I went out very early in the morning to search for the tool I needed, a 23-inch Allen wrench. Today’s Sunday and most of the shops aren’t open, but as Volodya has his garage he knows exactly where to take me. He drove me to a large area with several galleries with spare part shops in them. However, lady luck isn’t on our side and after walking through seven different stores we ended up buying a 24-inch.

Volodya says we can reduce it to 23 inches at the workshop.

While Viktor tried to do such work, I took the 17-inch wrench that goes on the other side. With the help of a mace, I try to loosen the nut. Surprisingly, it works. On the back, I see Viktor sweating a lot to reduce the size of the wrench without success, and I tell him to stop.

With the axle loosened, I took off the wheel and called Volodya while Viktor changed the tire. Volodya left me at the workshop after our early courses and returned to his house with his children. He just came back to say goodbye.

I left Novosibirsk around 11:30 in the morning.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t properly say goodbye to Elena and Viktor. They were probably at their apartment but I was in the city center at the time and with all the fuss I completely forgot to meet them the day before. Additionally, Constantine felt sick during the weekend and wasn’t able to meet either.

As soon as I leave I let Sergey know because he likes to wait for me and travel the last kilometers together. As a plus, he helps me avoid being stopped by the police. They have a small outpost right in front of the entrance to the town.

They stopped me in 2018 and I broke down right after that.

When I started driving again the transmission belt broke a hundred meters later, after having traveled a few hundred kilometers with the broken shock absorber. And that’s how we met back then.

I stopped for a snack about a hundred kilometers from Novosibirsk. Sergey had already told me not to eat too much on the road, but I barely had breakfast today. I finally met him ten kilometers before reaching Krasnozerskoe. He is waiting for me with Vitali and his son at the same bus station as in 2019. After the proper greetings, they both escorted me to Sergey’s house.

Upon arrival, Sergey called the town reporter.

In this case, it isn’t Marina, the one I met four years ago, who’s interviewing me, but Natalya. Marina has moved to ‘the big city’ last year. The whole family welcomes me at the house: Elena, Marina (16), Artiëm (6), and Masha (5).

We moved on with the interview, translator in hand, and Sergey prepared Shashlik. After a short meal, we go into the sauna to relax for a while. Normally, saunas are segregated because people are usually naked, but in this case, it is used in turns. Sergey and I go first, then Elena and Marina.

More people were there when returning to the house.

I found Sergey’s father, whom I also met four years ago, with another of his grandchildren, Daniel. We had dinner together and around 8:30 p.m. someone called Sergey to do some emergency work. I accompanied him to his workshop to see how he mills the engine of a Nissan Patrol.

Once the job was done, we returned home and spent the rest of the evening with the eldest daughter. Marina asks me about my experience in the sauna and I tell her what happened to me in Chelyabinsk in 2018.

Her opinion on the matter is that I participated in a sectarian cult activity.

She shows me that she still fondly keeps the card, the patch, and the box of nougat I brought to her the last time. I also had something to show her, as I brought the doll that she made for me four years ago. It has traveled with me since then. She ends up going to bed a little earlier than us because she has school the next day and it’s already later than 11:00 p.m.

Sergey has prepared two activities for today.

First, we will go to the town Museum which has an exhibition of a local painter who died in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the people who works there is a woman who also has a motorcycle and doesn’t hesitate to take some photos of us while she asks me to write a few words in the exhibition’s guest book.

The hanging paintings are from the painter, but some of his student’s works are also displayed on the tables. We continued walking a little through the town. I couldn’t help but see that they have built some new rest areas on the occasion of the 90th anniversary. We picked up Marina from school and had lunch together at home before our next activity.

We picked up Evgeniy, another biker from the area.

He accompanied us to Petropavlovka to visit a museum with houses, articles, and vintage vehicles. They showed us how the fabrics were made and they gave me a handmade blanket while they also made me a bracelet.

The bracelet is tied with a knot that would seal a wish and make it come true. We return to the house for an early dinner. We then went for a short walk in the park before the sunset to avoid being sat in the living room.