in a helicopter to airlift us all out.  Thankfully Roman kept his cool.  We managed to strategically jockey our way out of the ditch using the 4-wheel drive.  Apathetic villagers looked on, amused by the funny-speaking foreigners.  We prayed, again, and embarrassedly sped out of town, without a pumpkin.

A cold sweat and nervous shake accompanied an eye twitch I was developing.  I was a wreck.  My eyes bulged and scrutinized every crack, every miniscule rock, every square inch of the road.  When I had a chance I would crane my neck over the steering wheel and glance up to watch for any debris from exploding airliners or satellites burning up on reentry.  I was ready for anything.  The remainder of the trip home was accented by driving with finely honed catlike reflexes.

The ditch turned out to be the last catastrophe of the weekend, although we did almost take out a pedestrian at the city limits.  An hour later we pulled into our courtyard and killed the motor.  My wife and I sat motionless and mentally recapped the weekend.  It was an awesome experience.  The bad things that happened had good things right behind them.  The flat tire in Hasan meant that we got to visit a military base.  The mud bog meant that I could prove our adventure.  The (same) flat tire in Kraskeno meant that I got ice cream.  The ditch meant that I got a chance to entertain locals.  All of the positives aside, we were lucky we weren’t either dead, in FSB custody, or lynched by the toothless natives.  We did eventually find the pumpkin that Missy wanted, and the only obstacle left was the stairs to the front door.  One more prayer couldn’t hurt.

We love you!
      

    Greetings from the VCC Church.

    Roman & Tanya Gorlov, Victor Korotkov and the Calvary Chapel in Vladivostok. 22 October 2003