The following day we headed to Listvyanka, a summer retreat on the shore of Lake Baikal. We checked in to the hotly recommended Belka Eco-Hostel (presumably so named because of a couple solar panels), and went for a stroll along the edge of the lake. It would have been easy to mistake for a sea, were it not for the faint outline of mountains on the opposite shore. We bought some bread and omul (a trout like fish) from the local fish marker and ate it on the shor...

Our alarms woke us up painfully early 4:00am) for us to make the train for the next leg of our journey. We walked across a cold and deserted Kazan to the train station were we boarded our train at 5:30. We encountered another angry train guard who refused to allow us to lie in our beds without making them to her satisfaction. When she finally left us, we slept in peace for 5 hours or so. During the morning the train was mostly empty, so we had the luxury of sit...

We were braced for the cold conditions of central Russia for this journey, and dressed appropiately wearing base layers and warm jumpers to bed. Unfortunately we soon discovered that the carriages are kept at a toasty 27 degrees, which made for a sweaty nights sleep (which was not improved by the erratic breaking of the train driver). I woke to the pungent smell of sausage, which the old woman below was eating for breakfast. We soon clambered out of bed and spen...

Our first experience of Moscow, besides the endless lights of apartment blocks seen from the plane, was a long, unmoving queue at passport control. We soon understood why the Russians immediately ran to be first out of the plane as soon as the wheels hit the tarmac. A short eternity later, and we found ourselves on a train into central Moscow. We then took the metro to our hostel, stopping to appreciate the interiors of the metro stations which had been ripped f...