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Old 03-31-2010, 11:55 AM
BlueGerbil BlueGerbil is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Germany
Posts: 89
Quote:
March 26, 2010: 178th short message (05:08 a.m. CET)

Good days are different.

Unexpectedly we had to leave our accommodation the day before yesterday because the person with whom we lived up until now, wanted to take a helicopter that was supposed to arrive but which didn?t arrive in the end. We only had a few hours to find a new accommodation and thus were running up and down the streets anxiously, asked people, the administration, the weather station, etc. Finally, we found a small, empty apartment.

Now ? after rearranging and completely cleaning it in a heave-ho action ? it is our apartment. Then, we had to move the same night. All of our equipment, tools, clothes, sleeping-bags, shoes, the whole rescue equipment, etc. ? just everything ? had to be moved. First we carried as much as each of us could take and walked to the other end of Uelen. Then a driver of a Russian Buran that also had a skid trailer came and offered to help us. Then the children came and in the end we were surrounded by people who held the things on the skid in place, accompanied us, carried things, talked and helped, etc.

Anyway, the move means more privacy for the team. Everyone has its own sleeping area now (or something similar to that). We have a table and a ceramic piece that was supposed to be a toilet bowl with a spray flushing. Oh well, at least we don?t have to carry water for the toilet.

Instead we have to carry fresh water which gets delivered to the outside and which we have to carry inside the apartment in buckets.

But much more that this little story annoy me the processes in connection with the US-authorities in Moscow. You can really get a flash because of their mindset and behavior. Concerning this matter, yesterday was once again a really sh*tty day. After receiving a nice letter on behalf of an American supervisor, we had to react fast.

The US-authority called Victor Burstein, the most deserving of all who helped us, without whom the expedition with American vehicles NEVER would have reached Uelen, to Moscow, to clarify some documents. Yesterday, these people actually asked for evidence to prove the existence of the expedition. You won?t believe that this is true. I was very upset about this.

Therefore, Victor is now traveling from Uelen!! To Moscow because the American Embassy is actually AMERICA. But nobody cares that the vehicles are American vehicles.

It?s strange that on the other hand we receive more and more inquiries by American magazines and newspapers who want to publish and describe the historic accomplishments of the expedition with the ?oh so great American vehicles?. I cannot answer because it makes my stomach churn if I only think about how we have been let down by an American partner, how we hung in there despite it, how Victor has to crawl to Moscow now, etc.

Meanwhile we prepare ourselves and the vehicles and were also able to take a decent shower in the heating factory (even though I was a little bit surprised that Rudi wanted to take a shower again. He was able to enjoy a shower just a couple of days ago ;-)).



Quote:
March 26, 2010: 179th short message (05:52 a.m. CET)

Don?t give up and make the impossible possible.

Together with some very very special supporters and friends, Victor is in an airplane on his way to Moscow. He is a hero. Nobody except for him, the great people who supported us in Russia and the EE-Office including the Flugb?rse in Germany, could have done this. Traveling from Uelen to Moscow in only two days.

Boy, I am so mad at some US-bureaucrats.







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