So where am I? I'm sitting in a small town called Ust-Barguzin on the Eastern side of Lake Baikal, Eastern Siberia. Time zone, Moscow +5 (GMT +8). It's snowing outside and I'm sitting here surrounded by maps, books and coffee sachets. To set the scene even more, every home in this town is wooden, there's no hot water, the loo is no more than a hole in the ground and this morning I was nearly run over by three screaming teenagers on a motorcycle as I was walking back from the shop with my bread and cheese..
Yes, this is Russia. This is what I have been waiting for for four years or more. It was two and a half months ago that I arrived here into the rumpty, crumbling ex-Soviet behemoth of the Russian Federation, with Lada cars, collapsed lamp posts and the countless dysfunctional relics of old Soviet industrials. In fact looking around, there are a few similarities to Slovakia, Albania and the Balkans, but this time it's for real. This time I have landed in the travellers' holy grail of Mother Russia - you know, the home of all those early Marxist implementations, the nucleation point of a philosophy that was to take over huge swathes of population, throwing them into that still life of collectivisation and command economies. Look around. This is where it all took place - inspired by Lennin, terrorised by Stalin, stagnated by Brezhnev and finally reinspired by the free thinking of Gorbachev, this is the country that muted Poland in 1980, pushed tanks into Czechoslovakia in 1968 and installed nukes on the island of Cuba in '62, bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war.
BUT MAKE NO MISTAKE. I have been typing for at least 15 minutes, and so far I have said nothing about Russia. Push any preconceptions aside, forget the newsreels of the early '80's, ignore the propaganda and the world's biggest nation opens up to reveal serenity, remoteness and pristine scenery composed of snowcapped mountains, deep forests, taiga, steppe and a rich tapestry of scarcely known republics. And it is here that the real diversity of the Russian experience begins to show its full colours.
I'm a long way behind and I could carry on writing for hours. I could tell you about the Autonomous Republics of Tatarstan, Khakassia, Tuva and Buryatia. I could tell you stories about the most scary soup in the world, a village of 17 inhabitants, a 5 hour bus journey which lasted nine and a half hours. I could write about a car journey through ice and snow in one of the most remote areas of Siberia, or about inquisitive police and the neverending process of registering in the Altai Republic. Or how about last night, when at half past midnight, some dude tried to get into our appartment which we rented for a couple of days. We barely slept, and had the lock tied up with wire and a chair propped up againsed the door... then at 6.20 am he was back, ringing the doorbell, then disappearing... I would like to write about our 3-day boat trip up the Volga and our mission to circumnavigate the world's most volumous lake (Baikal). You would laugh your socks off if I told you the "Hiding from Madonna" story, and you would bite your tongue if you knew some of the challenges facing Russian people today. I will try to post some of this stuff onto the site over the coming weeks...
This evening we have a train to Almaty, Kazakhstan, then within 72 hours we have to be out - will probably take a bus to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The world has changed in the last few weeks (9/11) We are keeping a close eye on Government travel advisories, we have contacted the US embassy in Bishkek and of course we keep a close eye on the usual backpacker discussion sites, but it's always difficult to get a clear picture of the latest events, so if you become aware of any significant/drastic changes, please let us know. Our intention is to carry on travelling, but to get home in one piece!