October 02, 2004
End of a Disastrous Experiment
I want to emphatically state (and I think Bob would concur) that I have nothing but admiration for this proud and resilient people who have survived 70 years of...Read this update
Lingering Images of Russia
Siberian countryside with endless kilometers of grassland and golden pine and white birch trees... small wooden, weathered, unpainted, picturesque, single story bungalows throughout Sibera with blue painted shutters-the banya...Read this update
October 01, 2004
Grueling Border Wait
The wait at the Russian-Mongolian border is a grueling 5-6 hour wait for customs to go through each carriage and take our passports, return to the office to fill out...Read this update
September 30, 2004
The Tajik and Olga
The Tajik and Olga In Irkutsk, when we find our seats on the train to Ulaan Baatar, we find a good-looking 40 year old Muslim man from Tajikistan in...Read this update
September 29, 2004
Queuing In Russia
Back in Irkutsk we watch women walking swiftly always carrying a plastic shopping sack or two (ovoiska from the Russian 'ovois' meaning 'just in case') of varying brands that...Read this update
Bob Goes On A Hike
Back at Nikita's "resort" I spend half a day taking care of monkey business while Bob goes hiking around the island. It is the end of September but Siberia...Read this update
September 26, 2004
Hanging Out Feels Great
After hanging out a couple days...glad to be off the train...Gregory, a former University teacher of German, drove Bob and I, three Germans and a Pole on a half-day...Read this update
September 25, 2004
Five Hours to Olkhon Island
The next morning we are picked up at our homestay in Irkutsk by a sullen driver who drives us five hours over pot-holes, through the taiga and across a...Read this update
September 24, 2004
Irkutsk..."Paris of the East"
Off the train again, we dump our luggage at Nadia's, our homestay and look for a cafe where there just might be an English menu. We find one...not too...Read this update
September 22, 2004
Goodbye to Vladamir
Vladamir makes crying motions with his fingers running down his cheeks as we prepare to leave him on the train. Astrakhan in 2--5 he writes on a piece of paper...Astrakhan...Read this update
To Irkutsk With Vladamir
The evening we are to leave Yekaterinburg on the train, Bob loses his change purse containing a credit card getting out of a mini-bus. Olga's son drives us in...Read this update
September 20, 2004
Hot Train Carriages
Most carriages are of East German origin solidly built and warm in winter. Each carriage is staffed by an attendant whose "den" is a compartment at the end of...Read this update
September 19, 2004
Europe-Asia Dividing Line
Yekaterinburg is most famous, however, as the place where Tsar Nicholas II and his wife and five children were murdered by the Bolsheviks in July 1918. Having seen where...Read this update
Falling Out of Bed in Yekaterinburg
This autumn of 2004, our second time around the world, our train wanders through a rolling fairy-tale landscape in Siberia filled with gentle grassland (steppes) and Birch trees (the...Read this update
September 18, 2004
To Siberia & Lake Baikal
We boarded our a Moscow train at midnight. We are headed across Russia on the trans-siberian train system. However we will be breaking up the trip by getting off...Read this update
Free-Wheeling Moscow
2004-09-2004 Like in the big Central European cities we visited, there are cranes everywhere... old soviet buildings built during the Stalin era are scheduled to be razed and new...Read this update
In The Metro Never To Return
Our homestay in Moscow is in the "burbs." Tanya works for a French men's underwear company and later admits that her son is the wholesaler and she works for...Read this update
September 17, 2004
Red Square Moscow
Local police don't allow anyone in Red Square until 10 in the morning so when Bob got there the Square was jaw-dropping empty...the Kremlin and Lenin's Tomb on one...Read this update
September 10, 2004
Forest Mushrooms and Vodka
The night before we leave St. Petersburg, Elena and her childhood friend, Dula, breathlessly excited, bring home bags and boxes of forest mushrooms. Bob and I haven't eaten and...Read this update
September 08, 2004
A Day With Sasha
I had watched "Russian Ark," a movie about the history of the Hermitage before I left home so I was excited when we found Sasha, a university educated art...Read this update
September 07, 2004
On The Street In St Petersburg
We hail down a minibus, just like we did in Viet Nam, which takes us across the Neva River to Nevsky pr (like Rodeo Drive in LA which has...Read this update
September 06, 2004
Beslan...Russia's 9/11
St. Petersburg, Russia September 6, 2004: We had been monitoring the hostage crisis in Beslan, North Ossetia, all through Europe...but was one day late to witness a demonstration in...Read this update
St. Petersburg Homestay
A Homestay has been arranged for us by our tour company, White Knights, with Elena who lives in (and owns) a 3 room very cluttered flat four flights up...Read this update