The Mongol Rally Guys

Previously known as Stalingrad, Volgograd is a large, patriotic city in between Ukraine and Kazakhstan. We didn’t have much time to explore the city, as we wanted to be on our way to Kazakhstan by that evening. One thing we definitely couldn’t miss though was the giant Mother Russia (Rodina) statue looming over the city. We drove up to the hill it was perched on and marveled at the scope of the thing (larger than the Statue of Liberty). There was also a gold-roofed Orthodox Church as well as various memorials to those that had died in World War Two (along with Russia’s version of the Eternal Flame). It was all very surreal and a reminder of how much influence communism had on the country for 70 years or so.

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We continued on the Russian side towards the city of Rostov-Na-Donu. Again, the freeway took us a circuitous route through the city, and we almost got lost a number of times. After we got out of the city we eventually came upon another team of four Brits doing the rally. We followed them for a while and when we stopped at a gas station we talked a bit and decided to convoy to Volgograd, as that’s where we were all heading.

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