Esfahan (Iran): The car-borne expedition that planned to retrace the footsteps of Afanasy Nikitin, the legendary 15th century Russian traveller, all the way from Tver in Russia to Bidar in Karnataka, was called off at Tehran. The expedition set off from St. Petersburg on November 8 in three Mahindra Scorpio cars shipped from Mumbai. It was to travel over 10,000 km through Russia, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Iran in five weeks. That leg was to be followed by a shorter one within India, through Maharashtra and Karnataka where Nikitin had stayed during his three-year India sojourn.

The original plan was to conclude the foreign leg in Bander-e-Abbas, from where the cars were to be shipped to Mumbai while the expedition members would fly back from Shiraz in Iran. They were to resume their journey from Mumbai once the cars reached Mumbai. However, on reaching Astara town on the Iranian side of the Azerbaijan-Iran border, Phalguni Matilal, the leader of the expedition, announced: "I am calling off the expedition from Tehran because of financial reasons."

Financial constraints or not, the three expedition cars have to be driven to Bander-e-Abbas to be handed over to the shippers. This means the three drivers will have to continue the journey. The expedition leader decided to go with the cars, and he is taking the three-member film crew along since a part of the funds provided for the expedition is linked to completing the film on the Nikitin trail.

Thus, effectively, more than half the expedition members are travelling to Bander-e-Abbas by the same route and in the same cars, while the rest were left to make their own arrangements to reach India.

To compound problems, the return flight tickets of all the expedition members are booked from Shiraz to New Delhi. Since they are excursion fare tickets, no change of route or schedule is possible. Therefore, willy-nilly all the members, whether as part of the expedition or not, are travelling to Shiraz, on their own. The expedition was beset with problems and glitches from Day 1. The original plan was to complete it before the onset of winter, but for various reasons the start was delayed. By then the Russian winter had begun and most of the cities along the route, starting with St. Petersburg, were already under at least foot-deep snow. The cars did not have snow tyres, and this led to some close shaves on treacherous black ice on the roads. Ashok Dilwali, a photographer-member of the team, dropped out in Moscow.

After much deliberation and persuasion, the cars were equipped with rear snow tyres at Nizhny Novgorod. Until then, the pace was slow and it was often late at night that the team reached the day's destination. The fact that daylight would last only until 4 p.m. all through Russia made driving even more difficult and sightseeing virtually impossible. Besides, there were no road maps for Russian cities. Lack of accurate information on distances between cities, and inclement weather, conspired to make the journey a truly adventurous one. One saving grace was the presence of Prof. Hari Vasudevan, eminent Russian historian from Kolkata University, who enlivened the journey with a virtual running commentary on the historical significance of each Russian province and city the team drove through. His fluent Russian helped all the way.

The planning of the expedition, especially after crossing the Russian border, was extremely haphazard. Road distance estimates, often culled out from the Internet, proved unreliable. Thus, while a 350-km ride was planned from Tbilisi to Baku, the actual distance turned out to be 650 km. Besides, the planned travel duration had not taken into account the fact that a mountainous terrain was involved along the Greater Caucuses, with its snow blizzards and hairpin bends. Similarly, the travel schedule estimated a distance of 400 km from Baku to Tabriz in Iran, but it was actually close to 1,000 km. This necessitated an unscheduled stop at Astara on the border. Each border crossing invariably took more than three hours. Besides, since only three persons had been insured to drive the vehicles, the cars could not be driven by anyone else. This put strain on the three drivers.

The Nikitin expedition was conceived as a multi-dimensional enterprise that would not only strengthen cultural and people-to-people ties between India and the countries along the route, but investigate the prospects for north-south energy and trade corridors. In the context of forthcoming events such as the Year of India in Russia in 2007 and the Year of Russia in India in 2008, the expedition was seen as having enormous potential and promise. This was why it was facilitated by the Government of India, which fact in turn brought forth support from Indian embassies as well as local administrations along the route.

It is not clear whether the Indian leg of the expedition would take place or not. It is being pointed out that had the expedition been planned and executed better, the gains could have been immense.

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