Hotel Petr Petrozavodsk

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... form and customs declaration, both in Russian! When we explained that we only spoke English she growled, but helpfully returned with another copy of one of the forms, this time in...Italian! 'No ENGLEESH!' Oh well, at least we were in the right alphabet now! We filled out the imigration card which was fairly easy. The customs form, however, was rather more complicated. The only thing we cuold be sure of was ticking the box to say we had no 'Bambinos' oh ...

... a guaranteed depth of 4 meters. It has 11 shipping locks, 5 pumping stations - also provides Moscow with half it's water consumption. Because of this canal, Moscow has access to five seas, including the White Sea, Baltic Sea, Caspian Sea, Sea of Azov and the Black Sea and to all the oceans of the world. However, the guide said because of pollution, Muscovites don't eat very much fish and it is expensive.

... at a Russian chain restaurant that was recommended to us, called Yolki Palki. I had goulash and Ali had blinis and we both really enjoyed the food and the friendly service. The chain can also be found in other locations in Moscow and St Petersburg and is pretty good value compared to other restaurants. The restaurant was close to teh Bolshoi Theatre, which is unfortunately closed for renovation and currently covered in scaffolding. We decided to walk along the river ...

... the bag check and we were finally allowed admittance. Turns out what we were allowed admittance to was Lenin's mausoleum. We wandered p************* series of plaques marking the interment sites of what I assume are the heros of the Revolution and then descended into Lenin's Mausoleum. I had to remove my hat as we entered and we descended into the crypt via a series of stairwells and hallways with military guards every 10 metres or so. Once in the crypt you walk past three sides of ...

... a bunch of Canadians walked by and said "hey look...its Kiwi Jared"...talked to them for a while and they filled me in on antics that I don't remember....how many great people I must have met on the train that I have no recollection of !! We decided to head back to the hostel and grab beers and premix gin and tonics...I dunno what happened but the hostel woman told me I settled on the coach around 5am...I woke up at 7am not knowing where the hell I was. So ...

... was founded by Peter the Great himself as a place to manufacture weaponry (the name means Peter's Factory). We got in touch with a Hospitality Club member while we were in St. Petersburg, and he offered to host us, even on such short notice. Our host, Maxim, met us on the train platform at the ungodly hour of 6:50 AM and took us back to his apartment, which he shares with his mom and brother. He showed us to our room fed us breakfast while we talked and got to know each other. Maxim is ...

... now had to find out if there were tickets available, where the museum was located, and how best to get to it. We figured that we could get the Concierge to call and find out if tickets were available, so the hard part for us would be to find the location. For the first time on our trip Lonely Planet failed us. The Moscow guide had zero, (0), zilch, nada, mention of the famous composer nor his museum, so I did the next best thing, I did a ...

... morning, I bought overnight train tickets to/from Petrozavodsk, a city on the shores of Lake Onega. From Petrozavodsk, you catch a 1.25 hour ferry ride to the actual island of Kizhi. I took the train later that night, again in a kupe compartment. There was only one other guy, probably in his 50s, in my compartment. Nice guy, we talked for a while about languages and Russia, but he snored really loudly at night, so I didn't get as much sleep as I would have ...

... a cruise boat, so we just head directly to Kizhi after the ship entered Lake Onega the night before. Though the ship really swang a lot the night before on this "second largest lake in Europe", it was relatively peaceful this morning when we approached beautiful Kizhi. There are not too many buildings on this "open air museum." Three peasant houses with some exhibition, a windmill, sauna, barn and the most unique - two wooden ...