Crazy country, scary toys.

I've been to Russia twice. Highlights include:

- being best-man at my mates wedding. Our two-man stag do entailed getting necked on proper vodka and walking home through this mental city in the snow while it was 15 below, the night before the wedding
- four journeys on the Trans-Siberian through Tolstoy and Pasternak country. Also in the snow
- a snowball fight in Red Square in front of Lenin's tomb
- having a member of the FSB (formerly the KGB) as our bodyguard for a day. We were stopped by an armed soldier in Moscow and asked for our 'papers'. Our man flashed some ID from his pocket and the guy apologised and walked off
- beer for breakfast

Downsides:

- forgetting to 'register' with the local authorities and being skinned for 500 roubles by a man the size of the Kremlin with a Kalashnikov as a 'fine'. It went straight into his pocket
- Proper homelessness. In fact the only woman I picked up was some old dear in Perm who'd fallen over in the snow while begging.

Sadly these slightly scary, shrinking effigies is what most people in the west think of when this glorious country is mentioned. It's not dissimilar to America in that the people are great and the politicians are dangerous, narrow-minded w4nkers.