The following summer. A motorcycle trip down the route Moscow – Kiev – Uzhgorod – Kishenev (we wanted to reach Odessa, but ran out of ammunition) – Kharkov – Moscow.

There were five of us on four motorcycles: one BMW-R75 with a sidecar, and three K-125. (Our serious mugs reflected our notion at the time of how serious people were supposed to look in historic moments).
One flaw these motorcycles had in common was the absence of a rear suspension, and that caused one of our most frequent break-downs: spokes falling out. We replaced the missing spokes by twisting two broken spokes together to make one. That stopped the wheels from locking or turning into a figure 8.
The BMW-R75 was quite a serious machine with a 22 horsepower four-beat opposite engine. The M-72, its Russian relative with a German pedigree that had rear suspension, was already in production at the Moscow Motor Plant before the war – in 1941. The Red Army was equipped with these motorcycles. One can see them in the photographs from the famous parade on Red Square on November 7, 1941.
At the end of 1941 the factory was evacuated to Irbit, where, I think, similar motorcycles continue to be produced even now.
Two similar models, the K-125 (“Kaka”), and M-1A (“Makaka”), light motorcycles with 4.5 horsepower two-beat engines, were also copies of another German pre-war model by the DKW company, and were put into production right after the war at a plant in Kovrov, and at the revived Moscow Motor Plant.
One could easily ride these bikes from the dacha to the nearest river, but if loaded down with say, a couple of canisters of gas, they could turn a trip along beat-up post-war roads into a typical Soviet adventure for lovers of the endless hunt for scarce parts, oil, gas, and even food.
We had a whole lot of such adventures, and for a long time afterwards remembered them with great pleasure.

On the very first day of the trip we discovered that:
- Right after Vnukovo the asphalt ended, replaced by a beat-up, almost war-torn road that lasted almost all the way to Kiev. This was most unexpected; we had made an effort to find out from every possible source what state the roads were in. But everything was classified, or maybe simply no one knew anything;
- Some of the food cans fell out of the wooden box attached to the back rack of my bike, due to the shaking (no rear suspension!). We had procured this canned meat at the Mosprodtorg distribution center, armed with a letter from MAI, complete with four authorization signatures (from the dean, the secretary of the Communist Party Committee, the President of the Local Soviet, and the Secretary of the Young Communist Union), and with a request to “to aid the outfitting of the MAI students’ motorized expedition along the glorious battle route, etc, etc.”. It was a terrible, irreplaceable loss, and I was almost killed for my negligence.
Out of the five fellow travelers only myself and Geliy Zemtsov, the owner of the BMW, had a motorcycle driver’s license. By the way, not long before the start of the trip only Geliy owned a motorcycle – not a respectable BMW, but a K-125. Out of the kindness of his heart he let me ride it occasionally, even in winter. The motorcycle occupied about the same place in my imagination as another typical obsession of a twenty-year-old man. When I finally got it, I would spend whole days riding it, and was ready to go just about anywhere. In general, remembering those years one is forced to address the idiocies of one’s young offspring with much more forgiveness.
The driver’s license situation didn’t cause us any trouble and never led to any problems with the police. Ordinarily, any contact with the authorities was accompanied by the presentation of the letter form MAI with the request “to all Party and Soviet organizations to aid the group of motorized tourists from MAI in their quest... etc, etc.” That took care of everything. The only few times that we were asked to show our licenses, one of the licensed drivers would show his and say: “The rest of the documents are packed in that suitcase. Should we unpack?” That order never followed.
We had letters on MAI letterhead for every emergency; MAI letterheads were plentiful.

There were dangerous instances of falling asleep at the wheel. When I remember this, I feel frustration over not being able to fall asleep for half the night in my own soft bed. Ilya Golberg, for instance, fell asleep and ended up in the gutter, and lived to laugh about it. Laughter was the last thing on our minds, as we watched the sleepy driver riding his motorcycle with his eyes closed.
And here the very same Ilya is pouring vodka for me into a gas tank lid. The revolting taste of the final product lingered for a long time in our memories. But after yet another cold night repair stop, having a drink was vital – not much, but enough to keep us going.
Ilya’s fatherIlya Golberg was the renowned writer Efim Dorosh, a member of the editorial board of the famed Tvordovsky’s magazine Novy Mir. In subsequent years, for the most part thanks to Ilya, we were able to acquaint ourselves with a sea of Samizdat writings, and thus much quicker and easier than our other college friends, we were able to bid farewell to the Soviet way of seeing reality. Although towards the end of the Brezhnev era, the absurdity of the system was so self-evident that there was no longer any need for special education.
One story comes to mind in this regard. Sometime in the end of the 70’s – beginning of the 80’s, I stopped by at Geliy Zemtsov’s apartment (Incidentally, after our graduation and almost till retirement contact with old classmates and college friends was infrequent). I was a rare guest, and my hosts scrambled to put something on the table in the way of drinks and oeurs-d-eouvres, and reached to turn off the mumbling TV which was showing the latest award ceremony for Brezhnev.
Their daughter Masha, who was either in 8th or 9th grade at the time, pronounced the unforgettable phrase: “Dad, wait – don’t turn it off, let me hate it a while more.”
Now Masha lives in the US, and her children speak good Russian, but they speak English better.

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