It's been for a while since we sent last newsletter in July 2022. Sorry for such long pause, we were really busy running tours in Russia and some neighboring countries under constantly changing external conditions. Like a captain in a storm, I was busy navigating our team through turbulent times and had no time for newsletters.

It's been for a while since we sent last newsletter in July 2022. Sorry for such long pause, we were really busy running tours in Russia and some neighboring countries under constantly changing external conditions. Like a captain in a storm, I was busy navigating our team through turbulent times and had no time for newsletters.

But in October we closed the season with last tours to Morocco and Georgia, and now it's time to serve bikes, have some rest, make plans for upcoming 2023 season and resume our monthly newsletters. Winter is coming, but next season is near as well, first tours start just in 4 months.

Today I will briefly tell you about results of this year and what we think about future.

2022 Results

I guess many of you are interested how is it life in Russia. In general, all is good. Despite unprecedent sanctions and pressure on economy life goes on. Some companies left Russia, others came to the market and replaced them. Prices for fuel are the same, food, cars, spare parts – all is available and costs approx. like before sanctions were imposed.

I won't say nothing changed, there are definitely negative trends, for example we don't have international customers and personally we suffer from current situation, but Russia has resource-based economy and for oil/gas/metal companies that generate 70% of GDP everything is good.

As always when different conflicts happen small businesses and common people suffer while majors are earning record profits. There was an article few days ago that Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP and other oil companies' profits soared to $174bn this year. Sad we are not in the oil and gas business…)))

Despite all difficulties we were able to continue operations, doing like in covid times tours with mostly local customers. During covid times we travelled a lot in Russia, this year we focused more on tours to neighboring counties, to Georgia, Turkey, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, etc. Its more complicated in terms of logistics, takes more time and energy, but we successfully arranged all new tours.

In the coming months we will sort out thousands of photos and video we and our customers did during these tours and we will send you photo reports in next newsletters, so that you can see how it was. At Facebook, Instagram and YouTube there are already some reports available.

We really hoped conflict in Ukraine will end in spring, then prayed peaceful solution to be found in summer. But it seems our positive thinking doesn't work and situation, unfortunately, gets even more fierce. We don't know when it will end, may be in two months, may be in two years.

After several meetings with our team, we think best plan for next year is to focus on international tours, that take place out of Russia. At least for some time. Because most of you won't travel to Russia now.

We have two main start/finish locations for next year and plenty of new international tours, that we want to offer you.

Our first international location is Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan. We will bring our bikes here. From Bishkek we will run tours along the Pamir Highway (20 days and partially off-road tour, high difficulty), Kyrgyzstan (11 days, medium, mostly paved) and Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan (18 days, medium, paved) tours.

As of now we see that Pamir Tour (Kyrgyzstan – Uzbekistan – Tajikistan) is most demanded. We agree it has most exciting views and landscapes, fantastic mountains with passes at 4000 meters and more, but same time there are ~1000 gravel roads and high attitude. So please evaluate your strength and be sure you have good health to cross high mountain passes.

Our second international location for next year – Tbilisi, capital of Georgia. From here we will do tours around Georgia (12 days, paved), very beautiful country, to Turkey (14 days, paved), Armenia (10 days, paved), Turkey-Georgia-Armenia grand 18 days tour (paved). We will bring our bikes to Tbilisi as well, so that you can fly there and start your adventure without entering Russia.

Comparing to Central Asia, tours from Tbilisi are all paved, more saturated with museum, excursions, have higher level of hotels and services. In Central Asia, comparing to Georgia/Turkey, everything is less touristic and more real, sincere, open, more wild nature and less civilization. We can't say if its good or bad, you decide what you prefer, we just provide you with this information.

In 2023 we will continue running tours in Russia, like we did in the past. We don't know when conflict with Ukraine will end, we hope soon, but when it happens you are welcome to visit us. In general borders are open and technical you can come now, but external factors are not favorable so we have no illusions and wait for you when it's all over.

And we will wait for you as long, as required.

In the coming months we will sort photos from past tours and write more newsletters. We will send you more details about our new international tours, for example Pamir Highway, Morocco, Turkey, Georgia, etc. Meanwhile you can see our international tours/destinations here - https://www.rusmototravel.com/international. All tours except Bishkek - Vladikavkaz take place out of Russia.

Our calendar is available here - https://www.rusmototravel.com/calendar. We temporary removed most tours in Russia from it, to make it easier to read and understand. With Russian tours there were too many options each month…))

That's it for today. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Take care and hope to hear from you soon.