From the west, we travelled along the Volga via Sviyazhsk to Kazan, from where the Volga branches off to the south... We, that's Oleg and me - Oleg, who welcomed me in Murmansk last year, with reunions in Solovky and Belomorsk, and was now ready to accompany me from St. Petersburg to here as a pilot. What luck to have such an experienced traveller on board to explore the world around the Great Lakes and the northern Volga. Now he will be leaving me and the ArgoFram, returning to Moscow before setting off again for the White Sea. Oleg, once a physicist, now a freelance travel journalist, has become a true friend. We have travelled several thousand kilometres together, explored towns and villages, visited markets and restaurants, met up with his friends, who soon became mine, and literally talked about God and the world. You don't meet someone like Oleg every day! - I bow my head and say thank you.

Oleg leaves, Lena arrives, and we continue south along the Volga, without a plan, until we stop at a marina that stretches out into the Volga and is flooded by it - we are in Ulyanovsk. The city itself lies high above the Volga; between the marina and the high plateau is a beautifully landscaped park, which we stroll up. I don't need to say anything more about Lena: we've known each other since 1989, when we met at a desert camp in Gobi (Mongolia) and have visited each other again and again over the years, her family in Switzerland and me and my family in Siberia. Lena gave me fantastic support for this project of circumnavigating Europe in a RIB, obtained a Russian boat licence and accompanied me as a pilot from Murmansk to St. Petersburg last year. Isn't that fantastic? Lena loves travelling at least as much as I do, and after stopping here unexpectedly, she seems delighted to be in this historic place - Ulyanovsk is the birthplace of the revolutionary 'Lenin', who turned the world upside down around a hundred years ago. Although we view the figure of 'Lenin' differently, or perhaps precisely because of this, we found the perfect opportunity here to discuss the development of the past century and to visualise the evidence and traces that led him also to Switzerland from this place (which was renamed after his family name Uljanow). - Lena is visibly proud of her country's achievements since the revolution, and with her enthusiasm she always succeeds in opening the hearts of the people on our way and allowing me to gain an insight into the souls of her compatriots. Because she reaches out to people, she is also skilled at spontaneously organising the impossible... That promises to be fun... And I am already looking forward to our journey together to Sochi in the Black Sea.

The arrival to the megacity of Samara is incredible and impressive: the Volga stretches for kilometres along one side of the city, enthroned high above with its skyline - again, there is a lot to see... We quickly left the marina near Samara (lots of industry next door and unpleasantly loud). Now we are a little out of the way, but in an idyllic marina on a branch of the Samara River, which flows into the Volga here. Jenny (whose real name is Evgeniya) and Albert are successful entrepreneurs from St. Petersburg and are moored on the same jetty with their fine yacht. Their destination is the Caspian Sea - another unusual journey with many unknowns! It turns out that we set off from St. Petersburg at the same time, because Jenny and Albert have seen the ArgoFram from time to time along the way, for the first time at Koshkina on Lake Ladoga... Their company produces and sells pretty lingerie for women, perfectly tailored to the usual masses of Russian ladies; Jenny designs the annual collection and Albert acts as managing director. Jenny has also designed the interior of their new yacht, uncompromisingly practical and beautiful at the same time, Albert is allowed to pilot it... Joking aside - they are a good team who are now enjoying some time out and fulfilling a lifelong dream just the two of them.

The entrance to the marina in Syzran is 'tricky': sandbanks that have been shifted or accumulated by the Volga over the winter and are neither marked on a map nor reliably marked by buoys - but fortunately the ArgoFram has an echo sounder system, and there are some local fishermen who take their boats out into the Volga and whose driving behaviour we can observe, which finally allows us to find our way into the harbour. From there, we had to walk for another half an hour or so (Syzran and its industrial facilities are protected by an extensive dam system, which indicates that the Volga can rise considerably and flood large areas...) until we finally arrived in the town centre. But what am I saying, town centre..., Sysran is a town the size of Basel - but where are the inhabitants? The town centre looks rather rural and sleepy; a main road, a few shops and restaurants, all the houses mostly two-storey, I would have estimated a maximum of 30,000 inhabitants. But then again, a town covers a huge area here, so even without a skyline or conurbation, such a population can be achieved. Shortly before we set off into the 'city', we discovered a small container settlement less than 50 metres from the ArgoFram, where we also found Irina, Alla and Oleg, who had already retreated here this Friday afternoon to ring in their weekend. They own small cabins, which they have nicely decorated, and form their own self-contained little world here in this harbour area. When we return to the harbour from our tour of the town, we are promptly invited to a second dinner and a hearty drink! - The barbecue is fired up, glasses are brought out, and there it is again, this spontaneous welcoming culture, this (from a Swiss point of view) blunt permission to enter the private area, which becomes - with the extra bit of alcohol on offer - much more open and accessible than we Swiss could ever dream of .

We actually wanted to go to Saratov, a 600-year-old city with a population of over 800,000 that lies high above the Volga. But its marina is located on the opposite bank of the Volga to the east, lower down, near the twin city of Engels (named after the German social theorist and communist revolutionary Friedrich Engels). Together, these two cities form an economic and political heavyweight along the Volga with around 1.2 million inhabitants, connected by a huge, almost three kilometre long, steeply sloping bridge. The marina in Engels is part of a leisure centre with private beaches, hotels, restaurants, bars and BBQ party areas and open-air discos that can be hired for festivities, somewhat wild and frivolous - it's summer and the inhibitions (and also the covers) seem to be coming off, at least this weekend! Numerous parties, lightly dressed ladies and more or less hard-drinking gentlemen celebrate the warm days and evenings at the top of their voices. Igor and Murat are the harbour masters in the public area of the resort - good-natured guys who are delighted with our visit and offer us all the help they can. Sergei and both Ivan work on an impressive yacht moored next to the ArgoFram. This yacht apparently belongs to a well-known entrepreneur (manufacturer of tinned meat); Lena and I are allowed to take a shower in this yacht and, to our great surprise, we are presented with delicious tinned meat (in a jar), which the entrepreneur and owner of the yacht had his men present to us! - We form a cheerful community enjoying the emerging summer on the outermost part of this yacht facility.

Kamyshin is a provincial town divided into two districts with just over 100,000 inhabitants and is located on the Kamyshinka river on the western bank of the Volga. One part of the city lies to the north, the other to the south of the river mouth, which are connected by a bridge. We drive from the Volga under the bridge to the mouth of the Kamyshinka, where we moor at a small marina, the only boat there... It's actually more of a leisure centre for parties, who rent a few bungalows here and celebrate a private party with BBQ and music (although it's an insignificant Monday this evening). Kamyshin is a mixture of provincial backwardness with a fashionable waterfront promenade in the southern part along the Volga, unfortunately on the western 'evening side', so soon shady. In the bay itself there are simpler beach facilities, here with evening sun, where the children (have the summer holidays just started?) have fun. Walks through Kamyshin give me the opportunity to observe the people: some are strolling, others are very busy, young and old, dressed in rural clothes or in a somewhat over-the-top outfit - a wide range of lifestyles that I encounter here. Constantin is one of the groundsmen who looks after the place and is very accommodating. The groundsmen share this job: Constantin works here one day (24 hours), then he has three days off - days off on which he takes on other jobs, depending on the situation... We can hardly imagine this division of labour here; many people have to piece together jobs to make ends meet. The labour market seems to be very fragmented and not very regulated. I see it as free, others probably see it as difficult, capitalistic, depending on what qualifications you have and how you want to organise your life. But in general, productivity (and therefore pay) and loyalty is rather low, with a lot of discretionary and organisational freedom for the individual.