IRON MAELSTROM

'Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.'Ted Simon, Jupiter's Travels

- Sherman Nazareth

I've been blessed with the opportunity to reside in the tranquil quarter of Goa. This is a state many Russians call home for the tourist season; some even beyond that. But as a local living in the tiniest state in the country, it doesn't take very long to discover pretty much all of it. So, I pulled a reverse card and went exploring in the colossal country of the Russian folks instead.

The sheer scale of Russia will forever hold me in awe. It is, after all, the largest country on the planet. With 11 time zones, you could squeeze India right in there along with four of its identical siblings. It's also twice the size of the second largest country, Canada. And, there are approximately 1.2 billion less humans in Russia than in India. As a motorcyclist, that translates to pristine stretches of untainted wilderness. As a Goan, it translates to the average Russian lake being multiple times the size of the entire state.

Initiation By Iron

For years, I'd been dreaming of riding an Ural through the wilds of Russia. Of course, none of this would be possible without my wife, Polina. Since she is from Russia, her familiarity with the language and Cyrillic script is what allowed this whole trip to manifest. After some intense digging around on Russian motorcycle forums, Polina managed to find Ivan who restores and rents old Urals to anyone who dares tame these beasts. When she gave me the news, I was both elated and anxious. Would these bikes even handle the rough terrain on the route we'd chalked out? Little did I know. We'd decided to explore the Altai Republic in Southern Siberia, a mountain region near the Mongolia border. No camera crew, no back-up vehicles; just the Urals, my friend JP Singh, and us.