Continuation. Crimea and the road back. Conclusions.Results) - Toyota 4Runner, 3.4 liter, 2001

After Novorossiysk, no matter how they frightened us with crossing to Kerch, we nevertheless went to the Crimea. My wife is from there, so we went to feel the Crimea again, and to the mother-in-law for pancakes)
The crossing was successful. I was 3rd in line. (The ferry left before us). That is, there are not many cars. Registration / inspection at the Russian border quickly and without crap. In Ukraine, they tried to ask for at least a beer (allegedly I filled out the migration card incorrectly), they didn’t give it, we were miser. In total, it took about 2 hours to cross the border. And this too. Insurance at the crossing itself (in the building of the "station") costs 2 times cheaper than at the entrances to the crossing. The crossing itself was remembered primarily for feeding fat gulls, which flew behind the ferry with their entire composition) They catch food right on the fly. Super)
And we went to Feodosia, having wandered a little in Kerch itself. We left for the coast when it was still light, although it was going to get dark. So we managed to catch the beautiful views of the Karadag Reserve during daylight hours. Nice. A kind of balding Caucasus with many rocky ledges. The road itself is worthy to drive along it at least once in a lifetime)

Having reached Sudak, we had a bite to eat and nevertheless decided not to stay overnight, but to drive a little further, so that in the morning we would be in Sevastopol early tomorrow, and not by lunch) Having climbed the next pass, we were caught by a downpour. It was just raining like a wall. Visibility was 20 meters thirty. And it's already night outside. The rain didn't stop for about an hour. And the signs along the road "carefully landslides" could not but rejoice in such a situation)) But there are also pluses - the dream was taken away as if by magic. We drove without incident, everything is fine, although in some places the roads were more like a mountain river) We spent the night near Alushta in a car camping.
Well, in the morning we were already flying past my familiar Crimean cycling places to the hero city of Sevastopol, where our relatives were waiting for us.
We didn’t go anywhere in Sevastopol, as everyone had already seen it, they only finally visited the museum in Balaklava.
They ate, sunbathed, swam in the ruins of Chersonese, walked around the city.

Sevastopol is an amazing city. There is something unusual about him. You really feel how the locals are proud of their city and love it. Such an unusual and very pleasant spirit. It must be felt to be understood.
That's where our only failure was found. I drove the car into a pit to change the front stabilizer bushings (they forgot to change them in Saratov). changed, well, climbed to see everything else at the same time. A fairly large amount of oil was found on the disk on the left. Half shaft seal. The reason is not so much in its wear, but most likely in skiing in the Caucasus. Dirt clogged in the breather and it was not working for me. Apparently that's why the oil was squeezed out. The breather has been cleaned. Oil no longer flowed to Moscow. But now it will still have to be disassembled and replaced)
The explorers of Sevastopol left a few days later at night in order to be at Customs by dinner. The devil pulled to go along the easiest way through Goptevka.
Near Simferopol we got into a terribly beautiful thunderstorm. The feeling is great when you ride alone on the track. Darkness. A strong wind is blowing, drops the size of a walnut are figuring with all their strength, water is already standing on the road, thunder is rattling, lightning is right above you. Plague) again felt like sleeping. But under Dzhanhot we still managed to take a nap. The road is really good. And the last piece 190 km to Kharkov is a dream. Autobahn We picked up a hitchhiker who was going to St. Petersburg. She entertained us with stories all the way to Kharkov)
Customs. Hell. You can shoot yourself ... There were a lot of people in the direction of the Russian Federation. In the Side of Ukraine, the queue was still from Lukoil (we saw it when we left).
I got to the inspection with passion (apparently the shovel on the roof gave reason to think that we were some kind of black diggers), with filling out declarations and other nonsense.
+ queue even before the point. In total, with all the cases, we left the border for the Russian Federation after almost 4 hours.
By the way. No "changes in design" interested anyone anywhere. Well I have gas is not documented. I don't give a damn about that. and others. Much more interested in the contents of the canister of gasoline. sniffed
About the radio station. As an experiment and fun for me, I left the antenna on the car, and removed the walkie-talkie and put it away. Not a tankette, but the whole thing, only the antenna connector stuck out of the panel and that's it. At the border, they didn’t ask a word about the walkie-talkie, although they saw and heard the antenna, since I touched it a couple of times on the ceiling lights.
Maybe they were lucky, but the presence of a walkie-talkie did not cause any real interest in them.
The only time at the entrance to Kharkov was stopped precisely on this issue (it is understandable, since he pulled out of the stream and immediately asked about the availability of documents for the radio station). Having received an answer that he took off the radio back in the Russian Federation, so as not to give money to the employees of the AIM in Ukraine, he was given a sad disappointed look and was released on his way).
We drove well in Russia. Calmly. Without incident, periodically looking at how our omentum is doing there) We visited the memorial near Kursk.
The traffic police did not stop us anywhere. We didn’t arouse interest in them)
Now, a brief conclusion chtoli)
The roads are good, you can drive calmly and almost everywhere.
Refueling is no problem. We have always refueled only at Lukoil, once at Shel, and once at Rosneft. So there is no problem with fuel. In Ukraine, there is simply an unrealistic number of TNK gas stations, but I don’t like them, so they didn’t refuel there.
There are no problems with DPS either, if you do not violate it very clearly. They just won’t dig like that, so you don’t have to strive for it. And if they do, they still need a reason) There are a lot of places with remote cameras along the highway in the Russian Federation. On the Black Sea, they simply put video cameras in our country, and they themselves sit behind the turns with laptops. so do not try to cross solid in any case. In Ukraine, there are many sellers of hair dryers on autostads, as well as a lot of them in the Kursk region. Be especially careful on all repaired sections of the road. Both speed and measure and compliance with signs prohibiting overtaking.
It is completely safe on the road, you can safely slow down and spend the night, the flow of cars is such that you still need to try to sleep))
Customs must be passed in the most sparsely populated places. But everything should be fine so that there is no reason to piss you off.
There are quite a few overpasses along the entire route, which you can safely call in, check the machine, turn the nuts, change the oil, etc.
With the NE station, you can ride calmly. No one cares. Although we may be lucky)
Well, something like this. If you have any questions, I can try to answer. Since everything is described in detail, it will be mazols on my fingers.
We liked it, we will go again. Next year there is a great desire to go to the Caucasus, but to the mountains, away from civilization. So we will look for co-religionists for this trip)))
I do not believe that you have read everything, but if you read it, thanks)