Severnaya Hotel Petrozavodsk

This morning we woke to a beautiful, picturesque still morning with wisps of fog rising from the water. We were anchored as fog during the night had stopped all ships entering the lock that connects the Volga-Baltic waterway into the Svir River at Lake Onega. During the night we dropped 80 meters through a series of 5 locks taking us from where we are at the highest point of the waterway, situated 116m ...

... it in private. They are basically saunas cranked up a couple of notches. The typical way to take a banya is to sit in intense heat and hit yourself or, better yet, have someone hit you with a besom - a bushel of birch branches and leaves. The ideal situation is to then jump in a really cold lake or into a snow bank. Repeat as necessary! We arrived early to start heating up the banya as it takes about an hour to get going properly. It is heated by a wood-burning fireplace with rocks ...

... but luckily I didn't run into any. After taking the ferry back, I got some lunch and walked around for a bit. Petrozavodsk is OK, nothing too special, but there is a nice waterfront area along the lake. The weather wasn't great either, as it was drizzling for a while. So here I am in an internet cafe, my train doesn't leave until 11pm tonight and I get back to St. Pete before 8am tomorrow. I can't believe that I fly home in a week, the time has gone by so quickly!

... The Pickled Baby Museum, as it is full of Peter the Greats Collection of deformed Foetuses. Apparently he bought them to reduce discrimination against people with physical deformities, nice touch. On my last day I went to the Musuem of Political History, I was the only person there so all the old Babushkas working there followed me around to make I didn't touch or breath on anything. It was an interesting place though, it was quite harsh on the Communist regime and it gave the ...

Monday, September 11th Well the day not being looking forward to the most. Why? Have to get through Russian border stuff OK (hopefully) and have to carry so much cash on me. Grab the train to St.Petersburg at 07.27 and in a new Finnish train (Sibelius) and most of carriage Americans, Australians, Spanich and Finnish. Journey going to take 6 hours. Cool that Finns provide details on how to fill in Russian customs forms as they are all in Russian. Bit lost without that ...

Less pukey today. Went walking with Ian and saw much better things and i even bought a hairbrush. Got back to hostel and had nap and then went to the pub. Had one pint and felt ill so had to go back. When got back there were some lads playing chess so i stayed up a little and watched them. Saw St Basils Cathedral and it was really cool. Looked a bit like the one in Moscow.

... a wipe out. Looooong bus journey including Russian checkpoint for an hour before being allowed to get back on our bus. We got there and it seemed a bit unpleasant but have now discovered the nice bits. Had some alleged armenian food. All a bit confusing becasue it doesn't get dark until nearly midnight.

The past two days have been EXTREMELY cold!!! It is about -30 degrees and with the windchill they factor it at -41. It just HURTS to go outside!! Finally the apartment is not too hot though! Usually it is pretty warm in here, too warm, but since it is soooo cold outside I can feel the cool air coming in from the tiny gap in the window.

Tonight is New Years Eve--AGAIN!! January 1 was awesome with all the fireworks and celebration. Russians love New Years. It is like Christmas, only bigger! The Soviets had banned Christmas back in 1918 so the celebrations moved to New Years. Another change made after the revolution was switching from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. That's why Christmas is celebrated here on January 7th, the Orthodox Church stayed with ...

We almost arrived at St. Petersburg, the final stop of our cruise trip. But before that, entering the east end of the largest lake in Europe, Lake Ladoga. We had a short stop at the lakeside small village, Svir Stroy. It is so small that I even forget if I spell it correctly...... It's a short stay before our lunch. We took a stroll around the village, had a our' of their supermarket and street-side market (In fact, there is only one selling stand with two or three rolls ...