We arrived at Leningrad station, swarming with people, none speaking English, no idea where the Metro station was and a very confusing Metro map in Cyrillic to navigate with - Major trauma but we survived. We joined Kim, Carol and Carole in the apartment and spent the Saturday on a walking tour around the major sights - The Kremlin, Red Square, St Basils, The Bolshoi theatre, Tomb of the unknown soldier etc. ( Culture) In the evening we went to see Swan Lake pe...

We arrived in Russia by sea and were met by a massive queue at border control. The guards seemed very intimidating as they scrutinised our documents but with a final gruff "Da" we were through. The smiling, super friendly Scandinavians with their perfect English were replaced by harsh sounding Russians who spoke their mother tongue and all the signs were in Cyrillic script (fair enough really) but things had just got a whole lot tougher for us. The city itsel...