One Steppe Beyond

Thom

Wheeler

Travelling across the former Soviet Union is a challenge at the best of times - but in a dilapidated VDub… that's got to be plain daft... hasn't it?

I was in my prime hungry to make a mark on the world yet I was making ends meet by delivering egg and cress sandwiches on a bicycle with a bent axle to condescending office workers. Gainful employment in the ex-Soviet Union was a dream come true.

A chance job offer at a timber yard in Estonia gives Thom and his old pal Jo a taste for the unknown. So when Uncle Tony asks them to drive to Vladivostok for another job they can't think of a good reason why not. The result is a classic caper across the former Soviet Union in Max a rusty old VW camper. Knowing little of the language or the geography ahead they embark on probably the longest commute ever encountering corrupt officials film star mechanics and over-friendly gangsters. Far off the tourist trail they bear witness to the collapse of one nation and the birth of a new one during the free-for-all that was Russia in the nineties.