Radtour Eiserner Vorhang, Teil 1: Klaipeda-Grense Jakobselv

Planned cycling holiday in May / June 2017.

It's an old dream of mine to ride my bicycle along the former "Iron Curtain through Europe" (the term is coined by by then former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in a famous speech), that is the dividing line between Western and Eastern Europe, NATO and the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War. As its child, born in 1962, a few months before the Cuban missile crisis and thus the Cold War's "hottest" phase and as a trained reserve officer in the NATO country of Denmark with Russian language and the Warsaw Pact airforce, loving to cycle long distance trips, it was an obvious idea. I take on this journey as both a great physical challenge and an exciting experience in terms of history, contemporary history, nature and culture.

Geographically, I'll ride through the Baltic republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, the Leningrad region and St. Petersburg of Russia, along the long Finnish/Russian border in Eastern Finland (including the country's and the EU's easternmost point!) and the north-easternmost Norway.

The bike holiday's main theme is naturally the Cold War, including the Baltic republics' fate as incorporated into the Soviet Union and the complex Finnish-Soviet relations, concluding with the Norwegian-Soviet border, the only, albeit short, land border between a NATO country and the Soviet Union. Here my bike-odyssey will end, where the Iron Curtain through Europe also ended, or began at Grense Jakobselv at the Arctic ocean. Other themes lie temporally before and after this period, as the Baltic republics' independent period 1918-40, atrocities during the Nazi German occupation of 1941-44 and the three Baltic republics' secession from the Soviet Union, the resurrection as independent countries and their actual relations with the big neighbour to the east. In Russia, I will concentrate on the contemporary situation and the Russian view of the conflict with the West and their relationship with the Baltic countries and Finland. In Finland a natual theme is the country's difficult position between Scandinavia and the Soviet Union/Russia throughout history, both under the Finnish grand duchy as part of the Russian Tsar-rich 1812-1917, the independent Finland's road to true independence between the wars, the loss of parts of Karelia after the Winter War and the Continuation War during WW2 including Finland's flirtation with Hitler Germany and its final position as a neutral power during the Cold War. The long Soviet-Finnish border and the long Paasikivi-Kekkonen period of Finnish appeasement and adaptation to its situation, the so-called Finlandization, will occupy my for a long time as well, almost three weeks.

I will focus on the themes by cycling through historic regions, visit museums and the like and by talking to local people, how they experienced the time under Stalin and his caretakers near the Iron Curtain. By the way, they did not see temselves living behind it. On the contrary, they saw us doing so. I will ask people, how they saw the fall of the wall and the following life between the East and the West. In Finland I'll get close to the Russian border (not too close, that is). Furthermore, I will visit some of the Winter War battlefields of 1939 and the central Winter  War Museum near Suomussalmi. Finland is a country that lies close to my heart, and I've taught me some Finnish, "huvin vuoksi", that means for pleasure. In the far North I want to examine environmental problems in Norway near the huge Russian nikkel works and former Soviet Northern Fleet naval bases. Are they still an issue up here?

Besides history nature will play a prominent role. First the long stretch along the Baltic Sea east coast with lonely beaches and major port cities and small tourist resorts in the Baltics, the Gulf of Finland's south bank through Estonia and the world famous city of St. Petersburg. From Russia to Finland I will sail in a ship on the Saimaa Canal, originally located in Finland, but since 1940 it runs in both countries. In Finland I ride through some of the overall thinly populated country's most lonely areas. Here nature reigns, interspersed with small towns and villages. I plan a boat trip to the renowned mountain top of Koli in Northern Karelia. This is the most typical Finnish landscape. Naturally nature reigns also in that last stretch in Norway, where my bike holiday ends with the Jakobselv's mouth into the Arctic Ocean. On the other side of the small river mouth Russia begins. And it doesn't end until her coastline hits North Korea on the other side of the earth. Gosh, Russia is an incredibly big country. One must not forget that. She is a great country too and she's the super power that lost the Cold War. It's a wounded bear, if you like, and in that context one has to see the national resurrection under the new strong leader Vladimir Putin. Are we going to accept him as the Russian leader or are we going to confront him? Right now we've imposed economic sanctions and a cold political climate on Russia, but threats in that direction are far more outspoken, especially in those Nato countries, which were formerly a part of the Soviet power sphere, e.g. the Baltic states. And will Russia come to terms with the expanding West? So far Russia has had to accept that no less than 18  former Soviet republics or Warsaw pact countries have joined Nato. That happened after Gorbachev had agreed with Western Germany in 1990 that as a price for letting East Germany decide freely in which military organisation they wanted to be, Nato had agreed not to expand eastwards. A formidable contract breach. As a matter of fact. In Russian eyes it's an enormous defeat. These questions I intend to seek an answer to from ordinary people in all the countries, my iron horse will carry me through on the Iron Curtain route.

I also look forward to cultural highlights as the big cities of Riga, Tallinn and especially St. Petersburg, where I'll spend one or two days of rest in order to discover the cities, rest my pins and, if necessary, have my bike or equipment repaired. Or body looked after. Here history can also go a little further back in time as with the story of the Danish flag falling from the sky in Tallinn (literally it means "Danish castle") in 1219, or when Peter the Great founded St. Petersburg, his "Window to the West" and ousted Sweden from former Russian territory.

One last aspect about long cycling trips is the "cyclelogical", as I wish to put it.  To ride my bicycle is in the common sense a spiritual pleasure for me, as much as it is a physical exercise. I don't need a long or especially quiet trip, before my head goes into a special relaxing mode. I often get ideas for solving problems, which I didn't get at home or at work. By cycling long trips through lonely, unchanging landscapes as the seemingly endless Finnish forests without meeting other people for several hours, sometimes not even in cars is psychologically especially valuable for a person like me. I experienced that on my bike trip to the North Cape in 2010, when I also rode through Finland on the long end. It turned out a journey into myself and in the end i had found myself. I needed that kind of mental hygiene then after far too many far too short relationships to various women after my divorce from the mother of my children nine years earlier. When I came back home I was ready to meet the woman, I'm married to today. Everything fits neatly together for me. Luckily, I'm not in that kind of need this time, but nonetheless I look forward a great deal to seven weeks of "cyclelogigal" wellness before I'll meet my wife in Northern Norway. She'll fly up there and together we will visit the North Cape and the magnificent island it rises from before travelling slowly home by ship along the coast. Travelling that way I'll get my soul with me. And I look forward to watch the land sail slowly by instead of trampling through it.

The duration is planned for seven weeks. The first section is an introduction of four days from my home in Odense to Klaipeda in Lithuania through Scania (with one train ride and two ship crossings). From Klaipeda in Lithuania I plan to bike all the way to Grense Jakobselv. Apart from the canal ride between Vyborg in Russia and Lappeenranta in Finland, where I will go by boat on the Saimaa Canal.

As my home is in a Nordic Country I have chosen the northern part of Iron Curtain route, but in 2018, I plan to ride a more southern part of the Iron Curtain route from Klaipeda in Lithuania to Swinoujscie, Poland. Possibly, someday I will bike even further along the Baltic Sea and the former inner German border. But those are plans of the far future. For now it's the trip to the North.

PLANNING OF ACCOMODATION

11 nights at 7 different hotels/hostels. In the big cities of Riga, Tallinn and St. Petersburg, in Narva (Estonia) and all accomodation in Russia. Is booked in advance.

24 nights at 21 different camp sites. The natural choice in Denmark, Latvia and Estonia plus on rest days in Finland.

13 nights at 12 different sites for camping in nature. Common in Sweden, Finland and Norway plus once in Latvia and Estonia respectively. Planned as possibly well by way of Google Maps.

1 night on the ship from Karlshamn to Klaipeda.

PLANNING OF TRANSPORT CONNECTIONS:

Train:

• From Odense to Korsoer. To be booked with DSB

Ship crossings:

• From Elsinore to Helsingborg. No booking needed.
• From Karlshamn to Klaipeda. Is booked with DFDS
• Vyborg-Lappeenranta. Is booked with Saimaa Travel

IN ADDITION A VISA TO RUSSIA IS BOOKED AND RECEIVED.

With assistance from the visa support service e.g. with Hostel Vyborg and then at the consulate at the Russian Embassy in Denmark.

Divided into eight parts, each of which ends with one rest day, except the 1st part, which has no rest days and the 4th part to Saint Petersburg, where I have two rest days. All in all 8 rest days (Riga, Tallinn, St. Petersburg (2), Lieksa, Sodankylä and Grense Jakobselv) 

• 1st part:

  Stages 1 to 4 and days 1 to 4, Naesby - Klaipeda, 344 km/4 stages/days=86 km/stage/day.

• 2nd part:

  Stages 5 to 9, days 5 to 10 Klaipeda - Riga, 490 km/5 stages=98 km/stage, 6 days=82 km/day.

• 3rd part:

  Stages 10 to 15, days 11 to 17, Riga - Tallinn, 557 km/6 stages=93 km/stage, 7 days=80 km/day.

• 4th part:

  Stages 16 to 20, days 18 to 24, Tallinn - St. Petersburg, 492 km/5 stages=98 km/stage, 7 days=70 km/day.

• 5th part:

  Stages 21 to 23, days 25 to 28, St. Petersburg - Lappeenranta, 189 km/3 stages=60 km/stage, 4 days=47 km/day.

• 6th part:

  Stages 24 to 28, days 29 to 34, Lappeenranta - Lieksa, 521 km/5 stages=104 km/stage, 6 days=87 km/day.

• 7th part:

  Stages 29 to 36, days 35 to 43, Lieksa - Sodankylä, 735 km/8 stages=92 km/stage, 9 days=82 km/day.

• 8th part:

  Stages 37 to 41, days 44 to 49, Sodankylä - Grense Jakobselv, 452 km/5 stages=90 km/stage, 6 days=75 km/day

Total: 7 weeks=49 days, of which 41 stages and 8 rest days, 3756 km/41 stages=92 km/stage, 49 days=77 km/day

No OUTBOUND JOURNEY. 

HOMEBOUND JOURNEY: By bike from Grense Jakobselv to Kirkenes. Via ship (Hurtigruten) from Kirkenes to Bergen, with a trip to the North Cape, together with my wife Susanne, who flies into Kirkenes. From Bergen to Copenhagen by plane and from Copenhagen to Odense by train. 

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