Author Archive | Gareth Morgan

66916607_2855322474509572_3006303603406143488_o

Dachas, Country Living & Village Life – A Pictorial Perspective

The famed Russian summer houses are still mostly modest cottages with a small plot of cultivable land and are popular amongst the nation’s urbanites, who travel to them for weekends or longer retaining their passion for country living, relaxing and gardening. With Russia having a relatively low rate of urbanisation the villages include many permanent […]

Continue Reading

Flood Devastation in Siberia

The area around Turun in Eastern Siberia (just west of Irkutsk and Lake Baikal) suffered terrible flooding and 20 people lost their live. We rode through the area two days after the disaster and the impact on local housing was shocking. It reminded us of the awful days in New Orleans after Katrina when we rode through […]

Continue Reading
64239113_2760284064013414_671458071611965440_o

Tatarstan

We’re now in Kazan, capital of Tatarstan, land of the Tartars. As descendants of Genghis Khan the folk here are proud of being part of the Golden Horde that ruled these lands until Ivan the Terrible, Russia’s first Tzar sacked their city and burnt their places of worship. A rather ignominious end for the first […]

Continue Reading
64725321_2768646653177155_5738610137531154432_o

Closed Cities and Gulags

Leaving the Volga River now after a week travelling along it, we pass through Izhevsk – home of the Kalashnikov (AK 47) and into the city of Perm. Perm was a closed city during Soviet times. As with several other cities it was where armaments were manufactured. Indeed for 17 years it was called Molotov, […]

Continue Reading