Blog - Plug Me In

27 August 20168 September 2016 by Wiebe

Day 161 & 162 | Moscow

Day 161 | Monday August 22

After all the treatments I received I felt almost 100% ago and left to Moscow. The navigation told me it was a two hour drive to the city center but it took me 3.5 hours. The traffic here is unbelievable busy.

Late in the afternoon I arrived and had a little bit time for some sightseeing. I took some selfies at the Red Square and than went for dinner with Diana. I came in touch with Diana via Vlad from Bellona in Norway. Diana has her own company, MosPrivet (HelloMoscow) and she takes care of tourists by arranging visa’s, giving city tips etc. So for me she arranged a letter of invitation so I could apply for a visa and everything worked without problems. She wanted me to taste some real Russian food and got me a huge pig.

In the city I picked up my new host Olga and her friend Katya. She didn’t find me on the website but a friend from Holland knew someone who knew her, I believe. So with 3 people in the car (2 on the right seat) and dabbing from the police now and than we drove to her house, 30 kilometers outside of Moscow. It was a big house, front garden and back garden and shared by almost the whole family. Her sister Dacha with husband Anton, father and Babushka.

Day 162 | Tuesday August 23

It’s almost becoming an habit, to visit the Dutch embassy in every capital. Today it was again the case. In the middle of the center and very close to the Kremlin Pauline and some colleagues welcomed me. They were very interested in the car and my story and took me to a restaurant for lunch. Also part of the delegation was Geert, a Dutchman living here since 20 years and now doing business for a Dutch company who produces EV charging stations. We talked a lot and the people at the embassy send some requests to companies who might be interesting for me to visit.

After lunch Geert took me to the Kremlin, he found that I really needed to see it and payed my admission. The Kremlin is the geopraphic and historic capital of Moscow and also of Russia. Cities in Russia were never surrounded by walls but only the central part were the most important churches and palaces were based were fortified. Kremlin means “fortress inside a city”. There are many Kremlins in Russia but the one in Moscow is of course the most famous one. For every building you needed to get a separate ticket and Geert got me one for the Armory Hall. A huge building with many relics from years ago.

Until so far the fun part of today. After my visit almost everything went wrong. A short recap: I wanted to take a picture of the car with the Saint Basil Cathedral in the background. The people at the embassy thought my best option was to go to the parking deck and the riverside of the red square. It was very busy and unclear and I took an exit in the wrong direction. Immediately a cop pulled me over. They checked all my documents, continued talking in Russian and than translated a text on their phone. Something with you will loose your rights for 6 months. Which rights were not clear but I knew it was not good. I tried to talk with them but impossible, it was clear what they wanted. I called Olga for translation, told me indeed that I could pay them off with some bribe money. 50 euro would do, I had that in my pocket as I received that from Seppo, gave it to them and received me license back.

Time to go back home. It was traffic jam all the way. While there cars weren’t moving at all some guy in a van hit my car from behind and started yelling at me. Weird experience.

After 2.5 hours I my navigation told me I arrived at my hosts. Unfortunately I didn’t. I drove to place with the same street name as my hosts and needed to do another 45 minutes home. When turning around I hit a bump with the underside of the car and I might have damaged a cell. Today I was not so lucky.

Pictures of these days

Saint Basil's Cathedral

Moscow City

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23 August 20168 September 2016 by Wiebe

Day 160 | Some lessons in Tver

Day 160 | Sunday August 22

The Babushka’s treated me with even more fruits, vitamine C and herbal tea. I started to feel better. Today they took me for a tour through Tver. Hundreds of years ago there was a battle between Moscow and Tver about which city would be the capital, so it’s a place with much history. The river Volga flows through the middle of the city and has it’s spring nearby. The famous poet Pushkin has 2 statues here and also Lenin has one. There are still some small reminders about the Soviet Union times, in the heart of the centre can be found an old theater from that time.

Tver has 400.000 citizens which they consider not much people for a city in Russia. It is quite, nice and interesting to walk through. The woman had a lot to tell about it. One monument reminded of the 1.400 people that died on submarines during WWII. They had no idea why this was placed here as there was no submarine base nor any other relation with submarines.

Yesterday I asked them if they knew anyone who could cut my hair. My hair became quite long, it came over my ears and to the back of my neck. They immediately took all their phones out of their pockets and started making phone calls. They couldn’t find one but offered to pay for a barber today. So we did. I showed the barber some pictures of the model I prefer and I think she managed to cut it like that, I feel young again.

Sustainability

I tried to talk with the woman about what they think about sustainability. They didn’t really understand what it meant and after I described it with some examples they understood but apparently it’s not really a issue in Russia. Tanya told that she thinks about it sometimes but hasn’t really started to work on it.

A problem in Russia is clear drinking water. It doesn’t come out the pump here at homes so you need to buy it at stores. Some people use the pump water to cook, others don’t. Some companies installed water supplies on the streets, for a cheap price (4 Ruble or €0,05 a liter) you can refill your bottles here. The company claims it’s pure drinking water but most citizens don’t believe this and buy bottles at the stores.

Pictures of today

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21 August 20168 September 2016 by Wiebe

Day 159 | Valday – Tver

Day 159 | Saturday August 20

My hosts Ivan and Dascha left in the morning for work. Ivan is an IT-specialist and takes care of the ATM’s in the region. He had to go to another town and would be back around noon. With the other Ivan I visited two museums in Valday. The first one was the bell museum. Valday is well known for this. Since a long time (already since the year 1400 if I understood correctly) they have been making bells here. Small ones and huge ones. For example on all the churches in St. Petersburg the bells came from this place. Their market was not only in Russia but even in China their bells were sold. In one of the rooms it was possible to play with the bells which was an opportunity I couldn’t miss. Most of the visitors left quickly.

The second museum was the museum of history from Valday. Many artifacts (including lots of bells) from ages ago could be found here. Very interesting to see old pictures from people in their original costumes.

Unfortunately Ivan’s work was delayed and I couldn’t say goodbye to them. Ivan’s mother Nina wanted to be sure that I was allright and when I got there she gave me 3 huge bags of apples, some drinks and potatoes, she is a true “Babushka”, as they call grandmothers here.

My next stop was Tver, 220km farther away were brad Seppo found a relative were I could stay. Seppo was one of my hosts in Helsinki. 220km is a distance which I can make under the most ideal circumstances. Today there were some hills, the temperature was 22 degrees and it didn’t rain. Almost ideal. When I had 10% battery left I had done 180km (which is a good achievement) and now knew that I just couldn’t make it. I stopped at a restaurant next to the highway to ask if I could charge here. The woman didn’t speak English and luckily I was prepared for that. Before entering Russia I made a document with an explanation of my project and some basic questions like “where can I find a socket?”, “where can I find a toilet” or “can you offer me some electricity”. That worked and she showed me where I could plug in the car.

The highway to Tver was party a tollway and I didn’t know that in advance, it was 200 Rubles and luckily I had received some money from Vlad and could pay for it.

Around 7pm I arrived at my hosts in Tver. The whole family came out to see me. They lived in a single house with a huge garden, which is special in Russia and especially in a big city as most people live in apartments. They served me a good Russian meal with Borscht and meat. They noticed that I was not feeling well, gave me a lot of medicines and sent me to bed quickly. The Russians know how to take care of you.

Pictures of today

Bells

Big bell

Playing with my bells

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20 August 20168 September 2016 by Wiebe

Day 157 & 158

Day 157 | Thursday August 18

After a few hectic days it was time to leave St. Petersburg. Vladimir gave me some food for the trip and even 1000 Rubles “so you can buy some food if necessary”. 200km from Pete is Novgorad, when I left I had no place to stay there yet but Vladimir and the Dutch consulate were trying to find something.

Driving the roads in Russia is interesting. Next to the highway are people selling fruits and other things which they collected in the woods. The highway is a single road with a big emergency lane, speed limit 90km/h, which is perfect for me as this is the most economic way to drive. But not for the Russians. Apparently it’s allowed to drive 20 kilometers faster than the signs says. When a car approaches it’s normal for the first car to drive half over the emergency lane and let the other car pass. When they pass they thank you with blipping their emergency lights a few times. It seems that there are some other unwritten laws in place but I haven’t yet figured out what it is.

In the afternoon I reached Novgorad. Exactly when I parked the car to take a break Victoria from the Dutch consulate called me. Via the tourist center they found me a place to stay. The tourist center gave me a call and asked them to visit their office. They explained me where I could stay and gave me some sightseeing tips. Apparently Novgorad is a really beautiful city but in the morning I started feeling sick and it got worse during the day. I decided to sleep today.

Day 158 | Friday August 19

When I woke up I felt even worse then yesterday, a fewer got hold of me. Still I needed to continue. I decided that my next stop would be Valday as this was right between Novgorad and Tver, which is the biggest city on the way to Russia and I have a place to stay there. But not yet in Valday, I send some requests on CouchSurfing but from my experience this never works on the day itself. I was in touch witch some people in Moscow and asked them if they knew some people here. They didn’t but they places a request on a forum on valday.com, a website about the region.

Valday was 140km from Novgorad, when I arrived there I saw some people watching at my car and pointing at it. I didn’t really pay attention to it and drove around the town for 30 minutes to explore it. When I got back and parked the car the same people as earlier approached me. One only spoke Russian and the other one a bit English. They told me they saw the request on the forum and wanted to help out. Funny how east stuff works sometimes. They made some phone calls and told me that I could charge the car at Ivan’s motor, Ivan was the Russian speaking guy. We drove there and plugged the car in. Ivan’s mother Nina invited me for some food and I could take a rest here, she saw I was sick and made a lot of tea other stuff which mothers usually give you when you’re sick, I knew I was in good hands.

On Facebook I received a message from Kseniya, she saw my car driving around in Valday and when she got home her mother told here a Dutch guy was looking for a place to stay, she saw that also on the website. Kseniya contacted me and asked if I still needed help. I was oke but she wanted me to show the town so she and her mother picked me up. They way I have been welcomed to Valday was very warm.

Later in the evening Ivan, Dascha and another Ivan took me for a ride to the Monastery, on the other side of the Valday lake. An impressive compound with many buildings, golden towers nice parks.

Pictures of these days

Vladimir

My accommodation in Novgorod

Stray cats

Novgorod

This is Russian for Valday

This happens a lot here.

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19 August 20168 September 2016 by Wiebe

Day 155 & 156 | St. Petersburg kicks ass!

Day 155 | Tuesday August 16

Another busy day in St. Petersburg. I was invited by the consulate of the Netherlands. They are located very close to the Hermitage. I was welcomed by Victoria and Hans Wesseling, the Consul-General. When I got there they showed me an article about me in the Metro, I didn’t even know that I was in there. We talked about about my plans and how I reached St. Petersburg. They even got me some presents, a cap and a coffee mug.

Victoria even arranged that I could enter the Hermitage for free and without having to wait in the que, starting almost to feel like a VIP.

The hermitage was beautiful, didn’t really know what to expect from it but the rooms, the decoration and all the art is stunning. There is art from many different era’s and different countries.

After the hermitage I visited the Russian branch of Bellona. Bellona is a Norwegian environmental company who I visited in Oslo. They helped me with the letter of invitation to get my visa for Russia. I talked to them about their goals in Russia. In Russia they have different struggles as in Norway. For example the government doesn’t give any details about the levels of pollution in the city or others places. Bellona in Russia promotes sustainable living, tries to fight the government by lawsuits and is involved in many other organizations. A full interview will be published soon.

After 3 nights at Samvel’s place I switched from hosts. I always want to meet as many people as possible who plugged me in. I was invited by Larisa. When I met her she took me to the Corona Sport Club. Larisa is connected to these people and they told them about what I was doing. They wanted me to visit the club to tell about my ecological experiences. Together we went to a restaurant were they introduced me to Russian and Azerbeidjzjan food. Most of the people who joined the dinner were related to the sporing club, there was even a world champion wrestling with us.

Larisa was rebuilding their house so I stayed at Vladimir’s house and his wife. He is the owner of the sportclub. Very interesting to see how Russians live. Most people in Russia life in apartments, so did they. The way they decorate their houses is not that different from most European houses.

Day 156 | Wednesday August 17

Elena, who works with Dimitri and Larisa took me for a trip to Peterhof, also know as the Russian Versailles. A series of palaces and gardens, developed by Peter the Great. It somehow reminded me of Disneyland, there are many weird creative objects and fountains. And gold, lots of gold is used on the many statues in this place.

When we got back Vladimir took me for a boxing class. 2 hours long I got a drill exercise which I really enjoyed.

Russians are really the nicest people. They really do everything to make you feel at home and have the best experience here, can’t wait what will happen in the coming days and weeks here.

Pictures

At the embassy

Hermitage

Bellona

Meet the Russians

Peterhof

Kicking ass

The crew

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18 August 20168 September 2016 by Wiebe

Day 154 | Media madness

Day 154 | Monday August 16

Today was an important day. A few weeks ago I received a message from Evgeni at the Polytech University in St. Petersburg. They are working on their own solar car and thought we should share experiences. They set up an press conference and invited journalists from all over Russia.

Around 10 in the morning I was welcomed by some people of the University who showed me around the complex. An impressive university which was build in 1899. Some famous people studies here and even some Nobel prize winners!

Before 11 the first journalists arrived and already had to give some interviews. I did many for newspapers and radio but this was my debut on television. We went inside were all the press was waiting in a room, an interesting experience to have all those cameras pointed at you. A professor of the uni introduced me and told about the their solar car in which they are going to compete next year in the Australian Solar Challenge. Than all the attention went to me, first they showed the trailer and I gave a short update about the past months, my plans for Russia and the coming months. Than the journo’s started me all kinds of questions. I think it took about 30 minutes before it ended. Funny experience and interesting that they expect me to be some kind of all-knower about electric cars and sustainability. Maybe in a few months I will get to that point.

There was even a live broadcast on one of St Pete’s TV channels and I was featured in Russia’s Metro newspaper, here are some links:

Путешественник Виб Воккер рассказал, как ездит по свету на электромобиле

Metro News

Life 78

RTR

After the pressco there were even more interviews outside and I took some journalists for a testride in the car. Than we went for some food with the team and they showed me one of their cars they are working on.

Kirill and Anastasia, team members of the uni showed me around the city, we went to an old caste in the middle of town.

To thank the team for their efforts I arranged that we could go to an escape room. It’s a room where you get locked inside and by solving puzzles and riddles you need to escape in one hour. In Amsterdam I played many and it has become an addiction. This room from Questrooms was a very exciting one. It had a horror team and there were many crazy scary elements inside the room!

If you want to play there I have good news because if you book now and use the code “wakker” you get 10% discount! Thanks again to Questrooms for offering this experience!

Pictures of today

Press conference

Interviews

St. Pete

Church of the blood...

Kirril

Anastasiia

At the Questroom

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Day 153 & 154 | Saint Petersburg

14 August 20168 September 2016 by Wiebe

Day 152 & 153 | Saint Petersburg

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Day 151 | Intro Russia

13 August 20168 September 2016 by Wiebe

Day 151 | Into Russia

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12 August 20168 September 2016 by Wiebe

Day 148 – 151| Green innovation in Helsinki

Day 148| Tuesday August 9

I was invited by the Dutch embassy in Helsinki. In every country I contact them to let them know I am here and ask them if they can help me with finding initiatives who are active on sustainability. Embassies are always involved in the business sector and have many contacts there. I was welcomed by Ilona and Ozlem, who is the replacement for the ambassador. They took me for lunch, I could charge the car in the basement and they even collected some money among all the employees for my visa to Russia! That was seriously really nice of them and now I got enough to get it on Friday.

Wednesday & Thursday

After a while it was finally time to visit sustainable initiatives. Helsinki has a big start-up community and many initiatives who are active on sustainability, interesting stuff for me. I spend both days to visit some, here you can find a short review and I will add the interviews and extended reviews soon.

Tuup

An innovative app which changes the way how we use mobility. With Tuup you can plan your trip from A to B and Tuup tells you the most efficient way to travel. This includes every kind of mobility like trains, trams, busses and also car sharing. With the app it’s possible to pay for all the different kinds of transport you use. It also tells you how many emissions the trip has and has the possibility to select the transport systems which has the lowest amount of emissions.

Blindsquare

Another app but of totally different use. It’s one that makes the life of blind and visually impaired people easier using open data and augmented reality. Blindsquare describes the environment, announces points of interest and street intersections as you travel. The app can tell blind people where they are, which hotspots are near them, which bus is approaching and it can even tell if there is an electric car close. A very valuable option as it’s hard for blind people to hear electric cars approaching.

ECO Viiki

Viikki is a leading area of ecological building in Finland. Many of the ecological building projects in the area have also been recognized internationally. Situated in the southern part of Latokartano, Eco-Viikki is the first ecologically designed neighborhood in Finland.

The idea behind the neighborhood’s design has been a sustainable, healthy and amendable living environment, where practical solutions save energy and reduce the amount of waste generated. Construction of the 23-hectare residential area Eco-Viikki lasted from 1999 to 2004.

The active and passive utilization of solar energy has been one of the main themes of ecological experimental building in Viikki. Nine properties with 412 homes are part of the area’s solar energy heating system. The first, and only, apartment building to utilize solar electricity in Finland is also located in Eco-Viikki.

RePack

A very simple idea, with an possible huge impact. RePack has set up a reusable packaging system. Companies can send their good in these neatly designed packages, the costumer takes out the goods, delivers the empty package to the mailbox and receives an discount coupon which they can use at any shop which is connected to the RePack brand.

I stayed 3 nights at Maria & Trine. They were very nice, gave me the key so I could come and leave whenever I want, made food for me and shared some interesting stories. Normally I stay at the same place only 1 night, which is a rush sometimes. If I stay somewhere a bit longer it makes the conversations better and I can relax more.

Thursday night I went back to Seppo and the fam where I stayed last weekend, they asked me to return because they wanted to help with the final preparations for Russia. I had the idea to make a document with translations for Russia. Luckily Seppo’s brother is an official English – Russian translator and was able to translate it for me. Now I have a good document which I can show to Russian people to ask them for help. I have now some offers in St. Petersburg and Moscow but between there still nothing, and that’s an 700km drive so those translations will be used 🙂

Seppo’s oldest son was now also at home. He is also a traveler and has recently been in India. As I’m also going there he gave me some tips and contacts.

Day 151 | Friday August 12

Seppo and his Russian wife gave me a lot of stuff for my trip. A bag full of food and even some travel money. They already gave me some Rubles last week so they have been very nice to me and I really appreciate all their efforts.

At 10 o’clock I could pick up my visa in the city of Helsinki so I wanted to be there right on time as it’s going to be a long long day. I was there at 10 sharp and the visa has been granted to me! I was still not sure if I would receive it as they believed my insurance policy was not right.

My end destination for today is Vyborg, a few kilometers over the Russian border and 250km from Helsinki. So I needed to charge in between. In Loviisa Raimo offered me to charge the car and I contacted him a few days ago to ask if it was ok to do a pitstop there. When I arrived there was a group of 3 journalists waiting for me to hear my story, I will post some links when the articles are online.

When Im writing this blog its 16.00 hours and the remaining of the day you can watch tomorrow in a vlog! How do you like that?

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9 August 2016 by Wiebe

Day 145 – 147 | So much to do

Day 145 | Saturday August 6

My hosts invited me to stay a night more and as I’m sticking around Helsinki until I receive my visa for Russia on Friday that sounded like a good plan. We went to see Suomenlinna, it is an inhabited sea fortress built on six islands and you only can get to by ferry and is on the UNESCO world heritage list. It was builded from 1748, when Finland was still part of the Swedish kingdom, as protection against the expansion of the Russians.

Day 146 | Sunday August 7

I decided to go out of Helsinki, mainly because I wanted to see the Jari Litmanen statue in Lahti. I went Hausjarvi were Petri offered me a place to stay, 60km from Helsinki, about 60 from Lahti. Petri left a note on my website that he would offer me 20 euros for my Russia visa if I would help him with cutting wood.

He lives on the countryside and we took his rowing boat for some sightseeing. Later we picked up his oldest son and went for a swim. When we returned home he introduced me to his wife, his other son and two daughters, pretty big family. His oldest son wants to be an architect and is making his own boat from wood, he showed me some 3D models and I thought it was impressive. Like every other Fin they got a sauna and he he collects wood from damaged trees in the forrest around his house to heat it up. With a big axe I cut it all in smaller pieces. Nice to do some active work and get paid for it as well 😉

Day 147 | Monday August 8

Today I got to the destination of my mini-mission: Lahti. The hometown of Kuningas, The King, The man of glas, Diego, Kuningas, NR 10, my childhood hero… Jari Litmanen! His statue is placed at the stadium of FC Lahti. I was there around 11 in the morning and some players just finished their training. I asked them if it was okay to move my car into the stadium so I could take a picture with the statue and that was not a problem. One guy even approached me and said he tried to call Jari but he didn’t answer the phone, what a bad news! Apparently he was here only a week ago and he doesn’t come here that often anymore. He moved to Estonia where he lives with his wife… It was still nice to take this picture and see a bit of history of this legend.

https://www.facebook.com/PlugMeIn/photos/a.357717747770627.1073741829.211949022347501/519436294932104/?type=3&theater

Then it was time to get back to Helsinki. In Norway on the Preikestolen cliff I met 2 Finish girls, Trine and Maria. We stayed in touch and now they invited me to come over. They are 2 students, Trine is studying for Paramedic. The paramedic study in Finland is one of the best in the world, the training takes 4 years where in France for example it’s only a 3 month course. Maria studies marketing and wants to do something else when she finishes.

This is the first time I wrote a blog covering 3 days. Besides writing blogs I’m having a bug amount of work with making all the arrangements for Russia, finding interesting projects to visit and doing some mental preparation 😉

Pictures of these days

Suomenlinna

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