It took almost a year to work out a 5,000 km-long route and to come to terms with Russian consulates, police and youth organisations in the United States. The travelers are busy exercising, brushing up on US geography and learning English.
Invitations have already been received from the American Indians' representative Dennis Banks, the Navaho people's shaman and schools in Gallap and Batesland. More than a dozen of the American mass media are to cover the tour which is expected to become a subject of a documentary.
According to Kochetkov, this journey is part of his Mir (World) project. launched in 1997. The teacher has already ventured one-man bike tours about Europe, China, the USA and Australia and taken a team of cycling schoolchildren about the Ulyanovsk region, St.Petersburg, the Golden Ring ancient Russian towns and the Volga source grounds. In all, about 130 school students have shared Vladimir Kochetkov's longtime bike travels over the past several years, exploring local lore and carrying out ecological research.
The coming US tour is a preface to a crusade around the world. "All the previous bikes were just a preparation," said Kochetkov.
"What matters above all is not thousands of kilometres we are to cover and the lakes and national parks of North America we are to see but the prospects of communication and people's diplomacy. I trust in children's enormous capacities," said the teacher.
