We are staying in Russia with a lovely Russian family in a typical old style Russian block of flats. Kemerovo is evolving quickly and the older buildings are being replaced with attractively designed colourful modern buildings. The very old blocks are called Lenininsky flats because they come from the time of Lenin. Our flat, which is on the first floor, is large with two bedrooms, a lounge, large hall, study, kitchen, bathroom, balcony and toilet. The entrances to the flats have an electronic entry system and there are lifts up to the nine floors. Some of the buildings are what they call dormitory buildings and from what they describe are made up of one room studios, however in some cases, many more than one person can live there.

As we are in Siberia, as you can imagine it gets very cold during the winter, so the flats are constantly heated between October and March. The whole building has one central heating system that is supplied with hot water sent along giant insulated hot pipes that travel above ground alongside the roads. When there is a road junction, the pipes are diverted in a square arch over the road. The flats are extremely warm and when you arrive home you need to put on shorts and tee shirt!

This area has a lot of amenities, the school's and shops are nearby and we are only a few minutes from the city centre.

Many Russians have a second home on a small piece of land resembling an English allotment usually located in the city suburbs, which they call their Dacha. They are different sizes but seem to average about half to one acre. They use these Dacha as summer residences and are allowed to build small cottages, made of wood or brick to live in. Some are quite elaborate and others resemble sheds. Our host purchased a Dacha earlier in the year and is in the process of developing the plot and upgrading the existing building by adding a veranda. There is water but no mains electric. Inside it is very quaint and rustic with a ladder up to the loft area. There is a small adjacent shed that they intend to turn into a Banya, a Russian hot steam sauna.

There is no particular style of architecture in Kemerovo which developed from a small mining town into the large sprawling city it is today. There is an ecletic mix of old and new buildings and industry divided by wide long streets. There are lots of recreational areas and children's playgrounds on every corner. The roads are fairly bumpy with some large pot holes to catch out the unwary. Whilst travelling through the city we passed the university, museums, swimming pool and a nightclub. The cities only five star hotel is located next to the river Tomsk which runs through Kemerovo to Tomsk.

We visited an outdoor museum that was located on the River Tomsk about 35 km from Kemerovo. It is a protected site with ancient carvings, "petroglyphs" in the rocks alongside the river. The area has been subtly developed with educational displays throughout the surrounding woodland explaining about the culture and lives of the idiginous dwellers the Shors people, as well as providing activities such as high rope walks through the trees. We had our lunch in a Mongolian tent that they had turned into a cafe. Our hosts daughters enjoyed seeing the indigenous animals in the small zoo which has two brown bears. In Russia it is traditional to feed the animals and people bring tins of condensed milk which the bear jumps on to burst, then it laps up the milk. The food is rolled down a metal shute into the cage. I must say it was very entertaining to watch.

Today we went shopping in a big superstore to get our supplies for the next stage of our trip to Vladivostok. Chris also decided he needed a haircut so now looks like a Russian Czar. The Russians in Kemerovo rarely see foreigners and can be quite abrupt in their manner at times. However most of them make an effort to help us even speaking a couple of words of English. I have to say though that 'customer service' is not a word they know!

That aside our time in Siberia has been wonderful and very interesting and we have enjoyed staying with our Russian friends who have made us very welcome by sharing their rich culture and teaching us about Russian food and of course drinking Russian vodka. We would love to return here again.

Tomorrow we will be taking a bus to Tayga and catching the transiberian train to Vladivostok. The train timetable runs on 'Moscow' time, so we have to add on the time zone we are in, which is 4 hours ahead, to get the correct arrival time of our train. When it arrives we have 2 minutes to get on board before it leaves - no stress there then!