From Russia With Love

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Hello to everyone back in England and welcome to all my new Russian friends who have now been added to my travelblog.

I really dont know where to start!!!!!

Where have we been? St Petersburg, Moscow, Ekaterinburg, Altai Region and currently in Novosibirsk.

What an amazing place the people are very friendly, the most dangerous Russia gets is when you try to cross the road as all the drivers are crazy and there dont appear to be any rules of the road.

What have we done?

Walked all over St Petersburg, the Hermiatage Museum (probably the best museum in the word if you are into art), cruised the rivers and canals, visted Peterhoff world famous for its golden coloured statues and something like 145 fountains in the palace gardens, also went inside St Isaccs Catherdral.

Moscow - Road the Metro, the Kremiln, the Kremiln museum, walked around Gorky Park and the Kremiln Gardens, Red Square and St Basils Cathedral

25 hour train joruney to Ekaterinburg (20/07/07).

Ekaterinburg was only opened to foreign visitors in 1990 we had a city walking tour which we had to cut short due to a massive thunderstorm and went on a moutain bike ride in a forrest about 40KM out of the city. I picked up about 25 mosquito bites on my back the little bu**ers had managed to bite through my shirt!!!! You really dont want to see the picture of my back. Its better now though!!!

27 hour train jorney to Barnaul a gateway to the beautiful Altai region (23/07/07)

Stayed in a local guest house in Chemal village and visited a famous local church and a park with a dam in it. Also visited a waterfall and went to see some ancient cliff paintings. Also took the opportunity to take a Banya (Sauna) very popular in Russia and very hot.

26th & 27th July spent whitewater rafting on a big river in the Altai region altogether we covered 87KM over the two days and all of our rafting team managed to survive.

We have met many local people from guides, to drivers, and lots of locals. They have all been very welcoming those that speak English have been brushing up on their language skills the guides speak very good English and some of the locals are very good with the language aswell. There are also lots of people who dont speak English so we have some very interesting conversations and our Russian is getting better every day.

Many Russians outside of St Petersburg and Moscow are not use to seeing/meeting English tourist but they all try to say hello once they work out where we are from.

There are 6 of us in our travel group and we are all getting on very well so we are having a great time.

Tonight we get on a train for about 35 hours to Ursk (look us up on Google Earth) and have some family stays lined up near Lake Bakail I think we have 1 week left in Russia before crossing the border into Mongolia. Bring it on.

For a further update visit www.mytb.org/the_dog (Daves travel blog)

Photos to follow as we on limited Internet time.

Bye for now.

:o)) XXX

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Comments

[Alex]

where in between
So how was Finland? Any pics? You lost the van now? Alex

[anastasia]

hello from russia
where is a photo from russia? i'm waiting)) hahahah.. i wish to see my country with your eyes.... i'm sorry for my english

[anastacia]

from russia
Kevin)) show the pics from my country.. i wish to see russia with your eyes... thank you

[Holiday Boy]

Russia Pictures
Anastacia I am afraid your going to have to wait a bit longer for the photos as I have only been to two internet cafes since we met and none of them allow me to add photos. The photos will be added when I return to England