Well i arrived in russia on the overnight bus from Helsinki to St Petersburg and for reasons that didn't seem entirly obvious i was the only non russian on the entire bus so while i rushed through the Finland border alot quicker than my travelling companions it did take some time to actually get into russia although it wasn't as bad as i had been expecting although no mans land between the two countries did seem huge! Predictably on entiring the country i felt obliged to put on my ipod and make sure i listened to back in the USSR. anyway after no sleep i arrived in st petersburg about 5am. the bus at this point seemed tyo start dropping people off at random spots around the city, while as i had no idea when anything was including finding a hostel and the bus station until i enventually found the moscow train station and got the triver to drop me off. the therory was i was going to moscow next so if i could find a hostel near by my life would be a lot simpler. i did find a hostel and was immediatly barked at in russian to get out. anyway after a while it was all sorted (reception didn't open till 7) so after that i had a great few days in St Petersburg. i Visited the Hermatage without doubt the greatest museum i've ever been to the scale of it is just immense. the artiecture of the whole city is incredable. i visited the church where all the tsars are berried from peter the great to nicholas II (since 1999) and also where Rasputin was murdered. i was also amazed by the amount of weddings that wewre taking place every site i visited i must have seen about 10 different couples getting pictures taken. The rolling stones were also playint outside the hermatage while i was there i have been following them around europe so it was nice to actually be in the same place as them eventually... after 3 days in st petersbery i got the overnight train to Moscow