Amazing Race 14
Episode Five:
She’s a Little Scared of Stick, but I Think She’ll be OK!
Previously, eight teams raced from Bran, Romania…multiple routes to Moscow…single route with two flights to Siberia…stacking wood…lost shutters…Anonymous U-Turn…trouble with Chekhov…and unfortunately, the elimination of the (nice) Dating Couple.
As he usually does, Phil gives us a brief description of the pit stop location, in this case in the city of Krasnoyarsk in Russia (Siberia), telling us that the city is a long isolated, but nevertheless important industrial center.
It looks like this is another mandatory rest period of indeterminate duration. Phil tells us that the first team to arrive, the Flight Attendants—Christie and Jodi—will leave at 12:34 PM. With a twelve hour pit stop, that would mean that they arrived at 12:34 AM, which again, doesn’t seem to fit with the daylight conditions when the first team ran into the theatre.
We also see that the Sisters, Kisha and Jen leave two minutes later at 12:36 PM. With the new format, these are the only two teams that Phil gives us their departure times, and we have no idea how much money each team got for this leg of the Race.
Route Info: Novosibirsk, Russia
As Christie and Jodi leave the pit stop Phil tells us the teams must now travel 400 Phil miles across the frozen Siberian tundra via the Trans Siberian Railway to the city of Novosibirsk. Once there they must find the ПУНКТ ТЕХНИЧЕСКОГО ОСМОТРА АТС (Punkt Tehnicheskogo Osmotra), where they will find their next clue.
Teams make their way on foot to the Central Railway Station in Krasnoyarsk, where they learn that the next train is at 10:26 PM. So this is a serious bottleneck as all the teams will make it to the station with plenty of time, which is likely why they didn’t give us the departure times of the remaining teams (even though my paranoia tells me it was to make sure I had incomplete data on this edition of the race).
The Trans Siberian Train Web site has a good description of the full route of the train from Moscow to Vladivostok. Based on the list of cities along the route it does not appear that there are any stops of significance between Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk.
Using the Moscow to Krasnoyarsk schedule (this train leaves Moscow every other day), a train appears to leave Krasnoyarsk to return to Moscow at 6:35 PM (I would assume this is also on an every other day schedule). It arrives at Novosibirsk at 6:36 the next morning, taking approximately 12:00 to travel approximately 475 miles.
This map shows the approximate route of the train between these two Siberian cities.
View Larger Map
Novosibirsk means ‘New Siberian’ and this article provides a good description. The Wikipedia article on the city is here.
The teams don’t seem to have trouble getting to the site of the first clue, which for the purposes of the Race, functions as a parking lot.
Detour: Russian Bride or Russian Snowplow
In ‘Russian Bride’, teams choose a car (all the cars are Lada 2105) with a manual transmission, find a large Soviet-era apartment complex, and search for one of the waiting brides. Then they must drive her across town to a specified church, where her groom is waiting. After having their picture taken with the bride and groom, the groom will hand over their next clue. There is some information on Russian Wedding Ceremonies here.
In ‘Russian Snow Plow’, teams also choose a car, drive across town to stadium Spartak, a sports stadium where they must each take a turn driving a snow plow through the course. There is a (tiny) picture of the snow plow at the Novosibirsk Web Site.
Frankly ‘Russian Brides’ has too many steps, and yet teams choose it. And I suppose I have to say again, based on the title of the episode, people, if you get accepted on the Race, go out and learn to drive a manual transmission.
So just a note about the lack of links here, the maps of Russia just aren’t that detailed that I can locate a lot of structures, and doing a search on terms like ‘Russian Brides’ is not the wisest thing to do. I looked for a long time for the church, but could not find it, but it is interesting that they did not use Saint Nicholas church, which is a common location that newly weds go to get photographed as it is the geographical center of Russia. The Flight Attendants were actually directed to this church by a person they asked for directions, so it may be that with the language difficulties he thought this would be the church, so he really was trying to help and not misdirect them.
Route Info: Biblioteka
Once the detour has been completed, teams have to drive to the largest library in Siberia, the ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЯ ИУБЛИЧНАЯ НАУЧНО ТЕХНИЧЕСКАЯ (or Gosudarstvennaya Publichnaya Nauchnaya Tekhnicheskaya Biblioteka).
Again, you would think this would be easy to find on Google Maps, but that is not the case.
RoadBlock: Who Has Stamina, And Absolutely No Shame!
In this road block, one person must participate in a local marathon the way that only the bravest locals do—in their underwear. The team member has to warm up for ten minutes, then strip to their underwear, and with two local runners, run about 1.4 miles to the ЛИКОВАЯ ДАМА or Novosibirsk Opera Theatre.
This theatre, the largest in all of Russia, is the pit stop for this leg of the Race.
At last, the Opera house shows up on Google maps, and then working out 1.4 miles from there you can find the Biblioteka. The location is confirmed on Google Maps, using the Cyrillic name.
View Larger Map
So again, some tips to Racers. You know that the Race always go somewhere cold, so why not a pair of thermal underwear (it isn't that bulky to pack). Oh and gloves so you don’t have to wear socks on your hands to keep them warm. And I really didn’t need to know that at least one team member on the Race had to borrow underwear to complete this task.
The temperature when they were running (based on a thermometer on the side of a building) was -4o C or 24.8 real degrees.
So the Margie and Luke (Mother and Son) are first, and win a trip to to Saint Lucia. Tammy and Victor (the Lawyers) are team number two. Jaime and Cara (the Cheerleaders) are team number three, Mel and Mike (Father and Son) are team number four. As they enter the theatre, the Stuntmen miss Phil, although he seems to snap his fingers in an attempt to get their attention. They finally notice him making Mark and Michael team number five. Kisha and Jen (the Sisters) are team number six.
And the quote I would have chosen as the title for this leg would have been:
“My dad’s gonna die…”
[when he sees his daughter Christie running in her thong underwear in a Russian city (even if CBS did pixelate her butt)]. In any event, Christie and Jodi (the Flight Attendants) manage to go from first to last, but as this is the first non-elimination pit stop, they will start last for the next leg, and have to complete a speed bump.
Next Week: India Bound…
…with the typical reaction to the difference in culture, population, and economic conditions.