Siberia to St Petersburg

When we woke up on the train on our first day in Russia the scenery had changed dramatically. The Mongolian steppe had given way to a seemingly endless forest of birch trees. Soon Lake Baikal appeared though the window, stretching out to the horizon like the sea.

Lake Baikal contains one fifth of the world's fresh water, which is more than North America's five great lakes combined. We decided to head straight for the lake after arriving in Irkutsk and took a bus to the village of Listvyanka.

It didn't take long for us to encounter the 'Nyet' philosophy of customer service. Nyet means no in Russian and unfortunately it is often the only response that you get when asking a question. It's often accompanied by the person glaring at you and crossing their arms in front of their face to make sure that you get the message!

We didn't like Listvyanka that much as it seemed a bit run down and had a road running along the lake front. After spending the night there we decided to take a boat to the more remote lake side village of Bolshie Koty.

The lake at Bolshie Koty was unquestionably beautiful. In fact looking out across the blue lake and the wooded hills we could almost have been beside one of the Italian lakes. Unfortunately the similarities between Bolshie Koty and Northern Italy stopped there!

Between the wooden houses there were piles of rusting metal and disused machinery. The lake shore was covered in rubbish. In fact, as we found when we went on a walk, all the rubbish and waste from the village just seemed to have been thrown into the woods on the outskirts. There were no restaurants or cafes and just a couple of kiosks selling beer, cola and Snickers bars.

We found some accommodation in a wooden hut but there was no running water and only a smelly pit toilet. To top things off Bolshie Koty was very hot and home to some very nasty insects. Forget anything that we might have seen in the Amazon, these things were like oversized flying cockroaches and even Steve was scared.

After one night in Bolshie Koty we were desperate to leave. Unfortunately we had to sit and wait for a boat out (there is no road) for seven hours. Perhaps we were being paranoid but it seemed like the only thing that brought a smile to the faces of the rather glum Russian tourists (and lets face it if your annual holiday was to Bolshie Koty would you be in a good mood?) was us trying to ask in sign language what time the boat left.

Back in Irkutsk we checked into a youth hostel and felt very relieved. We were back in civilization and there were supermarkets and restaurants! After a day wandering around Irkutsk not doing a lot it was time to get the train to Moscow.

The three and a half days on the train were surprisingly pleasant. We were traveling in second class and so shared a four berth compartment with a Russian couple. It was very comfortable and we were impressed by the efficiency of the Russian railway network which got us to Moscow within a couple of minutes of the scheduled arrival time.

The landscape itself was not particularly exciting. There are clearly a lot of trees in Russia. A couple of times each day the train would stop for 20 minutes and we would get out and stretch our legs. With the time available it was only really possible to walk up and down the platform, which was filled with ladies selling food from baskets to the people on the train. There was also a dining car on the train selling reasonably ok food but it was mainly full with people drinking beer and vodka.

After arriving in Moscow we headed for the center to see Red Square, St Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin. The Kremlin has many beautiful churches as it is not only the centre of the Russian Government but also of the Russian Orthodox Church. In Red Square itself, is the mausoleum where the embalmed body of Lenin is on display. Sadly we missed our opportunity to see Lenin as he is closed to the public on Mondays!

There are some interesting sights in other parts of Moscow too. In Iskussty Park we saw a display of decommissioned Soviet statues that included Lenin, a toppled Stalin and other Soviet leaders. We also went to the Novodevichy Convent and the atmospheric cemetery next door. Russian VIPs ranging from Checkhov to Raisa Gorbachev are buried in the cemetery. A lot of the grave memorials show what the person did in their lifetime, so there are sculptures of ballerinas dancing and cosmonauts with their helmets on.

On our last day in Moscow we decided to pop back into Red Square to take a better look at Kazen Cathedral before going to collect our bags and leave for the train station. As we approached Red Square we were stopped by some policemen who wanted to check our documents.

Perhaps at this point I should explain a little about the documents that you need in order to travel in Russia. Virtually all visitors to Russia need a visa. To get a visa if you are not on a package holiday you have to obtain an invitation to Russia from a tourist agency. In theory this agency should book your accommodation, though in practice many agencies will make 'virtual' hotel reservations leaving you free to arrange your own trip. Confused? It gets worse.

On arriving in Russia you are given an immigration card. This card needs to be stamped within 72 hours of your arrival in Russia in order to 'register' your visa. Then if you stay in any area of Russia for more than 72 hours your visa has to be registered again. This visa registration can be done by all the large expensive hotels but a lot of the smaller hotels, hostels and homestays cannot register your visa unless they were the agency that invited you to Russia. Well sometimes they can if you pay them some extra money...

When we arrived in Irkutsk we stayed in a hostel which was able to register our visas for a fee. In Moscow however we checked into a cheap hotel (cheap being a relative term) which couldn't register our visas. We had our train tickets from Irkutsk and onward tickets to St Petersburg, so that we could prove that we were spending less than 72 hours in Moscow should we encounter any problems.

The policemen that we met in Red Square insisted that because we were staying in a hotel our visas should have been registered straight away and that the 72 hour rule only applied to homestays. We tried arguing with them but they said that we had broken the law and would have to come with them to the police station and pay a fine.

"Don't worry Madam" said one of the police officers. "The process will only take about four hours. It is such a pity that you will miss your train to St Petersburg."

This was of course a preliminary to suggesting that we should pay them an "on the spot fine" of $80. Eventually Steve negotiated a price of $40 to get them to give our passports back and leave us alone.

This whole experience left us feeling pretty angry, though under the circumstances we didn't really have any choice except to pay. Anyone visiting Moscow should definitely make sure that they get their visa registered before going into the centre of town regardless of how long they plan to stay. Unfortunately if a policemen in Moscow sees that you don't have a Moscow registration stamp on your immigration card they will probably use it as a pretext to try to extort money from you.

Given the complexity of the regulations and the corruption of the Russian police it perhaps isn't surprising that we have come across quite a few other tourists that have run into trouble.

An American woman that we got to know on a tour in Mongolia was not allowed to leave Russia when an official at the airport noticed that on her visa her nationality had been written as Thai. This was clearly just a silly mistake by the Russian embassy in Thailand. As the visas are written in the Cyrillic alphabet, she couldn't have even been expected to spot the error. This didn't stop the official making her obtain another visa saying that she was American (which he knew she was anyway) and missing her flight home!

Getting to St Petersburg cheered us up quite a bit as it is such a beautiful city. It was founded by Peter the Great in 1703 with the aim of rivaling the great European capitals. Architects and skilled craftsmen were brought from all over Europe and the Russian empire and no expense was spared. The result is a historic center that stretches on for miles and positively overflows with churches and palaces.

One of the most magnificent buildings in the city is Winter Palace where the Tsars of Russia lived. This has now been turned into the Hermitage museum, which houses one of the world's largest collections of art. The collection was begun by Catherine the Great, added to by her successors and increased in size still further after the Russian revolution when the art collections of wealthy Russians were "nationalized" by the party. What makes the Hermitage different from other art galleries, apart from the scale, is its setting in the amazingly lavish interior of the Winter Palace.

While the Hermitage displays art work from all over the world the Russian Museum concentrates on Russian art work. We went to see an exhibition of the work of the avant guarde Russian artist Pavel Filonav. Usually I am not a massive fan of modern art, at least not the sort of stuff that wins the Turner prize, but this was really imaginative, interesting and thought provoking.

In the Russian Museum we also saw a more general exhibition on 20th century Russian art. If only from a historical point of view it was fascinating to see all the pictures of buxom young women harvesting corn, workers with rippling muscles forging steel and huge canvases depicting epic revolutionary scenes. There were also examples of underground art showing life in the Soviet Union in a slightly more realistic way.

St Petersburg is as famous for its musical traditions as its collections of art. We had first heard Russian Orthodox Church music in St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow and had been totally blown away. There are no instruments used apart from the male voice. Some of the singer's voices are so low that they sound a bit like a didgeridoo. The harmonies are very complex and the the overall effect is both beautiful and unusual.

We went to see the Male Choir of St Petersburg sing traditional Russian church and folk music at the Peter and Paul Fortress and were both totally captivated. It's definitely something that I would recommend to anybody visiting St Petersburg.

Our plan is to leave St Petersburg for Helsinki on 7th August. That's always assuming we aren't detained at the border for breaking any rules that we haven't heard of yet or pretending to be Japanese.