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 bitterly cold so I wasn't particularly enjoying it. Plus, the key attractions - the Kremlin and Red Square - were shut for the new president's inauguration. They were also shut the next day for no apparent reason and the following day for Victory Day so I had to see them in the space of an hour in the morning before my onward train (of which, half an hour was spent queuing for a ticket).

I was passing the road into Red Square as people were going in for the presidential handover - there were hundreds of police cars and flashy vehicles with tinted windows carrying foreign ambassadors and the like.

Victory Day on 9 May, commemorating the end of World War 2 (known in Russia as The Great Patriotic War), involves huge celebrations. I watched the parades through Red Square on TV (ordinary folk couldn't get close). A lot of fuss was made in the media about military hardware being included in the celebrations for the first time in the post-Soviet era - in addition to the soldiers on parade, there were various tanks, missiles and aircraft passing through Red Square. At night there were fireworks shows, though I couldn't see much from my hotel, which was quite a bit out of the centre of town (in a dodgy neighbourhood, so I couldn't really stay out after dark ).

Other interesting places I visited were the Novodevichy convent (very peaceful and quiet - a pleasant break from the hustle bustle of the city centre), Novodevichy cemetry (an unlikely tourist attraction, there are lots of famous Russians buried there - though I couldn't find any names I recognised - and they all have very large, elaborate headstones, usually sculptures of the person buried there) and the Sculpture Park (a bunch of soviet monuments/statues that were torn down from their original locations plus some more attractive modern sculptures).

The Bolshoi Theatre is shut and covered in scaffolding for renovations. I tried to buy tickets for a ballet at another theatre but it was sold out. So I went to the rather less cultural Nikulin Circus, where I saw some weird and wonderful acrobatics - and some that were downright freaky - as well as a chicken that could ballet dance and a poodle that could do back-flips! It was an enjoyable show, though it did make me question where the line should be drawn between entertainment and exploitation of animals…

My friend Ken who lives in Moscow is away on holiday but he put me in touch with a friend of his, Masha, who was having a barbeque at her house in a place named Klyezma just outside Moscow. Masha's friend, Etienne (a French guy who's working as a lawyer in Moscow), drove us there along with another English girl he knows named Laura (who is working here as a chef). Masha was born and brought up in England but her mother is Russian and this house has been in her family for generations - it is off the beaten track, with no telephone or running water, though she has many neighbours in the surrounding area. It was a lovely relaxed afternoon, sitting out in the garden and enjoying some great food.