SuperBike Magazine September 2020

White Sea Swimming Club at
Belomork!
Parking lot guards Lada 1200L is
also an excellent storage place for
helmets!
In Finland we call these ‘helmet
beers’. Helmet Beer is the 1st
beer after arriving to the days
destination.
Ducks
crossing
Water bus from St Petersburg
city center to Summer Palace.
It a 30 min ride.
Heading out from Petrozavadovsk,
the capital of Russian Karelia.
Memorial fire at Alyosha in Murmansk.
Alyosha is a memorial for 2WW
victims.
Eternal Flower at Alyosha
memorial in Murmansk
Welcome to Russia. Paperwork done
at Murmansk border!
an average Russian is very friendly
and hospitable under the unfriendly
surface which needs to be melted
first! If you communicate with a male,
then you can always offer a glass of
vodka! Sometimes I have wondered
why the surface is so tight. I have no
absolute truth to that, but I suppose
it’s because of the history. Russia has
a rough history and there has never
really been any reason to learn small
talk! For the majority of people, it has
been a history of surviving!
Murmansk Highway
In places like Nikel and Sputnik
on Murmansk highway between
Kirkenes and Murmansk life is still
very tough and there you do not see
much glory of any Tsars time. Not any
glory at all! They both look like they
are falling in parts because they are!
Sputnik is an old military town and
Nikel is an old mining town! Sputnik
you could not find from any map
during the soviet era! Murmansk
Highway from the Norwegian border
to Murmansk is very good as most
of the bigger roads in Russia today!
Now you can even drive with a Harley
from St Petersburg to Vladivostok
without any problem. Murmansk,
it’s one of a kind! While driving in
the north you have been used to
see small towns and villages. Now
you come suddenly to a big bizarre
metropolis! I have been several times
to Murmansk and after each time
I like it a bit more! It has 300 000
inhabitants and it is beautiful and
ugly at the same time depending on
what point you look at it! The old city
center and the suburbs around it are
a bit different! The reason Murmansk
exists is WW1. During that time
France was fighting together with
Russia against Germany, and to get
military equipment from France for
Russia, Russians made a railroad to
Murmansk, because of the warm Gulf
stream, the harbor in Murmansk can
be always open! Today harbor is used
mainly for shipping coal! After the
Soviet era, Murmansk has become
more and more popular among the
Finnish bikers. Most of the Swedish
and Norwegian bikers still see it as a
scary place! :)
Karelia
The biggest part of the area between
Murmansk and St. Petersburg is
called Karelia. Parts of it belonged to
Finland before WW2, but to be fair,
whole Finland belonged to Russia
before WW1. Thanks to the last and
weak official Tsar Nikolai II, Finland
got its independence from Russia
in 1917. That is one thing that the
Finnish rednecks are happy to forget
when they demand Karelia back!
However, Karelia is an interesting
area. When you drive there, you can
see that most of the motorbikes and
cars are modern and the highway is
good. But if you leave the highway
and drive to whatever small Karelian
village, everything looks is like
it was before WW2. No changes! In
the villages, you can also see Ural
motorbikes, built before WW2, and
still going strong or at least going!
An exception in Karelia from no
changes in Petrozavodsk, the capital
of Karelia Oblast. Russia is divided
into 46 Oblasts. Petrozavodsk is also
a vibrant university town with a lot
of coffee shops and restaurants!
And there is even a motorcycle club.
Petrozavodsk Night Riders!
St Petersburg
Murmansk Highway between Murmansk
and St Petersburg is 1 341km
long and it’s also kind of a miniature
Trans Siberia! As well it is also a total
‘climate change’ from the messy
backyard to the glorious front yard of
Russia! St Petersburg is everything