After a 28-hour train journey from Moscow I arrived in Yekaterinburg, the fourth largest city in Russia, just past the border between Europe and Asia. The landscape along the route is dominated by hundreds of miles of trees, occasionally interrupted by villages that mainly consist of small wooden houses with corrugated iron roofs - most of them look like they hadn't been fixed up for the best part of a century though I saw some with satellite dishes attached whic...

Train from St P to Moscow at 2am. The carriage attendant (provodnitsa) was a scary lady wearing bright orange nail varnish and lipstick; she kept shouting at an Australian family even though they obviously couldn't understand what she was saying. From what I could gather she was just trying to find their cabin number... When we arrived in Moscow there were snowflakes in the air! I had a tour of the sights straight away but I'd had hardly any sleep and it was bit...

I have finally kicked off my adventures and arrived in St. Petersburg Between sorting out things in London, moving out of my flat and actually travelling here, I didn't sleep for about 36 hours before I arrived - I was shattered so I took it easy for the first evening and just strolled around to get my bearings. My hotel is near the main street in the city centre - Nevsky Prospekt. It stays light until late at night here - it's still bright at 10pm; apparently i...