Our first of many village shops.

Evening is coming and Moscow is only a couple of hours away but we plan to ignore the great metropolis on our mad rush eastwards – the visa simply does not afford us time to visit many cities on this whole 12000 km journey and, hey, we can see Moscow any time – it’s probably on the budget airline network after all. The places we’re heading for most definitely are not.

The only question is, then, which of the three ring roads to use getting around the capital. We’re going to cross at night, to avoid the traffic and its rush hours – and there’s a great sense of anticipation as we stock up on energy drinks and fill up with diesel. We are still incredulous that we’re in Russia and everything’s going to plan, even if everytime we open up the maps and see how far we have to go we get the shakes.