The truck roars into the small town of Dmitrievna. In front of almost every house that lines the highway, someone is sitting outside with goods to sell: Home- grown vegetables, mushrooms that were gathered before the sun rose, and fresh cow's milk, poured into empty plastic Pepsi bottles. Old women dressed in colorful scarves and wool leggings sit passively by buckets of bright-red tomatoes, waiting and watching as motorists speed by.

Farther along, the road gets rougher. The potholes in the road become bigger, deeper and more frequent, and for long stretches there is no pavement at all. Zhenya maneuvers the truck around holes and piles of dirt, veering into the oncoming lane when traffic allows. "They make the roads this way on purpose," he says, grinning. "Keeps the drivers awake."

As the sun begins to set, Zhenya pulls over to a tiny trailer with the words "Dream Cafe" painted on the front. Inside are three small tables, a miniscule kitchen, and a counter where a woman waits to take orders. The menu is standard Russian fare: Borscht, solyanka, pelmenny, cucumber salad, bread, tea. Zhenya orders, pays in advance, and receives two boxes of matches in return: there are no small bills behind the counter at the moment, so he receives his change in kind.

Zhenya gulps down a bowl of borscht, scowling disapprovingly at the taste. Walking back to the truck, he wipes his mouth and spits. "If my wife cooked like that, I'd throw her out of the house," he says.