ERLIAN Wednesday 21 September 2016 We left Beijing at 10:45 pm on the Chinese Special Train for the 850 km, 16 hour trip to the Mongolian border at Erilan, also known as Erenhot. At dawn next day we were in the…
Siberia
Siberia is the Asian part of the Russian Federation; a huge area (10% of the world’s land) with little population. After completing Russian arrival formalities in our cabins we were on our way again at 10 am, next stop Ulan-Ude at 3 pm, 285 km from the border.
Western Russia
The border between Asia and Europe is the Ural Mountains near Yekaterinburg so having travelled 4300km across Siberia in 5 days we are now in the Russian heartland. Yekaterinburg, founded in 1723, once closed Soviet industrial town, then scene of the savage Russian Mafia wars of the 1990’s …
Moscow
MOSCOW Saturday 01 – Wednesday 05 October 2016 After arriving in Moscow on the Trans-Siberian, we were off on a whirlwind tour of the sights – Red Square, Gum Department Store, St Basil’s Cathedral, the Kremlin and so on. After…
St Petersburg
ST PETERSBURG, RUSSIA Peregrine Falcon is Sapsan in Russian and an appropriate name for the high speed train which takes 4 hours to cover the 675 km from Moscow to St Petersburg. It runs smoothly and quietly in contrast to the classic…