2021-12-05 55 39

Location

Almost on the road in Lelechi village.

Participants

V1993 (talk)

Plans

Yet another day-long expedition with departure in the early (04:26 AM) morning and arrival in the late (09-11 PM) evening. Route is Stupino -> Zhilyovo -> Kurovskaya -> Yegoryevsk -> Lelechi (hash) -> Yegoryevsk... and then it depends on if I'll manage to get on a bus in Lelechi that took me there.

Also a nice chance to try out my new Geohashing Wiki Helper in action.

Expedition

It worked out pretty well. I've already visited Yegoryevsk before, so route planning wasn't too new.

Once again, initial part of my voyage was by train: Stupino -> Zhilyovo -> Kurovskaya. While landscapes were now covered in snow and would make a great sight, shortened daytime prevented me from taking a great look at them (but helped with getting some sleep). Arriving in Kurovskaya at 08:12 AM, I've set out for local KFC to stock on some food for travel. Given that it opened at 09:00 AM, I had to wait for a while, but it was totally worth it, since breakfast and food I took with me kept me well-fed the entire way.

I then got on a bus to Yegoryevsk, since there was no train in acceptable time range. After taking a nap on bus station there, I finally got on a bus to Lelechi. Here's where the interesting part starts - Lelechi is next to last stop on bus route, giving me about ten minutes to reach hash, take photos, and then run back and hope for the best. With hash being about 350m away from the stop, it fell right into "may or may not work" category. While not getting on the same bus wouldn't be catastrophic, spending an hour in unfamiliar village in cold weather isn't a great prospect either.

Either way, after yet another nap (because bus trips are pretty slow compared to trains), I finally arrived at bus stop near the hash. Here I must stop for a moment and clarify what "bus stop" means right here. It's just a place with a "bus stop" sign, there isn't any kind of shelter or even special place for bus to stop - it literally just stops in the middle of the road to drop and pick up passengers, who have to hurry across the road as well. This somewhat works only thanks to road not being exactly busy, but it's still not great, as you can imagine.

So, anyways, I got off the bus and hurried to the hash's location. On the short way there I had to step aside to let pass Ozon (internet shop) truck and... firefighter truck, of all things. Talk about great timing. Either way, I've managed to reach the hash, which turned out to be on pedestrian path of sorts. After hastily taking photos, I've turned back to "bus stop" (and had to let Ozon truck pass once again).

Luckily for me, I got back well in time, and soon was steadily moving back to Yegoryevsk. Now, about return options from plans. I've originally devised two options - one for the case I'd catch the bus, another for the case I'd miss it - but both of them involved more bumpy bus travel, of which I've already had enough. Instead, I've decided to settle for the same way I've used on my previous visit to Yegoryevsk - purely by train via Kurovskaya and Mikhnevo. After returning to Yegoryevsk and a lengthy wait, I got on a train to Kurovskaya. Little did I know that my adventures have only really just started...

After waking from yet another nap (I did't exactly have much time to sleep for departure at 04:26 AM, okay?) due to alarm set to estimated arrival time, I've found out that train was hardly moving at all. Firing up GPS revealed that it was mostly moving at 5km/h when not standing still, as well as being two stations away from destination. Ensuring complaints from passengers were answered by train crew with "there's a red in front of us, letting freight trains pass". All ended well for me, with train finally arriving at Kurovskaya about 40 minutes late, still giving me enough time to comfortably get onto train to Mikhnevo.

While we're at Kurovskaya, here's a little interesting combination of facts: Kurovskaya station lacks WC, trains have WC, trains have an extended (5-10 min) stop at Kurovskaya, you don't need to show ticket to board train (those are checked on entrances/exits from stations and periodically during the travel). You probably see where this is going...

Either way, trip to Mikhnevo, while really nice, was rather unremarkable. Mikhnevo station itself, though... You probably remember (whom am I kidding, you almost surely do not) local unfriendly dog there from my previous trip to Yegoryevsk. This time, it have decided to occupy space near turnstiles. With farthest turnstile not accepting my ticket, I had to try another one - which worked, but also provoked said unfriendly dog (who, regardless of what station guard says, it indeed unfriendly).

Trip back to Stupino went well - aside from train being few minutes late, it was essentially perfect. Oh, and I've also figured out mid-trip that this indeed is a virgin geohash - a third one for me.

P.S.: I've successfully uploaded all of the images for this article with Geohashing Wiki Helper. While something odd happened to preview area sizing (will look into it ASAP), it worked very well overall.