[Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
 | [Main General Bulletin Board | BBFAQ |
Prev by Date | Next by Date | Post Followup ]
Member Login / Signup - Members see fewer ads. - Latest Member Gallery Photos
Driving in Russia Posted by EGD [Email]  (#663) [Profile/Gallery]
(more from EGD) on Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:35:03
Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup
|
Just completed a 15 day trip to Russia yesterday. Rented a Russian-made VW Polo in Moscow and drove the M10 highway to Veliky Novgorod and St Petersburg and back.
I had concerns going in but all I can say is that driving in Russia -- at least in and between those cities -- is like driving in Boston, only more so. In other words, for someone like me who learned to drive in Boston and has lots of experience there, in NYC, LA, and Berlin it wasn't a problem at all. It helped that I had a week in Moscow to visually see how people drove there so I could make a mental adjustment before I actually took the wheel.
Like in Boston, the shoulder and the breakdown lane can be used for passing, double parking is socially acceptable, and 'if you don't like the way I drive, stay off the sidewalk' are words to live by.
Road conditions on the M10 were anywhere from bad to excellent just like in Boston with a tremendous amount of rebuilding and repaving going on since they only have a few months of the year in northern latitudes to get this accomplished. The sheer volume of trucks, though, was interesting. They seemed to equal the number of cars on the road.
Signage was excellent for the most part and my primitive brain even started to nail down the Cyrillic alphabet so I could decipher the road signs without my wife's help.
Memo to Siegfried -- If you're going north of Tver, go through the city -- do not use the M10 bypass that skirts the city to the west/southwest. We hit a massive traffic jam on the M10 bypass around Tver because they merge essentially six lanes of traffic into just one lane for both direction as you cross the Volga. Fought traffic for two hours getting past that. On the return trip we drove through the center of Tver and cleared the city in 20 minutes.
, Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:35:03 <-- Viewing This Message
, Thu, 21 Jun 2012 08:52:17
, Thu, 21 Jun 2012 19:26:17, Thu, 21 Jun 2012 09:18:18
No Site Registration is Required to Post - Site Membership is optional (Member Features List), but helps to keep the site online
for all Saabers. If the site helps you, please consider helping the site by becoming a member.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
