I left Russia and came to St Petersburg

St Petersburg is a whole new world compared to everything else we've experienced in Russia. Wide boulevards with ornate and colourful buildings are in stark contrast to the bleak concrete Russia we saw when we arrived in Ekaterinburg. The calm pace is at odds with the hustle of Moscow. St Pete's belongs in western Europe. Even the piazza in front of the Hermitage resembles St Peter's square in front of the Vatican in Rome.

The Hermitage museum is housed in the winter palace of the emperors and tsars. Peter the Great shifted the capital of Russia from Moscow and named the place after himself. He and his successors scored for themselves a whopper of a palace. Inside the museum are works by Michelango, Da Vinci, Raphael, Caravaggio and the list goes on; yet probably the best part was waltzing over the ballroom floors and under the chandeliers that hosted opulent parties through til the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Yes, we were probably a tad too underdressed to slide back in time, but it was great all the same.

Having eaten Russia dry of beef stroganov, cabbage and beetroot salads, we move on tonight by bus to Tallinn in Estonia. Рака Россий! But i'll be back.