Slavyanka Chelyabinsk

... at Ladiskiy station in St Pete's after Murmonsk. The sunrise that we have seen for the fourth day in this city (possibly more than Bristol in the last four years) was familiar, as it spread it golden glow over the familiar streets, setting fire to the sky and giving the city the warm mantle that reflected my feelings for it. I felt the same in Istanbul, and the pattern emerged, that if we stayed in a city for longer than three days, it became like a temporary home to us. 4.On ...

... all like the flash cafes you frequent)! And, once again, our wheel cover attracted all the attention, not us.<br>As we pulled into our hotel Dave notice a couple of motor bikes parked alongside bearing the Scottish flag and upon making enquires, we eventually met Gordon and Tom who are travelling from Scotland around the world. Really nice guys, retired policemen and doing a charity trip for a disabled Bikers. (www.transglobemoto.com). We met up with them ...

... index.php?o ption=com_content&amp;task=blogsection& amp;id=9&amp;Itemid=31 More information: http://wikitravel.org/en/Chelyabinsk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabins k

... in my tent in a row of birch trees separating fields. If only pop music wasn't destroying the world! Traveling is so great when you hear good local music. A family of three played an old-times singer. Olla Peguchovna had a young, confident and lecturing and creatively wandering voice. In one song, she knowingly kept repeating, "Raz, dva, tri-chetire-pyat." (One, two, three-four-five.) However, the mother of the family, who thought I ...

... to them on the spot. The whole family have been made saints, which I find a bit weird, as they were just people, although people who met an unpleasant end. The church itself is rather over the top, but behind it is an interesting statue. The family were led down into the cellar, being told that a photograph was going to be taken, but instead they were all shot - the Tsar, the Tsarina and their 4 children. The statue is of them all going ...

oh ****. 3am and the karma police have got us back for taking the **** out of karill. we'd been praying for the fourth bunk to remain empty but we get the compartment companian from hell. an 18 stone smelly kiwi with a hacking cough and a tendancy to snore really loudly. ear plugs helped but i didn't have a second pair to stuff up my nose. claudia's tiger balm proved invaluable - a smear on my wrist and i could hold it ...

... full of crisps and choc (helen's fault) and fruit (claudia's fault). the only thing i demanded was the russian equivalent of jaffa cakes. chose the traditional orange, even though these ones came in pear, cherry and peach flavour too.. don't mess with perfection. stopped off at the pizza place for beer and cheese and tom pizza. to hotel to shower and pack for train. now seasoned train peeps, we'll be packing everything we need in our day sacks so we can leave our big 'uns under the seats.

... cafe for borsch (yum) and dumplings (ick!!) with karill and brad. back to the hotel via a v hairy drive. if in doubt, create your own lane! out for a walk, claudia back to the hotel as not v well. me and helen found a pizza place but suceeded in getting one cheese and tomato and one seafood pizza. pulled off all the things with tentacles and knocked it back with some beer.

... As we have said previously the service here is pretty much non existent. The lady behind the counter reluctantly put out another loaf of bread so we hastily grabbed some bread and jam (which we had to spread with a fork as there were no knives), some salami, ham and something that tasted like cheese cake but looked like egg? Eventually she put some more cups out so Megs got a cup of tea. We knocked off six chocolate bar type tings that were in packets and also pocketed some ...

... some bread, he staggered out the door, acting like a crazy drunk Russian guy. I'm sure you can picture what we mean. Into the evening, just as we were about to tuck into the travelers staple, cup-o-noodles, there was a knock on our door. In came the paralytic Alexander and his six Army Coast Guard buddies. One of them, Victor, could speak a little bit of English so we found out they were on their way to Moscow, then onto the Black Sea for a training course. He then gave Rick a ...