Three months was up and the dual necessities of having a break from Moscow and refreshing my dodgy hotel registration were bearing down upon me. Busy with work and too low on cash to stray further afield, I decided on a Baltic holiday, Riga to be precise. Failing to learn from the hell of the last overnight international bus ride I took from Sofia to Istanbul, I decided the bus was a better option than the train - about half the price and a couple of hours quicker. Of course, as last time, I couldn't sleep and went through the process of dividing the total time (16 hours) into smaller and smaller fractions and slowly counting them off with a sense of accomplishment. In some ways it was a relief to finally reach the Russian border at 4am, just to break the monotony. But it was a break I could have done without.

» Read More

I use to say that KTP is a bunch of (lonesome) heroes, because travelling around Russia can be filled with surprises, often unpleasant. Last Saturday I've got a nice example of this.

Last week I played soccer and finished with a hand in plaster. Other KTP guys were on their big trips (Alex Fetisov heads to Pripolyarny Ural, Wsewolod S.Putnik is somewhere near Baikal now etc.), so I decided to go to Serpukhov town by myself and ride a local ship line there.

Serpukhov is less than 100 km from Moscow, so could I expect any surprises?

» Read More