After a cold and snowy winter, the prospect of traveling from Kyiv to the Crimea by car caused me some concern. I was afraid, of course, because of the state of the road to the Crimea. On TV, they shouted that the road surface had “come down” along with the snow, that at the current pace, road repairs would be completed only in May, and other passion-faces.After such information preparation, it was quite natural to send the car to the Crimea by train (there is such a service). But, as they say, “the eyes are afraid, but the hands are doing” – we went on our fours.Before that, we had already traveled to Crimea and back twice (4 times in total) and managed to study a little the classic routes both in theory (reading reviews on the Internet) and in practice (driving our Rocinante).Judging by the reviews, most of the people of Kiev go like this: Odessa highway, Uman, Pervomaisk, Nikolaev, Kherson, Krasnoperekopsk, Simferopol. This route is discussed in detail in report by Dmitry Pasechnik from Autoreview. So we went for the first time. Then there were trips through Poltava, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye, Melitopol and through Cherkassy, Kirovograd.
For the anniversary, fifth rally between the capital and the Crimea, the route Kyiv, Poltava, Karlovka, Krasnograd, Dnepropetrovsk district, Zaporozhye district, Melitopol, Chongar, Dzhankoy was chosen. Chosen not on recommendations from the Internet (the season of mass trips and mass discussions on the forums will begin much later), and not on the advice of astrologers (there was no time to find an autoastrologer). We just had some business in the Poltava region.As a result of the lack of psychological and informational support, we (my wife and I) felt like pioneers, pioneers of the Wild West, and prepared to face the dangers with dignity. They pumped up the wheels, tightened the seat belts, securely secured the load on the trunk and in the cabin. On the glove compartment (a few words about the origin of this term) I put a notepad and a pen – I was going to regularly make notes about the state of the road while driving, so that later I could “bump out” an amazing article, a kind of chronicle of a dive bomber with a taste of burnt rubber.Failed. There was nothing for me to write about! The condition of the road is quite satisfactory, slightly worse than it was last summer. During the 14 hours of driving, only 10 notes were made in the notebook. Here is their content:
- Kyiv-Kharkiv highway is being actively patched up. On the section from the 50th to the 150th kilometer, we met 3 or 4 repair teams. Of course, the road in places resembles a patchwork quilt, but there are no bottomless pits.
- From 172 to 186 kilometers of the Kharkov highway, the roadbed is almost perfect.
- through Poltava they crawled on their belly – the road was gouged “to death”. But at numerous traffic lights, we easily bypassed a pack of trucks with agricultural machinery, which would have caused much more inconvenience if we met them on a narrow two-lane highway.
- The road to Karlovka is bearable.
- After Karlovka, there are many potholes along the edge of the road. And since it was already narrow without it, you have to drive along a solid axial line, and from time to time stop on the sidelines to miss the oncoming lane.
- Peshchanka village – an anti-tank ditch crosses the road at the entrance. Otherwise, this defensive structure cannot be called. We must stop and crawl across the ditch at the quietest pace.
- Krasnograd – while we were crossing this small town, 4 traffic police cars drove towards us. Where are they?
- E105 is a great road. “Speed checkpoints” are common.
- Vilne village – there is a sign in front of the descent – “repair work, speed limit 40 km/h”. And after the descent (on which no work is being done) – a traffic police officer with a radar.
- Melitopol – the whole city is under repair. The road surface was either destroyed in winter or removed by repairmen.
That’s all the notes.
Of course, it cannot be said that the trip was perfect – there were “direct hits” in potholes, and wild slalom between artillery craters. But the total amount of “bad” coverage was negligible compared to the mileage done and did not cause significant trouble.True, it is worth considering that we were driving in a car loaded “to the eyeballs”, and therefore we did not exceed the speed limit very often (90 km / h). Those who like to drive would surely “feel” the road more strongly and would be able to tell more about its surprises.P.S. You have already guessed that the monstrous pits in the photographs in this article are not post-mortem shots of the Simferopol-Moscow track, but a very dangerous advertisement for Pioneer shock absorbers (I think it was filmed in Mumbai, India).