long red lines across a map

  I think we were all well ready to leave Yekaterinburg.  Myself because the kitchen incident was still a thing of embarrassment, Rdoc because the keyboard monument was a moment that could never be topped, and Arnika because she is a restless soul who has to keep moving.  As this was to be the longest single train leg it was a nice feeling to be embarking with a pack full of freshly laundered clothes.  With free breakfast, free wifi, free washing machines, a good selection of movies in Russian the Europe Asia Hostel really was a big improvement on the previous assortment of hotels and monasteries.  Except in one key area; snoring.  Both nights spent there have had the same occurrence of two big Russian guys coming into the room about 4am promptly collapsing [read on]

 It has felt like a long time coming but after nearly four weeks of baby steps the trans-Siberia starts now.  Technically only starting in Moscow the traditional route goes down through Nizhny Novgorod across through Perm and the Ural mountains to our current destination of Yekaterinburg and then further on out to Vladivostock.  Because of the false start out of Moscow that was the Golden Ring and then getting sidetracked to Kazan this fourteen hour overnight leg felt like the real beginning of the journey east.  Not least because Yekaterinburg is a further time zone away from Moscow.  The fourth out of eight on  the trip.  This leg also marks the point, in the form of a handy white pillar, where Europe becomes Asia and we reach the verges of Siberia.

Europe on one side, Asia the other.

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 I had quite mixed feelings about leaving St Petersburg having found that nearly everything about the city exceeded my expectations and also found an atmosphere and scene in the city that I would really love to immerse myself in.  But ... [Continue reading this entry]

Welcome to Russia and awesome newspaper headlines. The title of this entry was just below the fold on the free English paper that you find around town. Others beauties include Police Bust Estonian Vodka Pipeline Gang, an article ... [Continue reading this entry]

Less than an hour in Russia proper and I have already been fined by a very severe looking railway official.  The crime was taking a photo of an, on reflection kind of average, wall mosaic of Lenin.  The site Finland ... [Continue reading this entry]