Got to Nefteyugansk. It is probably the most northern latitude I have ever been in Russia.

718 km travelled in one day. North of Tobolsk, the benefits of civilization became more and more rare. Gas stations only once every 100 km, cafes — once every 200.

The road had a good quality tarmac but felt rather monotonous, as it ran like a winding gray ribbon among forests, swamps and rivers. Almost all side tracks and minor roads were leading to resource-extracting or -processing facilities.

Nature was very beautiful here. Yet this beauty felt somehow alien to me. As if it was smirking: you can watch and you can admire while the sun is high. But when the night comes or you breakdown in the wilderness — I’ll eat you with your guts.

I couldn’t help but noticing the difference in my perception. When I was in the North, in Karelia, I felt comfortable and resourceful. But here in the Siberian North, I feel as if nature was hostile and my presence was… inappropriate? The feeling seems to be most evident near the densest concentration of oil and gas plants, located here and there all along the road.

I caught myself thinking. People are exploiting nature so greedily here. Pumping oil and gas out of the ground, laying pipelines and draining swamps. All local infrastructure and economy has evolved around resource mining. No place for balance, for sustainability. Corporations that prosper on these resources have their head offices in the big cities. I doubt those CEOs have ever cared how ecological is the relationship between nature and man here, in the North. Have they ever been here in person? Have they ridden this road? Looked around? Noticed anything?

I may sound like a hippie… But what if men have exhausted the nature here so much, that its dislike, its hatred toward us can be felt in the air itself. Like invisible poisonous mercury spilled throughout the whole Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District. Maybe that's why I feel so strange here. Maybe the first local settlers felt very different when they came here centuries ago.

Or maybe this is all nonsense. Just an effect of my lousy mood which dropped because of the shitty weather. Again.

Stayed at Gubkinsky workers' village for the night. 370 km to the Arctic Circle. Glad to have a roof over my head and a warm shower. Dear good night sleep, oh, you are so welcomed.

...And here comes the big day. Today-I-get-to-the-Arctic-circle day. The culmination. At least, it was supposed to be like this...

But not that time and not for me.

I am totally exhausted. I give up.

That whole day I spent driving in the rain at 11°C. Because of all that water and sand on the road, the chain was wearing out 2 times faster. The level of brake fluid in the rear loop fell down abruptly. Turned out the rear brake pads were grinded to a total write-off, much faster than I expected. And I didn’t have spare ones.

I was prohibited to drive to the Arctic circle itself. The road leading to the memorial stele belongs to Gazprom nature resource corporation. And they tightened the requirements to pass, so no private visitors are allowed to use the road. I spoke to the guards, spoke to the employees of the passes bureau, spoke to the head of the corporate security department. The answer was: we understand your situation, but we cannot give you the pass. Locals told me there was another good road to the Arctic circle, I just need to make a 200 km loop. But by that moment I was done caring.

Felt emotionally and physically exhausted. If I tried to keep my thigh or lower leg muscles tense, a tremor began there. The lower back hurt, apparently, from cold and long sitting in one pose. I became unfriendly. Stopped smiling to people.

Next day I was going to turn around and go back. Didn’t reach the polar circle by 80 km. Well, to hell with it. Got no desire to test the fate by making my way through detours in such weather and almost without a rear brake.

No photos. Rain continues. All aspirations are fading. I don’t want anything at all.

Went to bed early to recover as much as possible.

Weather forecast for the morning: 8°C, rain. Again.

Apathy.

Friends and followers gave me a great support the next day, both emotional and financial. It strengthened and warmed me from the inside. Helped to pull myself together and to cope with all adversities.

So I fueled up, drank hot chocolate at the gas station. Back to the cold again. The road back home has started.

Body, emotions, thoughts — everything was subdued to just one single desire: get South, as far as possible. It seems that such clarity automatically brings oneself to a flow state. I covered 738 km with rare stops. For someone it may sound like not a big deal. But for me it was a considerable distance, taking into account that the road in some places was made of concrete slabs.

Gradually, the thermometer also became a good motivator. 8°C, 9, 10, 11,... On average, every 100 km the temperature grew by a degree. Oh what a blessing it was. In the evening I even caught a glimpse of the sun, right before the nightfall. Greetings to Surgut.

By the end of this day’s ride, the rear brake pads were completely worn out. Even though I tried not to use it while riding. Moreover, I might have already started hearing metal scratches on the rear disk. So the task was urgent and clear: I needed to find new brake pads. Original, Chinese, second-hand, it doesn't matter... Can’t go further with the old ones.

The whole next day I stayed in Surgut.

I’ve found a moto service on the Internet and came there to change pads. They didn’t have neither original, nor any other spare pads. Nothing that could fit my bike.

Yet the guys from the service didn’t give up. They phoned their friends. Found one craftsman. Gave him my expired pad bases. He welded a Gazel (Russian car) friction pad to it. Hooray! Now I can probably reach Moscow (moreover, I gladly used those pads until the end of the season — author's note from the future).

The process took almost the whole day. And that day became a good lesson and an inspiration for me. It was about acceptance, about customer orientation, about creativity, and about the fact that there are no hopeless situations in life.

I am immensely grateful to those service workers. They went through so much trouble for me. Brainstormed solutions, called different people, searched for the craftsman, carried pads to him and back again. For me this small service on the edge of Surgut can be an example for 99% of Moscow businesses, where people only talk about missions and customer care... In the meantime, while they polemize in their leather armchairs in expensive top floor offices, the masters in Surgut humbly dismiss my thanks, and say sincerely and simply:

“If we didn't help you, then what are we doing here?”

This question alone, this story alone — was worth all the troubles, all the bad weather in this trip. In fact, it was due to bad weather that the brake pads expired unexpectedly and brought me to Surgut.

It was 9°C and raining again outside. But, for the first time in the whole trip, I loved this weather.