Dinah Washington started to sing at five am, I reached for my phone to hit snooze and lifted my head from the pillow half an hour later to feed and get out of the house. The sun burns bright after the early haze, hung low so all I can see is tarmac. white sky, and '50' signs on the M1. I don't have my sunglasses - I'm going to Moscow.
This is my second trip to Russia - last November we went to scope out the routes, meet the teams and see the workshop the test would be based from - and this morning I feel excited to make progress, content with the set-up and happy to see the guys again. I think about breakfast at Heathrow, relaxing and writing at our stop off at Chopin airport in Warsaw, feeling the cold on arrival and finding the sauna in the hotel. Who knew Fred Chopin was Polish? First arrival on the previous trip felt like a good opportunity to listen to the only compositions of his I know - the Preludes - and the ninth is probably my favourite.
My ride this morning is a Renault Kadjar. It's like an inflated Captur, which is an inflated Clio. The Clio and the Captur share the Renault/Nissan B-Platform; the Kadjar sits on the Renault/Nissan Common Module Family that also underpins the Qashqai. I hadn't realised this commonality until now and, recognising the massive sales figures that the Qashqai achieves, I'm surprised at the lack of styling distinction Renault have managed here. It's only just recognisable as a crossover, appearing sloopy and low slung, easily mistakable for a Captur at a short distance. Sat inside, the driving position fits my ergonomics nicely, stuff felt well laid out, and there is plenty of passenger and luggage space, but again you're sat quite low and the only tell tale of differentiation from a passenger car are the outboard bonnet humps sweeping from the A-posts forming an odd, scooped out view. This one has the 1.4TD (110PS, 250Nm) with a six speed manual; it doesn't lumber low down, picking up revs quickly off the line, and it feels as comfortable as one can expect from any decent new car at motorway speeds. I like it. The same praise can't be granted to the Juke I had on the way home - more later.
My ride this morning is a Renault Kadjar. It's like an inflated Captur, which is an inflated Clio. The Clio and the Captur share the Renault/Nissan B-Platform; the Kadjar sits on the Renault/Nissan Common Module Family that also underpins the Qashqai. I hadn't realised this commonality until now and, recognising the massive sales figures that the Qashqai achieves, I'm surprised at the lack of styling distinction Renault have managed here. It's only just recognisable as a crossover, appearing sloopy and low slung, easily mistakable for a Captur at a short distance. Sat inside, the driving position fits my ergonomics nicely, stuff felt well laid out, and there is plenty of passenger and luggage space, but again you're sat quite low and the only tell tale of differentiation from a passenger car are the outboard bonnet humps sweeping from the A-posts forming an odd, scooped out view. This one has the 1.4TD (110PS, 250Nm) with a six speed manual; it doesn't lumber low down, picking up revs quickly off the line, and it feels as comfortable as one can expect from any decent new car at motorway speeds. I like it. The same praise can't be granted to the Juke I had on the way home - more later.
As I hit the A43 going west towards the M40, I get all emotional over some dramatic classical music and yield to some nostalgia, thinking back to mine and my friend Tucker's first passes of this road, opened just as he'd got his place at Loughborough university. Driving up from Shiplake that first time we missed it, because the paper maps we had were out of date - no nav server here - but after seeing it running parallel to us on the B road above on the way up, we found it heading back home. We subsequently used it so much we'd memorise the speed camera locations (one up, two down) and, on later nights, race between the roundabouts like true teenage buffoons. One winter weekend we were due to head up when it snowed heavily and I couldn't get my front wheel drive Rover 218 over the crest of the road by Tucker's home, but somehow we managed it in his rear drive V6 Omega. Foolishly we continued, running eventually in icy ruts in the outside lane of the M1 as the air cooled the further north we got. I remember arriving around three am, finding the twenty four hour Tescos to buy trash food from and do doughnuts in the carpark, filming all the while on a huge VCR camera that Tucker had. That was 2003 or 2004 - I think the coldest winter we had until 2010/2011 when we had record cold temperature in December (remembered for when a group of friends and I tied a Golf seat on skis to the back of a Land Rover and sledged round the local lanes). We've not had cold like that since, and when I search the net I find that our really hard winters have all been recorded long ago - something to ask Grandpa about.
It's the same story for the snow in Russia. When we were there in November the temperatures hovered just above freezing and any snowfall up to then had been sparse. The guys said they've seen it get later every year, remembering in their teens that the lakes froze at this time, the snow had covered the forests, fields and filled the gaps between roads and pathways, none of which would resurface until March. This time, when we arrived, the deep-below-zero temperatures had hit and since passed, the air staying cool enough to leave all those frozen features undisturbed. The lakes are a wonder to see - some of them as big as several football pitches - all of them littered with people; some huddled around drilled holes with fishing rods; some setting up tents to use as windbreaks to prepare their kit; some gliding across the surface on skis.
The Roads
The cars get battered out here, and it's no real surprise when you see the variation in the quality of the surfaces, and how quickly you can find yourself on a track when your route was otherwise seemingly well paved. Perhaps partly because of the vastness of the country and the hence sprawling network of commercial centres, suburban areas and swathes of rural land, five lane highways can turn into broken concrete and then to dirt and stone trails all within tens of metres, often traversed in much less time than it takes to reconsider whether it's a good idea to take your car down it. Some of the tracks have islands of tarmac or concrete, signs of the battle between civilisation and the elements - the guys showed us examples of roads that had been laid as recently as a year before that were already one third crumbled and cracked - it's staggering how quickly stuff gets eaten up by the effects of the temperature cycles and ranges. Critically, down these tracks, alongside ramshackle corrugated steel and asbestos garages and similarly constructed small dwellings, one often finds large, new, expensive homes occupied by wealthy people driving cars and SUVs that suit their lifestyles - meaning that it's not just already-rattly Ladas that commute these car busters. There were many occasions where I considered how much I'd cringe having to take my Hilux over the terrain, let alone a five figure luxury motor, but they do it, sometimes every day.
The Driving
The traffic in Moscow's centre and the three ring roads is unsurprisingly thick. During the middle of the day all but the smallest of city centre routes flow as well as London, but the mornings and afternoons through to after ten pm are guaranteed stop/start, with an emphasis on the former. One evening we went for dinner by the marina which is well north of the city centre, between the second and third ring roads. It took us one hour to do fifteen kilometres on the Leningradskoye highway.
The lane discipline is not strict, with plenty of undertaking and most people making the most of any small opportunity to make progress, but the respect and level of patience displayed is pretty impressive and quite surprising. I saw a fair smattering of bruises and gashes on mostly cheaper cars - plenty of duct tape repairs too - so they must enjoy a bit of touch traffic, but we only witnessed the aftermath of a single big accident on the second trip. All the guys we rode with, including Mikhail - the new, young engineer, drove well - smoothly and observantly. I got to pilot the last portion of one of the tracks and then some dual carriageway until we reached a fuel station - while I was content, I couldn't match the racing lines achieved on the same roads by the airport shuttle bus driver.
Putin
Putin's face appeared in most of the places I saw and went to. Businesses have posters with him on, homes display shrines with him at the centre, gift shops are plastered with goods adorned with his mug, yes - mugs included. My favourites are the T-shirts with him wrestling a bear or looking ice cool in his mavs, and the Russian dolls with him as the daddy, sometimes with Borris Yeltsin enclosed within, Mikhail Gorbachev - with his trademark port-stain forehead mark - inside him. Let us enjoy the ironic combination of fantastic portrayal, seemingly undeniable corruption and bad economic management, coupled with widespread and apparently undying national support. How much of it is indoctrinated? How much alternative thought is stifled by isolation? I understand Russians to be some of the most prevalent users of social media and their internet is not bound and gagged like it is in China - they are free to roam. Private owned national media must be vetted by state, many channels are run by the state-owned All-Russia Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, and polls are probably biased or bullshit, but even acknowledging that it seems there is something unusual about the way these people regard this man.
Since I got back pro-opposition demonstrators rallied in cities across the country on the anniversary of Boris Nemtsov's murder, apparently in their thousands in Moscow - so there is support for the liberal party - but only enough to muster less than 10% of the vote. They are proud and patriotic, but surely that should invoke a sense of injustice that their government has got it wrong, irrelevant of whether or not they're shifty. The economy has only shrunk since its precipice-fall in late 2014 - then primarily as a result of the oil price tumbling, but also coinciding with the introduction of international sanctions after Putin popped in to Ukraine for a spot of tea and some territory. I saw a great quote from a BBC report, from a lady demonstrating against the Kremlin's economic policy - when asked about the objectiveness of state run television, she replied "Well, it's all right for us to criticise our government, but if we complain to you about our government, that's not patriotic."
Since I got back pro-opposition demonstrators rallied in cities across the country on the anniversary of Boris Nemtsov's murder, apparently in their thousands in Moscow - so there is support for the liberal party - but only enough to muster less than 10% of the vote. They are proud and patriotic, but surely that should invoke a sense of injustice that their government has got it wrong, irrelevant of whether or not they're shifty. The economy has only shrunk since its precipice-fall in late 2014 - then primarily as a result of the oil price tumbling, but also coinciding with the introduction of international sanctions after Putin popped in to Ukraine for a spot of tea and some territory. I saw a great quote from a BBC report, from a lady demonstrating against the Kremlin's economic policy - when asked about the objectiveness of state run television, she replied "Well, it's all right for us to criticise our government, but if we complain to you about our government, that's not patriotic."
Coming Home
Seamless flights, massive burger at Chopin, swift luggage collection, and a nice man at the Hertz desk. We had a Nissan Juke for the route home up the motorway, a 1.6 N/A (94PS, 140Nm). It was slow. It has a variable diameter drive pulley Constant Velocity Transmission (CVT) that Nissan claim provides 'seamless acceleration from an earlier stage', and will 'avoid the shift-shock and deliver smooth driving, making it an exceptional transmission solution'. What we found is that there is, indeed, no shift shock, but there is also very little moderation of the throttle. This leads to two definable states: At low throttle the engine is so limp, revs reluctant to raise, that as soon as an opportunity to increase speed approaches you have to boot it - at which point the left needle spikes immediately round to 6000 rpm, the engine squawk beats its way through the bulkhead, transmission drone hums from the middle, and the driver gets a sensation of clutch slip as the drive pulley gradually enlarges toward its final drive. On the motorway the transition between calm catatonia and harassing try-hard felt step-like - it was easy to find the throttle threshold and then switch all the noise on and off, but nothing much ever happened. I reckon the transmission would work better in places with less speed variation than a busy motorway and the feeble torque of the 1.6 would be better hidden, though I'd struggle to get enthusiastic about CVTs now. Merecedes put them in the A and B classes not so long ago (and bigger stuff before that I thought but can't recall or find) and a quick trawl of the net says they're rubbish too, especially with smaller displacement engines.
Apart from the overriding impression of the powertrain, the chassis was too stiff for the speed it can maintain, the boot was unsurprisingly tiny (two cases fit but one had to go on its side), rear seat space was only adequate for children, and the infotainment - including navigation - was functional but unintuitive with poorly structured menus. On the plus side - the dash was nice and you get a raised view of all the cheaper, more practical and less ostentatious hatchbacks and crossovers passing by. The Range Rover Evoque actually seems like a good car after having driven a Juke. I guess the Qashqai is a bit more straightforward and I'd like to drive one.
Seamless flights, massive burger at Chopin, swift luggage collection, and a nice man at the Hertz desk. We had a Nissan Juke for the route home up the motorway, a 1.6 N/A (94PS, 140Nm). It was slow. It has a variable diameter drive pulley Constant Velocity Transmission (CVT) that Nissan claim provides 'seamless acceleration from an earlier stage', and will 'avoid the shift-shock and deliver smooth driving, making it an exceptional transmission solution'. What we found is that there is, indeed, no shift shock, but there is also very little moderation of the throttle. This leads to two definable states: At low throttle the engine is so limp, revs reluctant to raise, that as soon as an opportunity to increase speed approaches you have to boot it - at which point the left needle spikes immediately round to 6000 rpm, the engine squawk beats its way through the bulkhead, transmission drone hums from the middle, and the driver gets a sensation of clutch slip as the drive pulley gradually enlarges toward its final drive. On the motorway the transition between calm catatonia and harassing try-hard felt step-like - it was easy to find the throttle threshold and then switch all the noise on and off, but nothing much ever happened. I reckon the transmission would work better in places with less speed variation than a busy motorway and the feeble torque of the 1.6 would be better hidden, though I'd struggle to get enthusiastic about CVTs now. Merecedes put them in the A and B classes not so long ago (and bigger stuff before that I thought but can't recall or find) and a quick trawl of the net says they're rubbish too, especially with smaller displacement engines.
Apart from the overriding impression of the powertrain, the chassis was too stiff for the speed it can maintain, the boot was unsurprisingly tiny (two cases fit but one had to go on its side), rear seat space was only adequate for children, and the infotainment - including navigation - was functional but unintuitive with poorly structured menus. On the plus side - the dash was nice and you get a raised view of all the cheaper, more practical and less ostentatious hatchbacks and crossovers passing by. The Range Rover Evoque actually seems like a good car after having driven a Juke. I guess the Qashqai is a bit more straightforward and I'd like to drive one.
Get the clichés out of the way - an essential item for stores.
The Moscow tube network is exceptionally beautiful and, once you start to recognise words as symbols, quite easy to navigate.
Russian cuisine. The dome was halfway between bread and batter, like a hefty Yorkshire pudding, encasing the pot of beef stew. We had loads of really good salads that would be familiar in Bavaria - lots of pickles, small chopped root veg, meat in aspic - some good Borscht (central and eastern European beetrooty soup), and the inevitable; stroganoff. There were schnitzels, carpaccios, fish and steaks. There are large cattle farms further east of Moscow, but apparently the good quality stuff is almost exclusively imported - Argentina, New Zealand and the UK.
Here's what I found while searching for a plug socket. We stayed at a different hotel second time around.
I fell over.
The snow falls, gets compacted, melts, freezes and over again - so even relatively flat roads can become riddled with ruts and potholes. This particular one had been selected as part of a route two weeks previously when it was considerably less severe, but our progress along it was so slow and trepidatious that we subsequently removed it from the schedule. There are no restrictions or standards imposed on the substances used by the district and city councils to treat icy roads, so all manner of horrible stuff can be found, and it might be different in every region you go to. For this reason, amongst many others, car makers can find it difficult to research and apply corrosion-preventative coatings that match the environment - particularly for chrome parts.
Moscow isn't short of examples of financial vulgarity - isn't this just horrible?
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