We arrived in Irkutsk in the morning, met our honcho Costa and drove one and a half hours to Lake Baikal. We were staying in a wooden chalet overlooking the valley and the lake, the view was amazing from our balcony as everywhere was snowy and the lake was frozen. Everyone showered and then catherine and everyone went to a russian sauna which involved being slapped with pine branches and rolling around in the snow whilst drinking tea. We all chilled out in the ev...

Arrived in Moscow early in the morning on thursday to meet our very enthusiastic honcho who we weren't so enthusiastic to see as we all hadn't slept much the last couple of days and were very tried and just wanted to see our beds but knew we had a day of sight seeing ahead of us. We all checked into the hostel which was much nicer than the last and went off to explore a much warmer city. We visited the red square and within that saw lenins body which was a bit su...

Arrived saturday night 20.30 Russian time and met our transfer at the airport having already met a guy called Lewis at passport control who happened to be staying in the same hostel and on the same trip as us. Taxi driver told us a little about St.Petersburg and warned us that the weather would only get colder during our trip and it was already -21c. Checked into our basic but clean room and spent sunday exploring the city despite blizzard like conditions. Two mo...