Russian mechanics at work

We show up at the store, and we find out the stator had been fixed meanwhile by the old guy with a new coil. The guys there are pretty proud of Russian mechanic skills, and would like to see it running. We measure the resistance of the coil and it reads ok, so we decide to give it a try. We mount it and lo and behold, it ran! It starts pretty badly, worse than before, but it starts. We figure it might bring us to Mongolia and have the new part shipped there instead. So after much cheering and kudos to the electrician who fixed the bike, we start to pack up and load the bikes. I keep it running idle as it is so hard to start (Anders manages it much better than me), and just when I'm about to put on my helmet and wave good-bye the engine suddenly dies (sounds familiar?). Kick-starting it makes a pretty bad rattling, so we figure there's something broken in there.

So we're back to square one: take off the clothes, unload the bike, take out the engine cover and... the coil just went lose in the engine. No wonder the engine won't run! We show this to the guy who fixed it; he nods and wants to redo it. We try to explain him that it's not worth it and we'll just wait for a new part. But we can see that he's not content with this failure and he just wants to do it again, better.

Back in town we meet Gino that we had already met in Listvianka, together with Suzi & Herve, on motorbike as well, and 2 German guys in a camper. We all go to that chinese restaurant where I manage to order something in Russian (which means basically a suprise menu for everybody).