By the lord harry!

This is lake Baikal in Siberia by the Mongolian border it holds 20 % of the worlds fresh water!
Stunning.

Wrestler

Home sweet home. I was on my own for 4 of the six days then a Chinese guy moved in, he spoke no English i spoke no Chinese so we just smiled at each other for 2 days.
This 1st class cabin was 200 pounds. Not bad eh!
At night when the train stopped and you got off you were swarmed by mosquitoes, really big aggressive buggers.
The people we saw on the platforms selling food were so poor it was criminal. Our carriage babushka (granny) was a hugh Giant Haystacks Russian all in wrestler type affair, scary as hell.

1st class and damn the peasants

All aboard! I take my birth on the Trans-Manchurian railway from Moscow to Beijing, a 6 day journey through Russia, Siberia, Mongolia and China. I've stocked up on reading material have a big jar of coffee and a behemoth bottle of some unpronouncable brand of Russkie vodka which would take the paint off a moving car.
I have been looking forward to this part of the journey for a long time now. Lets go!

Can't bear it!

Yes sadly this still appears to go on in Russia these two sad looking bears were hit with sticks to climb ladders and dance! when all they looked like they wanted to do was seek out some shade on a very hot day.
All i wanted to do was beat the owner to a pulp with his own stick.
He'll get his retribution one day.

Whistle blowers

The Kremlin, where people go in and don't always come out!
Every hour or so the police would stop the traffic and several limos with blacked out windows would speed through its gates?
If you walk on the wrong bit of pavement the police just blow whistles at you until you walk on the correct bit of pavement? whats all that about then? A strange society indeed.

Outdated

Gorky park - opened in 1928 and still with many of the original rides i suspect! Filled with unsmiling Russian families. A bit dated but hugh inside and well worth a visit.

Not a grin to be seen!

Whilst tooling around the Kremlin grounds i came upon this strange bunch of bluff coves posing for a photographer, never one to pass up an opportunity i decided to snap them as well. Note the happy smiling faces! sadly true of most of the Russians i met.
This would make a great caption competition.
A free holiday in Thailand for the wittiest one. ...ha ha ha.

Antiquities abound

A beautiful church within the Kremlin grounds, there are several and they are all crammed with antiquities and images of Jesus.

Designer on drugs

St Basil's cathedral in Red square, truly amazing colours and architecture.

Monoslabic Moscow

Having secured a 2 week visa for Russia (that's all they would give me!) i flew to Moscow. The two photos above are of my hotel and the view from my window. It was a Hugh monolithic slab of a building built for the 1980 Olympic games. To say Moscow is a hard place to travel around alone is an understatement. Many people don't or wont speak to you. (maby it was just me?) I found it a very lonely place but none the less very picturesque in places.