July 1st - Russia powaaaa

We left Atyrau around 6am after a huge breakfast, fill up benzin and hit the road...We were expecting better roads but unfortunately it was getting worst closer to the Kazakh border. A violent right side wind along with sand storm and rain is a good summarize of our ride today. Boring roads and landscapes did not help us to keep focus but we have to gazzz until Astrakhan.

Along the way, we crossed a kind of desert and found some petrol drilling. We stopped by for a picture and met one the worker. Obviously happy to see us in the middle of nowhere during a sand storm (brave tourist as he said)...

2 hours later, Kazakh border...It takes us more time to exit Kazakhstan than entering in Russia. Before leaving the country, we took some souvenirs pictures with the flag kindly offered by local ladies in Atyrau for a last picture with local police. 

From the Russian side, it was very smooth. Russian customs are kind and efficient...We were expecting a big border like Chinese ones but it was very small, not much traffic.

Roads were a lot better from the Russian side and we cruised at 100km/h discovering Russian landscape,cars, people and architecture.

Astrakhan, our today`s destination was 60km away after the border. We checked into a cute hotel called BEK21 and went out, looking for motorbike garage.

Since Dushanbe, we did not find any mechanical place with proper stuff to change oil, filter and Nicolas needs a new front tyre.

Shops here are more for scooter (Chinese brand by the way) than proper bike shop. Anyway all of them were close when we arrived. We lost the habit to check working hours and from now on we need to respect this. Welcome to Europe hehehe...

Astrakhan is a big city, located on the 2 banks of the Volga river also known as the Caspian sea capital. We did not see much today and may stay another day to do some visits and figure out if we can find a proper motorbike shop to do our maintenance.