Felipe Busto Swett is a longtime traveler, language learner, and sportsman from Chile.

I started the trip I’m on now on the first of September, 2022 in Switzerland. I cycled pretty fast to Georgia. I’d been learning Russian for a while, so I decided to leave my bike in Georgia and I spent the winter in Moscow, where I met my girlfriend Katya, who’s in front of me now. She decided to come with me on this trip. I imagined she would have savings, because she had worked as an architect for eight years, but it turns out she had no savings at all. She worked until the very last moment on Friday, took a 25 hour train ride to Vladikavkaz on Saturday, and on Monday we were traveling together. She almost fell as soon as she got on the bike, because she’d never cycled on a loaded bike before. In the first weeks, every time she had to switch gears, she would move one meter to the side on the road. Russia is not the best place for that, cars are not super respectful. It was pretty scary, especially in Chechnya and Dagestan.

Down the road, in Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan, we’re having ice cream and this drunk guy says, “You guys want to stay in my place?” It’s this empty house that belonged to his friend. One of them had lived in Moscow, so he spoke Russian quite well. His forearms were completely bandaged. He said that it’s because he kidnapped his future wife and made her his. After we left, we realized this guy kidnapped a 16-year-old girl and raped her. What the fuck! He told us he cut his arms breaking the windows to kidnap her. He made her his and then gave her back. From time to time, he goes to fight the girl’s father so that he can have her live with him. She’s pregnant. In those villages, it’s normal.

After, we decided to go through the Kyrgyz mountains. It’s a very tough route: A thousand kilometers of shitty roads, no asphalt, getting up to 4,000 meters of elevation. But I like mountains. I would take that over the desert any day. At least you can see the top of the hill. When you’re in a desert, in the flat areas, you can’t see the end of the wind. After that we went to Kazakhstan again, which should have been the easiest part because it’s flat and the roads are good, but it was the hardest because of the winds.

When we crossed the border from Kazakhstan to Russia, it was 7 p.m. They interrogated me for three hours. They asked what my parents do, what I studied, what I did before. And then, of course, the question came: What do I think about the war? I’d traveled with a Ukrainian girl for a while when the war started, so I was following the open source intelligence channels in an obsessive way. My stance was super clear: Pro-Ukraine. I couldn’t say that here, but because I know all these things, I knew the Russian propaganda that the Ukrainians killed 25,000 children. I said, “Guys, honestly, I don't know much about politics, I’m just a traveler. All I know is that it’s not nice that the Ukrainians killed 25,000 children.” They’re like, “That’s totally it.” I’m like, “Killing kids is always bad, so I’m kind of with Russia. And Putin rides bears, so he must be cool.”

When we finished, they said that because we were in the border area, we would not be able to sleep there. We’d have to cycle at least 40 kilometers more. It was already midnight. I said, “Please tell my girlfriend, because I don’t want to get in trouble.” The FSB guy goes and says, “You’re gonna have to cycle 40k in the middle of night.” And she’s like, “What?!” We’re like, “Do you guys have any food? Because we have nothing.” They gave us army bread and then we cycled until 4 a.m. I remember being woken up at 6 a.m. and Katya’s voice, almost crying, saying, “Please, we don’t want to go anywhere else. We just want to sleep.” The guy was like, “It’s okay. You can stay here, even though it’s an anti-terrorist area.” They let us stay until noon. It was easy to find a spot, all it needed was Katya almost crying.

The first part back in Russia was the Altai Republic. We slept in an abandoned house — which is something we do all the time, because we need a roof in case it rains — and we asked someone for water. They said, “I know this journalist, is it okay if he interviews you?” This dedushka shows up with a little tape recorder, super old school, and takes us to his place. He made blinchiki for us. We spent almost all day talking, until 4 p.m. He wrote it up in the local newspaper and 50 percent of it was made-up romantic shit. I guess he was a frustrated writer and gave free rein to his imagination. This is a super patriotic newspaper, for Z patriots, but it didn’t say anything like that in our article. The guy wrote that I was a descendant of the first conquerors of America and that my dream was to go to Russia. I wanted to go to Russia, but it’s not a lifelong dream.

In Altai, pagans worship fire. Their houses are made in a way that you have to bow to the fire every time you go in. We were hosted by some dude who was drunk. In Russia, most places, if I say I’m from South America, all they hear is America. Because the damn Americans decided to take this name for themselves, instead of being called United Stations or something, we suffer the consequences. This completely drunk guy is talking about how a bunch of guys in the town went to fight against Ukraine and if they find out I’m American, they're gonna stab me. I’m like, “I am not American, dude. What the fuck? I'm from South America. It’s a different continent.” To be fair, even people in Guatemala didn't know what Chile was, so I don’t want to say that only Russians are ignorant. But it was fine. No one stabbed me.

We went into Mongolia where we carried food for four days and eight liters of water. It was very chill, sleeping in the middle of the steppe and grasslands. It was just boring to cycle there — the roads were brand new, I was able to trust them completely — so I read two full books about Ghengis Khan on my Kindle literally on the bike. After that came this little stretch in Buryatia, the Buddhist part of Russia. The first night, we were hosted by proper Buddhists, but they loved Stalin, which is weird because he killed a bunch of people. Three days later we stayed in a temple. Those guys were phony-ass Buddhists, they gave us a bunch of meat. I’ve been kind of vegetarian for the last billion years and these guys are like, “Oh yeah, we believe in reincarnation, we just hope we’re not the pigs in the next life.”

Then we made it to Zabaykalsky Krai, where all of the gulags used to be. Everyone said bad people would escape these prisons and roam the area. The first night, these people let us stay in one of their empty homes. They said, “You should get the fuck out of here. You will die. They will still steal your bikes, maybe shoot you.” Which was funny, because they were being super nice to us. We went to stay in a 35-year-old guy’s place. He had a 55-year-old girlfriend and a 10-year-old son. The adults were both drunks. Ten minutes after getting to the place, they left us alone with their kid. We’re taking care of him and saying, “Do you go to school? Do you actually eat?” He’s like, “Normally I don’t have breakfast because my mom is always drunk.” This kid was scary. He was super cute, but he would hold his fist in front of my face, trying to scare me. The next morning before we left, we fed him our food, because he had no more food.

We were racing against the winter. One day, we wake up and there’s snow everywhere. I’m freezing my ass off, it’s chilling my bones. I’m wearing everything I have, but it’s not enough. We’ve been trying to do this whole thing without hitchhiking because if you want to go around the world by bike, if you do it properly, you need to do it just once. That day, I gave up. I said, “Katya, we can’t do this. This is way too cold. We need to hitchhike, I’m dying here.” Russians, they don’t give a fuck. She looks at me and she's like, “What’s the fucking difference? You’ll be cold later too.” I put my tail between my legs and I’m just like, “Okay, baby!”

We went to this church because people sent us to stay there. This whole house is full of humanitarian aid for Russian soldiers in Ukraine. I’m thinking, “Fuck, I’m gonna have to help them move these things. I’m gonna be a part of this Russian war effort.” This is really a nightmare for me. The priest happens to be a local rock star. He’s a war priest. There are videos on YouTube of him reading poems to the Russian soldiers who are about to die, saying, “If I die, don’t cry for me, because I’m dying for my motherland.” Scary shit you read on the news. We stayed three nights. We were invited for dinner, where we met a higher ranking military guy who gave me a hundred bucks and then gave Katya a hundred bucks, which I’m fine with. The more we have, the less the army has. We’re fighting Russia in our own way.

On our last day, we’re trying to leave early and this guy says, “It’d be nice if you came to church.” I don’t like religion at all, especially this homophobic, pro-Russia thing, but we went. We left while he was busy doing the service. While we were getting ready, he sent someone to get us back. He held my hand in front of everyone while I imagined this church burning. While he’s doing that, one woman comes to Katya and says, “You are so lucky, this guy is a big deal here,” and gives her money. Then another lady comes to Katya and says, “I saw that lady giving you money, so here you go.” They made me eat the communion. I don’t know what’s going on, because my Russian’s pretty good, but it’s not that good. They’re pushing me to kiss the thing, eat the thing, pushing me farther. Finally, some guy gave me a bunch of money. We left.

It was December and we were in Vladivostok. I started wearing plastic bottles on my shoes, because they’re full of holes. At some point, a guy in a church gave us winter boots, more pants, more jackets, everything. With that, we were able to continue.

We stayed with one guy who was like an oracle. He knew everything about us without asking. He was drinking moonshine. I drank with him. At some point, I had already drunk quite a bit, he says, “You want to shoot some guns?” This is my dream come true. I’ve never shot anything. I was like, “Fuck yeah, I want to shoot your guns.” I shot his shotgun from his garden. Then this guy asked me if I wanted to shoot his AK-47, but I didn’t understand because of being drunk and it being Russian. Katya heard it and she didn’t tell me, because she didn’t want to die. I’ll never forget this betrayal. I didn’t shoot the AK-47 because of her. But we didn’t die.

We cycled all the way to the border with China. We were not able to cycle the last ten kilometers, because it’s this secure area. We asked these Chinese bus drivers if they'd take us and they’re like, “Sure.” When our bicycles were already on there, they said we’ll charge you 50 bucks. We’re like, “Fuck you mate, it’s just ten kilometers.” We took them out and found a ride with a Russian truck driver. Then this Russian official says, “You have to pay taxes for your bikes because your bikes are on the truck, which means this is cargo.” In the end, we got our bikes out of the truck and were able to cross after explaining our trip. They found us a ride with one of the same bus drivers that wanted to take us for money. He had to take us for free. The border with China was a breeze.

Enjoying Drifter? Subscribe to receive a new story every week. Want to hang out with other drifters and see how the newsletter is made? Join our Slack. Have a story to tell? Drop us an email.

Masthead

Editor-in-chief — Andrew Fedorov

Rails Editor — Connor McFarland

Altitude Editor — Matt Gu