Kick the tyres, light the fires...

'Oh mother dear I'm over here,

And I'm never coming back.

What keeps me here; the rake of beer,

The ladies and the craic.' - McAlpines Fusilers, The Dubliners

Had a mad couple of days, thought I'd better get this updated before I start forgeting things. When I left you I was staying in a posh Hotel in central St Petersburg, pretty shattered and a little home sick...

That night I gave Sergey, the guy I met in Estonia, a ring. I think it took me a good half hour to work out how to dial a Russian number and the £5 credit I had on my phone lasted about two minuites. After a quick text we agreed to communicate through e-mail, much easier and cheaper.

Sergey kindly offered me a room at his flat for the next night so we arranged to meet at 4pm the next day at the underground station Prospekt Prosveshcheniya in northern St. Petersburg. My plan for the next day was to cycle through the centre of the city en route to Sergeys, take in some of the sights and generally chill out. I also noted down the address of a local military surplus shop to visit on the way to pick up a genuine red army hat, one of the goals of the trip ;).

So, up early the next morning, out of the hotel by 9 and back on the road. Found the surplus shop easy enough and picked up my hat and a few interesting trinkets;

 Terrible picture, the one on the left is a badge with Lenin's head on it and the hammer and sickle underneath, the one on the right is a Soviet snipers cap badge. Pretty cool, eh? Cost about a fiver each.

I spent two hours the night before drawing out a map of my route through St. Petersburg and I still managed to get lost! Russia uses the cyrillic alphabet and its really hard to get used too if your a complete novice. Thankfully many of the street names in the centre of St Petersburg are written in English aswell but as soon as you move away from the tourist areas and into the 'sleeping quarters' the signs are in Russian only.

 Ahh Ye Olde Chelsea Arms, British pub in St. Petersburg.

The Artillery Museum, there are men in uniform on every street corner in St. Petersburg. The city has a barracks for an artillery regiment and also a training school for army doctors.

 May the 9th was victory in Europe day so there are military memorials like this dotted about the city aswell as banners and posters.

The orange and black banner is the stripe of St. George, the patron saint of England!

By this point I was getting pretty annoyed, I'd got loads of photos of the outsides of beautiful buildings but I hadn't a clue what they were so it seemed kind of pointless, plus it was nearly 3pm. So I made a bee-line for the station and met up with Sergey.

As much as the architecture of St. Petersburg interests me I'm more interested in the life of ordinary Russians and how it compares to life in the UK. Sergey gave me a good insight into this. He believes there are three 'classes' in Russia (kinda like lower, middle and upper class although). The top 1%, the extremely wealthy, the politicians and businessmen. Then there are approximatly 15% of the population who earn enough money to lead a pretty 'western' existance, usually professionals and well educated people. Then there is everybody else, living pay cheque to pay cheque.

The slogan of Russia is and always has been; 'Nothing for the ordinary man' according to Sergay.

The 'sleeping quarters' of St. Petersburg are a mish mash of new builds and flats built in the Soviet era. When the USSR collapsed every Russian citizen was given the right to privatise what he or she had. This could only be done once in a lifetime.

Most of the people living in appartments like this were given them by the state. As these people are usually in the bottom 84% they simply don't have the money to spend on repairing their properties so many of them are in a bad way.

The next day Sergey gave me a guided tour of the best parts of the city, top man!

We travelled on the underground (an experience in itself) to the main street in St. Petersburg, Nevskiy Prospekt.

 The ceiling of 'Saviour on Blood' the orthodox cathedral built to comemorate Alexander the 2nd who was killed by the 'Peoples Will' Movement. The cathedral was built where he was murdered. The artwork is all mosaic, not painted.

You get the idea. I find it kind of unsettling that the church has this amount of wealth in a country where a good percentage of the population still live in glorified garden sheds.

Merchant Yeliseev, a ridiculously overpriced shop that was founded in 1902, before the revolution. Fantastic interior though.

Inside Kazan cathedral, quite a few free mason symbols in this one, very Da Vinci Code...

I also picked up a few essential supplies like maps for the route to Moscow and an English-Russian dictionary. 

Sergey had mentioned to me in Estonia that 'communal living' was still commonplace in Russia. If you thought your house share in Britian was bad think again. When the whole Communism thing kicked off over here the rich wern't very popular. Any well to do person who had a large house in a Russian city had it taken away (unless they knew someone on the inside) and local workers were allowed to move in. One room per family.

In Russia today up to twenty people, and families, can share one kitchen, one shower and one toilet. Nice. Sergey asked me if I wanted too see one of these 'kommunalkas', so I grabbed my camera and did some investigative journalism.

One kitchen for 19 people, unreal.

Its basically like living in a hostel. The rent is around £200 a month and kommunalkas can be either privately or state owned.

After we left the kommunalka I jumped in Sergeys car and we headed back to his flat, although it was only after I was actually in the car that he informed me that he had purchaced his driving license and never passed a test!

That night I joined Sergey and some of his cycling friends for dinner. Katya, the host, put on a fantastic spread and it was great to hear some stories about their adventures. Now I know I'm not the only mad one!

The highlight of the night was when Sergey broke out the acoustic guitar and cranked out a few traditional songs. I think my favorite was, "nyet Molotov" or "no Molotov", Molotov was the forigen minister under Stalin. Its a song from the winter war when Molotov told Soviet troops the Finns would be a push over and they'd be eating ice cream in Helsinki by christmas. The song basically says "no Molotov, it won't be that easy!"

Other classics were 'Katyusha', about a Soviet border guard pining for his girlfriend and the theme tune to a Soviet cartoon called Cheburashka.

See that little furry doll I'm holding, thats Cheburashka.
Thanks for a great night Katya!

After a few glasses of wine and a bit of scran someone mentioned that there were a group of cyclists leaving St. Petersburg for Moscow the next morning and would I like to tag along. The occasion was the opening of Russias first official bike route. 'Great' I thought, 'won't get lost, have a bit of banter, where do I sign?' So a few phone calls were made and I was allowed to join the group, magic!

Me and Sergey jumped in his car and headed back to his flat, by this time I think it was nearly 12pm and I had to be in the centre of St. Petersburg for 8:30 the next morning which meant leaving Sergays at 7, and a 6am wake up call. D'oh.

Managed to drag myself out of bed early the next morning, and get all my gear and in the back of Sergeys car. We left at 7 and arrived at the meeting point for around 8:15.

The statue of Catharina the Great and her statesmen.

In my head this trip was going to be a pretty low key affair, apparently it's sponsered by the union of railway workers, so I was a little shocked when I turned up and there were about a hundred people all waving flags and banners.

A local TV crew were also there, they got a few shots of yours truely reading a map so it looks like I'll be on TV in St. Petersburg ;). After a bit of a speech by the head of the union we set off.

About 5 miles down the road my chain snapped. Brilliant. The group left me and I was stuck in a truck stop on the M10 going out of St. Petersburg. I managed to fix the chain, but I hadn't got a clue what the route was or where the group would be stopping so I dropped Sergey a text and he gave me the name of the hotel they would be staying in that night. With a bit of beans I got there by about 5pm.

 Uncle Joe in next doors garden...

I wouldn't say bicycle maintenance is my strong point, usually I just thrash her day in day out till something breaks. Then I'm left with a push to the nearest bike shop, however that night I decided to give the old girl a little tlc and its a good job too. All of the spokes on one side of the rear wheel were loose, as in ready to fall out loose, and the wheel was quite badly buckled (wondered what that rubbing noise was) anyway I broke out the tool kit, re-trued the wheel in the frame and re tensioned all the spokes. Magic. Also gave the chain a good oiling and all the cables the once over.

The next day the group had a long day planned, 160kms or 100 miles, brilliant! I thought I'd be a bit slow for these guys on the tarmac cause I had to carry all my luggage but I kept up OK! Mainly due to many members of the group having knobly tyres. Of course there was a reason for this...

In some places the road was rough, In some places the road was a swamp...

Interesting...
In all fairness only about 3kms of the route was this bad, but is was a bloody hard 3kms!

Me with two of the group members.

A Russian bear, notice the small rural church in the background.

To be continued...