We are just back from walking the monuments and memorials to that dreadful battle for Stalingrad in 1942-3. Russia have done a brilliant job of both portraying the essence of the battle and enshrining the memories for later generations. The circular Pantheon, housing the eternal flame, with the names of…
Awake early. Once the sun is up it soon gets pretty warm in the Land Rover. Sadly we left the best campsite we have found, so far, with it’s view over the mighty Volga. Last night we watched barges and a cruise ship chugging past. The Volga is the longest…
The big news of the day. Germany 0 – South Korea 2. I loved the cartoon in todays DomPost, the daily newspaper in Wellington. “It’s not the first time Germany has gone to Russia unprepared”…:) News from Sokrat, the JLR agent in St Petersburg, the parts weren’t sent when they…
There has been confusion since yesterday evening over the correct time! Dennis’s watch was 2 hours ahead of mine and my iPad and the iMac both showed different times. Asking Google also gave us conflicting information. We thought we had it sorted, but on arrival at the hotel here, the…
Well, our foray to find something to eat ended very well. After walking down a pretty grotty road with broken paving stones and dirt, through a dilapidated housing estate, we found the main road and Papa Joe’s pizzeria. A couple of litre jugs of excellent beer in World Cup style…
On the road again, all day. Setting off at 1000, at first we started on a 3 lane motorway. This can’t last, we said, and in a short while it reduced to dual carriageway. Still an excellent road though. In 40 minutes however, we were back to the normal two…
Not a lot to report today. On the road earlyish and battled trucks all day. There must be millions of them. Mainly Scania, MAN, Volvo, Mercedes, DAF & Iveco. The Russian truck, Kamaz is available in a number of guises. A Kamaz won the truck class in the last Dakar…
We set off from our Yekaterinburg apartment at 1015 to look at the city. Very different to Perm. Modern, clean and spacious. Clean cars too, which made us feel very grubby. Being Sunday, the traffic was reasonably quiet. We parked easily and found ourselves in an area of commercial buildings…
A fairly disturbed night. It rained with thunder and according to Jen, there were some rowdy revellers in the car park we were camped in. You simply assume you are welcome until someone advises you otherwise, when choosing a camp site. I suspect that land ownership is a debatable issue…
While it’s Jens turn to write todays blog, as usual I am pushing in..:). I just wanted to say Congratulations to Jacinda and Clarke. Jacinda is our Prime Minister and she gave birth to a baby girl yesterday. As a very political opinionated animal, I have to say I think…