My plan was simple — crawl inside the iron worm on rails, ride in its belly from Tel Aviv to the city of Beer Sheva, look around, spend the night there, and move further into the rocky wasteland. An awesome dude Nathan (aka Anton) drove me and my bike to the train station in his car. While we were hanging out there waiting for the train, he told me that you can determine a soldier's branch of service and other facts by their uniform and hat.
Since we are on the subject of the armed forces, I should explain that from the very beginning of the independent state of Israel (since 1946), the army has played a huge role in it. Highly predictable, considering the hostile Arab/Islamic regimes all around. All Jews serve by conscription, except for the Orthodox; the latter, just like people of other nationalities, can volunteer to serve. There is one exception — Israeli Arabs (of whom there are quite a few in the country, about 20%). Men serve for three years, women for two, sometimes even more — if the army paid for your civilian specialty training, for example.
Soldiers are everywhere in Israel. On the one hand, the IDF, that is, the Israel Defense Forces, enjoys great approval and respect — it won five wars during the twentieth century, and the entire population goes through it, growing up sharply in the process, as Nir, my host in Beer Sheva, explained to me. On the other hand, the army devours enormous resources, self-sustaining and self-expanding to the max, like any other bureaucratic structure. It conducts mass propaganda in schools, organizes demonstration drills so that the little schoolkids can get an early taste of the charms of harsh army life (which in Israel isn't actually all that harsh, by the way).
Anywhere in Israel, and especially in the Negev desert, the white contrails of fighter jets constantly streak overhead, and all of this is accompanied by significant noise effects — they keep watch day and night, showing that they aren't wasting taxpayers' money for nothing. Nowadays, by the way, this is only 7% of GDP, which, although not a little, is less than it once was. For comparison, in the US this figure is 5%, in Russia — 4.4%, in Latvia 1%. The army is very well equipped and everything is fine with the money there, so whenever possible, the servicemen don't miss a chance to lighten its warehouses by a couple of boxes of trinkets: for instance, when I asked a buddy for a battery charger, he opened a whole drawer of industrial "Energizers" borrowed on duty and told me to take some, don't be shy.
The Israeli armed forces fight hazing thoroughly, but the suicide rate is still pretty high, much higher than in the US and Russia relative to the size of the army.
At the station I bought a ticket for $9 (about 100 km), shoved it into the turnstile, and shuffled through the disabled gates. On the platform there are electronic scoreboards all around, railway workers in civilian clothes walked me to the spot where the right car stops. You can see in the photo that I'm not alone in my cycling inclinations, but the majority in the country prefer e-bikes, and you can observe exactly that kind in the picture.
The train arrived two minutes earlier than promised, but this didn't alarm me — the locals had told me about the unpunctuality of the local means of mass transportation. As it turned out, I should have been alarmed — rolling into the cabin, I clocked that this train was heading to Ashkelon, and not to Beer Sheva at all. A random fellow traveler not only confirmed my fears, but also offered a solution — bail out of the car at the nearest station to catch the right train in two minutes. I pulled this off, and for the next hour, while getting there, I chatted with another talkative Jew, a spry and lean older guy, who was going to Beer Sheva to visit his granddaughters.
Here's what the local locomotive looks like, wide and double-decker
He complained to me that despite Israel's massive ties with the US, the inhabitants of these parts still need a visa to the Jewnited States of America . Mystifying, considering that it was precisely thanks to the enormous sums that American donors transferred and continue to transfer, and similar credit from the US, that the Jewish state took place.
Local inhabitants are very sociable, and the guy in the photo walked up, lifted my bike (without asking), to check the weight. There's no point getting offended or panicking over such a thing, just a national character trait.
At the station exit Nir met me, and walked me to his dorm, which is located opposite the second largest hospital in Israel with the funny name "Soroka" (Magpie). Military helicopters periodically fly up to it — bringing in the wounded. Near the hospital, a classic-style Hasidic Jew in a hat and sidelocks asked me for directions, but, apparently, such characters don't bother themselves with the knowledge of English, so he received no answer.
Several of my hosts spoke quite unflatteringly about the religious fundamentalists: say, they don't serve in the army, they don't want to or can't work almost anywhere, and therefore get welfare at the state's expense, they're always unhappy with newcomers and secular Jews, their kids might even throw stones if you're dressed wrong, or if you use, for example, electricity on Shabbat.
Nir (on the right) and Shaya (on the left)
Beer Sheva is home to a huge and prestigious university, which became such only in the 90s. One of my next hosts, Vartan, explained that the uni became such largely thanks to an abundance of immigrants from the USSR with excellent technical education, to whom the state offered all sorts of benefits if they wanted to move to Beer Sheva. This was all part of the plan to populate and further develop the Negev, a course charted by the country's first prime minister Ben-Gurion himself, who later also moved to the "Sde Boker" kibbutz, which I will still get to in my wanderings.
Thanks to the university, the city has expanded, and a nightlife has emerged, which Nir showed me a bit of. Right next to the dorm are several university buildings, as well as cafes and bars. Right on the lawn between the dorm (the first floor of which is overrun with shops and offices) and the city's main highway, students and anyone else who wants to hang out, chat, play musical instruments, and also learn acrobatics gather several times a week. The latter pleasantly surprised me: it's not often you see such a curious hobby, and on top of that, everyone is invited to participate.
Meanwhile, while Nir was busy at the uni, I grabbed my bike and rode around the night city a bit. Stopped by Andartat Hativat HaNegev, that is, the memorial to the brigade that fell defending the first settlements in the Negev.
At the memorial, another sign of high-tech: press a button, listen to the story
The city is full of fountains, they sparkle and shine like a rainbow
Colors changing, sweet
Made it to the institution where I truly belong
While I was riding, I got a flat tire, and sat there stupidly patching it on the side of the road. As it turned out, I didn't have enough patches, and the glue was running low. Joggers and dog walkers drifted lazily by, periodically inquiring whether I needed any help. There are still many adventures ahead, but one conclusion can already be drawn. Despite the stereotypes, when it comes to non-commercial relations, the people here are kind, responsive and generous, you certainly won't be left in trouble alone here: there will always be someone curious and willing to help.