The Russian trip

Dear friends,

I just arrived here in Stockholm and - of course - the first thing I do is telling you some stories about our Russia trip. In a relatively large group of nearly 50 students we started the trip last Monday with a boat cruise to Estonia. We spent a day in Tallinn and then took the night train (16h) to Moskow where we stayed two days in a hotel. Compared to the Estonian capital, which is a beautiful little town with a lovely old part (insider tip for everyone who plans to do a Baltic tour), Moskow was really a shock for me. All began when we had to cross the boarder in the middle of the night and the Russian military minutiously checked the train. The atmosphere in this situation reminded me of movies from the second world war and I really didn't feel very comfortable in this situation. Later in Moskow we made a nice experience with the Russian police when they stopped us in a small group of students at about two in the morning. Trying to find weapons and drugs (no joke, that was their excuse!!!) they scanned us greedily for money. Fortunately, there were some English speaking Russians who got us free.

Again by night train we continued our trip to St.Petersburg. We spent two nights there. Putingrad, as the Russian people sometimes call erstwhile Leningrad, is an impressive city with a breeze Western Europe and you should definitely visit this place. Unfortunately, the weather was rainy with an unpleasant cold wind. Thus, we had to focus on the Russian night life ;-)

On Sunday we left Russia and went, again by train, to Helsinki. The only problem is/was that two Canadian students were missing. We still don’t know where exactly they are because we only received a strange text message that they are still in St.Petersburg. Mobile communication with these two guys is not working properly. Considering the fact, that their visa expired yesterday they could get into serious problems with the Russian authorities. We really hope that they will make their way back to Stockholm as soon as possible.

Warm regards from cold Sweden, Christoph

Here some pics from...

Tallinn:









St.Petersburg:














Moskau:












Helsinki:










In the boat - shopping mall: