We have finished the first stage of our journey through Europe. We have left the safety of the EU and are beginning the next stage through Russia. We have had an amazing time, seen and experienced some awesome things and met lots of cool people.
4000 miles done in just under two months across europe, now we have about 6000 miles to do in 30 days. Its going to be a busy month!
We prepared as much as we could for the border crossing, all documents printed and filed, van clean and we even booked a time slot at the border. Get us! We were expecting a strip search and a good rogering. The border crossing was actually pretty straightforward, no extra costs, just the usual paperwork to fill out. The guards had a bit of a look around the van, checking for stowaways and drugs. All in all the border crossing took about 1.5 hours, most of which we were sat in a que. We were in Russia! We were greeted by a nice surprise, fuel is 55p a litre!
We drove the 100km to St. Petersburg, Russians second city and our first stop. We had a hostel booked right next to the river. It was ideal, parking space for the van right outside, free laundry service (we took full advantage of that) and loads of friendly people. Based on our previous lucky good timings, what was going to be in stall for us in St. Petersburg? The girl on the desk in the hostel said it was National Russia independence day. The day Russia became independent from the Soviet Union. And to celebrate there was a free music festival on the beach, obviously. We had lunch in the hostel kitchen and met Alexander. A biker from North Russia, travelling by himself and was going to the music festival. We finished lunch and headed off on a bus together. The festival was good and we watched a display of kite surfers.
Alexander kindly gave us a tour around the city, and what a city it is! We've never seen as many grand buildings in close proximity. Some serious money has been spent in the last few hundred years, when a lot of rural Russians were struggling to feed themselves! There seemed to be a massive range of wealth which the photo below shows nicely, a Ferrari parked next to a Lada. And that is a nice Lada, it has bumpers!
We spent the next day sightseeing, went to the Russian museum which is a massive palace full of nice art. Not my cup of tea but still good to see. We went to a church where the entire inside is mosaic art, pretty impressive. We spent the evening sitting out the front of the hostel drinking with Alexander and the hostel worker, also called Alexander. It was good fun. We were allowed to use the hostel shower, toilet and kitchen whenever we wanted even though we didn't sleep there that night. Later on a group of salsa dancers came back to the hostel and set up on the pavement, we joined in but weren't very good.
In the morning Stew went to the Hermatage museum, the must see palace and art exhibition in St. Petersburg. Stew thoroughly enjoyed it but me and Dunny had enough art the day before so decided to give it a miss.
We set off that night to Vlinky Novgorod to see a Kremlin, a massive walled town which was cool, see photo below. That afternoon we set off for Moscow. 550k down a rough motorway. Lots of traffic and potholes. Surprising considering it was linking two rich cities in a world superpower. We arrived in Moscow at 3am and parked up for the night.
Rob
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