Been a while since I posted, some of you might enjoy this. Unabriged it's in 12 parts, I will provide a link and excerpt for each since much of it's not what is considered Urban Exploration and a little too long to post here.
Part 1 - It Begins
His hands were thick and strong, veined and muscular. By local standards they weren't working man's hands but their parched, rough surface scared the shit out of me. Unbidden I suffered visions of them snapping on the latex I sensed was tucked away at the back of his grey utilitarian desk. Immigration officers like dogs innately smell fear so I worked hard on hiding it behind that deadpan, bored look that's always best for dealing with bureaucrats. Pretend your life is as miserable and meaningless as theirs and they almost treat you as equals.
He scrutinized my passport, grasped something I couldn't see then slammed it down with a mighty THUNK. Emotionless he handed over my well worn passport with a nice big stamp of purple ink quickly drying across 150quid of Ukrainian visa. I suppressed any smiling while walking away, paranoid that in some Scorpionesque maneuver he'd reel me in, impaling me on that latex clad fist. Out of striking distance I bucked the local custom and openly celebrated. Our first border crossing was complete and this first stamp allayed my fears and lessened the feeling that each immigration encounter would be a lottery, the ticket for which I had firmly pasted into my passport. Siologen, qx and I were in the Ukraine! One visa down, two to go.
All and sundry had warned of the bribes we'd be dishing out like candy to loli, to both officials and shady taxi drivers. To combat the perceived threat we took to storing our passports, plastic and cash in a small pouch tucked in the front of our strides. Naturally it was dubbed the Nutsack. Appropriate verb usages are 'to jock up' and 'dejock'. Extracting cash at the register involves either jamming your hand into your crotch then digging around for change, or unzipping your fly and flopping out the Nutsack. So habitual and comfortable will this become you may continue to jock up once you return home. Seriously reader, give this a try. Nothing says I'm-a-baller like metal clinking in your frontal region, and nothing says you're-a-minimum-wage-scutter like taking a handful of change freshly fished from my nuts.
Part 2 - Heavy Khemikals
Immersed in decay pr0n heaven we wandered an abandoned chemical factory, taking in the scents which fluctuated from intense delicious candy (Allen's Fruit Tingles if you're keen to know) to nasal burning acrid evilness. Small luminescent drops of liquid mercury dotted the floor in various rooms. Anywhere else they'd seem a little out of place, in an ex-soviet chemical factory they're par for the course, as are the ominous elephant-man gasmasks. In the adjacent building we hit the jackpot - thousands of gasmasks, sealed and packed into wooden crates. Masks of all varieties were present from the elephant-man masks mentioned above, masks with backpack mounted filtration units and the more common full-face rubber units with the filters mounted at the cheeks.
incomplete super computer factory
Part 3 - Chernobyl and Pripyat
Nothing you haven't seen 1000x times before, moving right along.
Part 4 - Kiev Underground
Kiev's systems are mostly free of sanitary pollutants, which will raise or lower their attractiveness depending on your sewerfresh-hold and preference. The drain gods, sensing my thirst for the fresh and her buoyant bloody delights, rectified this discrepancy by placing a Scandinavian girl in our dorm room. Unable to sleep in the heat I woke early one morning to find the unashamed, topless girl curled up on her side, facing away from me with the covers thrown back. Her ass cheeks were split by a g-string, creasing a gleaming white sanitary pad right down the middle so the wings flapped uselessly in the air. Unimpressed with the Sewerfresh god's offering I rolled into the wall, mashed my face into the pillow and fell asleep. Just give me a torrent of regular good ol' excrement already.
Bonus Video: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHjz4OdUPH4[/ame]
Part 5 - Moscow COllectors
Two decrepit metal hatches hinged to meet in the middle, covered in a torn faded blue tarp opened with a slow screech like fingernails down a chalkboard to reveal an old ladder leading downwards. Inside, by the warm glow of work lamps was a concrete chamber skewered by twisted reinforcing bar, like we were standing inside the chest cavity of a man-made titan with bits of rusty rib protruding from the surrounding flesh. This was the abandoned section of Neglinka but it's a stretch to imagine it was once an active piece of city infrastructure. Construction materials lay everywhere, tunnels pierced other tunnels in odd shapes and forms. This mash of construction contrasts greatly with the dapper organised victorian redbrick of London I am accustomed to. We walked upstream from the mish-mash of concrete through a brick tunnel into an old stone section which terminated with a blockage pierced by a rusty iron tunnel feeding water into Neglinka.
Part 6 - Moscow Miscellany
Like the PC which encircles paris, Moscow has a freight line which skirts her periphery. With a hop, step and a jump we boarded a train to run this circular route, climbing up between the steel into an empty bucket car. Tense minutes flicked by then a shudder, a creak and slowly the train inched forwards out the yard. She picked up speed, bumping and rattling along the rails our merry band of vagabonds in tow. Perched high on the car's rusty lip we rode through the night past industrial estates and blunt soviet era apartment blocks, the warm air rushing past our smiling faces. Skyfi and I climbed across into the adjacent car, packed to the brim with bags of rubbish. Riding our rusty metal chariot, sitting upon a throne of trash we were hobo kings of the rails.
pic: quantum-x
pic: quantum-x
Part 7 - Collisions you say?
P.A.R.T.I.C.L.E C.O.L.L.I.D.E.R spell it out, tramp stamp it on your girl. Hell get it above your own rosebud with a set of crosshairs. They take electrons or neutrons or quarks or something smaller than my rapidly dwindling readership, spooge one out of a rail gun death ray and spin 'em around a 21km track up to .99 the speed of light. Said accelerated particle is then smashed into things - reality tv "stars", celebrities, scenesters, hipsters, trustfund kids etc, to see how they react when hit with the force of a dumptruck concentrated on a space smaller than the head of a pin. This one's soviet era, likely built as a form of social entertainment. As you can imagine this is pretty amusing to watch, a modern day coliseum deep below the earth. Good on 'em, no wonder America hated the USSR so much. Hollywood funded the cold war to stop the soviets blowing apart kidnapped American actors with a rail gun. History as you know it, is a lie.
Part 8 - TransSiberian & Irkutsk
Much has been written elsewhere about riding the transsiberian across Russia and for us, into Mongolia. There's precious little exploring to be done on the train, save for walking up and down everyday testing the two doors at the end of each carriage and seeing which the guards forgot to lock. This allows for general bellendary by hanging from the train at high speed to better enjoy the scenery.
Onto Part 2
Part 1 - It Begins
His hands were thick and strong, veined and muscular. By local standards they weren't working man's hands but their parched, rough surface scared the shit out of me. Unbidden I suffered visions of them snapping on the latex I sensed was tucked away at the back of his grey utilitarian desk. Immigration officers like dogs innately smell fear so I worked hard on hiding it behind that deadpan, bored look that's always best for dealing with bureaucrats. Pretend your life is as miserable and meaningless as theirs and they almost treat you as equals.
He scrutinized my passport, grasped something I couldn't see then slammed it down with a mighty THUNK. Emotionless he handed over my well worn passport with a nice big stamp of purple ink quickly drying across 150quid of Ukrainian visa. I suppressed any smiling while walking away, paranoid that in some Scorpionesque maneuver he'd reel me in, impaling me on that latex clad fist. Out of striking distance I bucked the local custom and openly celebrated. Our first border crossing was complete and this first stamp allayed my fears and lessened the feeling that each immigration encounter would be a lottery, the ticket for which I had firmly pasted into my passport. Siologen, qx and I were in the Ukraine! One visa down, two to go.
All and sundry had warned of the bribes we'd be dishing out like candy to loli, to both officials and shady taxi drivers. To combat the perceived threat we took to storing our passports, plastic and cash in a small pouch tucked in the front of our strides. Naturally it was dubbed the Nutsack. Appropriate verb usages are 'to jock up' and 'dejock'. Extracting cash at the register involves either jamming your hand into your crotch then digging around for change, or unzipping your fly and flopping out the Nutsack. So habitual and comfortable will this become you may continue to jock up once you return home. Seriously reader, give this a try. Nothing says I'm-a-baller like metal clinking in your frontal region, and nothing says you're-a-minimum-wage-scutter like taking a handful of change freshly fished from my nuts.
Part 2 - Heavy Khemikals
Immersed in decay pr0n heaven we wandered an abandoned chemical factory, taking in the scents which fluctuated from intense delicious candy (Allen's Fruit Tingles if you're keen to know) to nasal burning acrid evilness. Small luminescent drops of liquid mercury dotted the floor in various rooms. Anywhere else they'd seem a little out of place, in an ex-soviet chemical factory they're par for the course, as are the ominous elephant-man gasmasks. In the adjacent building we hit the jackpot - thousands of gasmasks, sealed and packed into wooden crates. Masks of all varieties were present from the elephant-man masks mentioned above, masks with backpack mounted filtration units and the more common full-face rubber units with the filters mounted at the cheeks.
incomplete super computer factory
Part 3 - Chernobyl and Pripyat
Nothing you haven't seen 1000x times before, moving right along.
Part 4 - Kiev Underground
Kiev's systems are mostly free of sanitary pollutants, which will raise or lower their attractiveness depending on your sewerfresh-hold and preference. The drain gods, sensing my thirst for the fresh and her buoyant bloody delights, rectified this discrepancy by placing a Scandinavian girl in our dorm room. Unable to sleep in the heat I woke early one morning to find the unashamed, topless girl curled up on her side, facing away from me with the covers thrown back. Her ass cheeks were split by a g-string, creasing a gleaming white sanitary pad right down the middle so the wings flapped uselessly in the air. Unimpressed with the Sewerfresh god's offering I rolled into the wall, mashed my face into the pillow and fell asleep. Just give me a torrent of regular good ol' excrement already.
Bonus Video: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHjz4OdUPH4[/ame]
Part 5 - Moscow COllectors
Two decrepit metal hatches hinged to meet in the middle, covered in a torn faded blue tarp opened with a slow screech like fingernails down a chalkboard to reveal an old ladder leading downwards. Inside, by the warm glow of work lamps was a concrete chamber skewered by twisted reinforcing bar, like we were standing inside the chest cavity of a man-made titan with bits of rusty rib protruding from the surrounding flesh. This was the abandoned section of Neglinka but it's a stretch to imagine it was once an active piece of city infrastructure. Construction materials lay everywhere, tunnels pierced other tunnels in odd shapes and forms. This mash of construction contrasts greatly with the dapper organised victorian redbrick of London I am accustomed to. We walked upstream from the mish-mash of concrete through a brick tunnel into an old stone section which terminated with a blockage pierced by a rusty iron tunnel feeding water into Neglinka.
Part 6 - Moscow Miscellany
Like the PC which encircles paris, Moscow has a freight line which skirts her periphery. With a hop, step and a jump we boarded a train to run this circular route, climbing up between the steel into an empty bucket car. Tense minutes flicked by then a shudder, a creak and slowly the train inched forwards out the yard. She picked up speed, bumping and rattling along the rails our merry band of vagabonds in tow. Perched high on the car's rusty lip we rode through the night past industrial estates and blunt soviet era apartment blocks, the warm air rushing past our smiling faces. Skyfi and I climbed across into the adjacent car, packed to the brim with bags of rubbish. Riding our rusty metal chariot, sitting upon a throne of trash we were hobo kings of the rails.
pic: quantum-x
pic: quantum-x
Part 7 - Collisions you say?
P.A.R.T.I.C.L.E C.O.L.L.I.D.E.R spell it out, tramp stamp it on your girl. Hell get it above your own rosebud with a set of crosshairs. They take electrons or neutrons or quarks or something smaller than my rapidly dwindling readership, spooge one out of a rail gun death ray and spin 'em around a 21km track up to .99 the speed of light. Said accelerated particle is then smashed into things - reality tv "stars", celebrities, scenesters, hipsters, trustfund kids etc, to see how they react when hit with the force of a dumptruck concentrated on a space smaller than the head of a pin. This one's soviet era, likely built as a form of social entertainment. As you can imagine this is pretty amusing to watch, a modern day coliseum deep below the earth. Good on 'em, no wonder America hated the USSR so much. Hollywood funded the cold war to stop the soviets blowing apart kidnapped American actors with a rail gun. History as you know it, is a lie.
Part 8 - TransSiberian & Irkutsk
Much has been written elsewhere about riding the transsiberian across Russia and for us, into Mongolia. There's precious little exploring to be done on the train, save for walking up and down everyday testing the two doors at the end of each carriage and seeing which the guards forgot to lock. This allows for general bellendary by hanging from the train at high speed to better enjoy the scenery.
Onto Part 2
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all fun aside, looks like a very interesting trip and a look from on the other side of the fence so to speak 
