Russia

We spent a week in Russia in November. St Petersburg was amazing with the winter palace, Khrum Spasa na Krovi - Church on the spilled blood (red/blue/green gingerbread house church) and massive gold domed St Isaac's cathedral. The city was beautiful as everything has been majorly restored in the last 20 years. We spent a day inside the world renowned Hermitage museum and warren bought some Matryoshka stacking dolls. We went to a casino and Warren won 1000 roubles on roulette!! It was the coldest I have ever been with temperatures consistently at -5 degrees. We caught a train from St Petersburg to Moscow and it was wonderful to see the country outside the city - beautiful snow covered forrest's and small clusters of homes.

The red square in Moscow was the highlight, it includes St Basil's Cathedral (colourful domed church), State History Museum, Lenin's Mausoleum, GUM (a Harrods like shopping centre) and the Kremlin - the centre of Russian power and the place from which Lenin and Starlin launched communism. Russia has/had a lot of wealth - we saw the original Faberge eggs. A night at the Bolshoi Ballet was a must and the performance of Giselle was perfect! The Russian people were very friendly but the soldiers were really scary - we got shouted at everyday!!!