On 15 September Alison, Julie and I arrived in the famously pretty city of St Petersburg to meet with our On the Go tour group, led by the beautiful Nataliya (Russian women are generally gorgeous, although they seem to be stuck in the 80s in their fashion sense. The men are less fortunate, and favour mullets). With palaces and cathedrals designed by Dutch, Italian and French architects in the 1700s-1800s, the grey concrete blocks we had expected were a rarity - instead we saw hundreds of ornamental bridges and ornate facades in bright blues, yellows, pinks and gold (hence its nickname, "the Venice of the North"). Not a lot of money has been spent on preserving St Petersburg- giving rise to a general impression of faded glory, but with Putin being a Petersburger, more funds are
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