Good Russians

Read / lees in : Nederlands

On my way back from the Tsaatan to Ulaanbaatar, on the last stretch the pump of the car’s airco gave up on us. It proves to be a weak part of the car, because it was the third time already that it failed on us. Once back in a workshop I seized the opportunity, against better judgement, to have the car thoroughly inspected. I live by the rule that you should only fix something when it is really broken. But when you have a mechanic look at your car, he will always find something he might be able to repair. Besides the airco pump in this case it was an oil gasket between the engine and the gearbox. To replace it the entire transmission had to be removed. A lot of work, but fortunately that’s not so expensive in Mongolia. But then again, it doesn’t help you very much either. Because, guess what broke down after just a few hundred kilometers. Right, the gearbox, and that was already replaced once before. Nevertheless the car held out until we reached Irkutsk, the Paris of Siberia (with its own little Eiffel Tower), so in any way we at least managed to get to yet another country. Lucía only knew Russians from American movies, so she was afraid we would only meet criminals with a heavy accent that would try to con us and kill us after. But nothing could be further from the truth. Only nice people here, and the local KIA dealership even organised another (used) automatic transmission within two day, and replaced it. For cheap, so it probably fell of a truck. Anyway, it shows just how bad prejudice is and that there actually are good Russians.