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James's Motoring Report

Jane Makower Mather

My personal starting point for our road journey was Cluj Airport, in Northern Romania. From there, we went across the border into Ukraine at Siret / Porubne, near Suceava, and thence to the church at Ciudei, of which readers of this blog will have heard often before. The round trip amounted to 3300 km, and was achieved in four days, with a journey through the night on the way back.

 

We travelled in two Mercedes Sprinters, both of which were a long way past their youth. I was in the white one, from Adi’s church in Beclean, near Cluj. It is an ordinary long wheelbase panel van, with a bed improvised at high level behind the front seats. It has covered 330 000 km. The blue vehicle, which is a minibus with most of the seats removed, (but with an improvised bed behind the front row) comes from the church at Ciudei, and has a million km on the clock! 


In each case, we carried about two tonnes of supplies and three people. I think we could have got all the goods (but not all the people) into one vehicle, but the condition of some of the roads is such that it would not do to overload the suspension; also it was a comforting thing to know that should anything go wrong, we had a second string to our bow. This was particularly the case in the war zone, where the front line fluctuates, and it is easy to make a mistake and find you are trapped.

 

From Cluj airport, we went to Ciudei, arriving late. The following day, with an 0500 start, it was a long day’s run of about 19 hours to Dnipro for the night; the following day we again left early, arriving at Kostyantynivka  (which was our main destination) in the middle of the day;  then to Drushkovka for the night; then we went to Borova, Izium and Kharkiv, then drove through the night to get back to Ciudei and hence to Beclean near Cluj, which was the terminus. All these places, and what we did there, are described in other chapters of this account.

 

Both the Sprinters went at the sort of speed we see regularly on our motorways in the UK, whatever the conditions. In the process, they returned about 30 mpg, though in truth, we were pushing on as fast as we could, without any sense that we were asking too much of these venerable vehicles for reliability, or taking them beyond their capabilities from the point of view of either safety or comfort.

 

We travelled on every kind of road, some of which deserved that name only in an archaeological sense. They took everything in their stride, whether laden or not, giving very good handling and roadholding for the type of vehicle, and an excellent ride. Occasionally when we were porpoising along an unmade road (or, worse still, along one that had been badly patched), I feared for a broken spring, but there was never any trouble.




 

On the better roads, away from the Donbas, where the tarmac had not been molested by tracked vehicles and the roads ran straight and clear between enormous fields of grain, we could really get a move on, and go as fast as Mercedes ever intended.

 

So, I ended the journey with considerable respect for the Sprinter, unpretentious as it is. Big, tough-looking  4 x 4  SUVs are popular everywhere these days, not least in Ukraine, where four wheel drive capability and macho looks satisfy both the needs and aspirations of soldiers. However, if you want a tough, reliable and truly enjoyable vehicle with carrying capacity, the Sprinter may be the one.

 

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Our overnight stays were in churches, but most of our meals were taken in petrol stations and wayside cafes. Outside the Donbas, petrol stations can be very clean and modern, with impressive stocks of food and drink (every brand of whisky, amazingly), and they also often have good washing facilities and tables and chairs for you to sit and eat. Within the Donbas, we were much more reliant on what was apparently traditional: a sort of caravanserai: an area on the edge of a town or village with convenience stores, which sold simple forms of fast food. Because of the huge, relatively mobile, military population these were much in use; camouflaged vehicles washed in and out, and soldiers, taking a break from their tension-filled lives had a coffee, a smoke and a fistful of nutrition.


Another form of convenience store often present at these locations was the supplier of military goods. Their stock ranged from clothing, badges and armour to daggers and ammunition, including hand grenades. To some extent, these are necessary supplies, but they are also fashion items. In all ages, soldiers are fashion-conscious; we saw how they like to jazz-up appearances, for instance with forms of camouflage which are ‘cool’, to relieve the boredom of the universal olive green. They emphasize their combat history and their loyalties with badges, and swagger a bit with messages like “hell was full so I came back”. For the same reason, the bibles we distributed to soldiers, accepted with enthusiasm as a form of protection, had a camouflaged cover.  This did not so much to make them hard to see as conspicuously of the moment. 

 Another factor is that after some time in combat situations, soldiers feel naked and vulnerable without a gun in their hand. Therefore, when they go apparently unarmed to the shops or to attend a social event, they will often have a hand-grenade hidden at their ankle.

 


Along the roads of the Donbas, there is much evidence of an earlier stage in the war, when the Russians were driven back. There are rusting, shattered wrecks of military vehicles, hulks that have lost some of their form, turrets detached from the tank to which they once belonged; riddled buildings and woods and thickets blasted away to almost nothing; then there are new trench systems newly-dug, like livid scars across the landscape, designed to slow the enemy down if they advance further. There are some very large and deep linear excavations, which are apparently there to allow the safe passage of vehicles when under fire.

 

In some areas, you encounter sticks in the ground, with red and white tops. These are general, not precise, indications of the presence of land-mines. The watch-word is, “don’t walk off the road”. Stay in the Sprinter.

 

© James Mather 2024

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