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I went to Russia in the summer of 2001 for a conference in St. Petersburg. Ron Simmons went with me and we met up with Keith Kekman along the way. We flew into Moscow and quickly started developing a tolerance for waiting in lines. There was exactly one person working the passport control when our plane load of people arrived. So, we simply did not move an inch in line for a very long time. We managed to get through the process and even find the bus to the subway to our hotel. By avoiding the taxi ride we spent $0.35 each instead of $40-$50. Here is the subway stop near our hotel

The first couple days we spent in Moscow. Our Hotel was very close to Gorky park:

We took a long walk from Gorky Park along the River and up to Red square. Here are some sights along the way:

On the second day we visited the Kremlin and returned to Red Square. They have some big guns in the Kremlin:

In red square we did the traditional tourists things such as trying on Russian hats:

And doing backflips:

Be sure to do them in front of Lenin's tomb:

On the third day we made a visit to the Norodevichy Cemetery. There are some interesting buildings along the way:

The cemetery has some amazing tombstones and sits next to an impressive monastery:

On day 4 we got in the car (getting the car was quite an experience) and headed north to St. Petersburg. Our journey was fraught with danger such as police stops and dried fish for sale along side the road.

The best part of the journey was stopping in Novgorod - one of the oldest cities in Russia. The main chapel dates from 1050. The Kremlin has some old and big bells:

In the evening we ate at a great restaurant in one of the kremlin towers. Ron took a fancy to our waitress Julia.

Our hotel was cheap - $28 - and Hot - and filled with mosquitoes. But, there were some cool churches nearby:

We visited a monastery on the outskirts of town. We could not go inside with shorts on, so we checked out the nearby windmills.

We finally arrived in St. Petersburg. We managed to fit in a fair amount of sight seeing in between trips to the conference. The huge Hermitage museum cannot be missed. Even if it means paying some off duty museum official to sneak you in the back way because the line is just to darn long.

One of the more amazing sites in the museum is the main staircase.

There are all kinds of impressive churches in St. Petersburg.

Random pictures of a hydrofoil and a Japanese Restaurant named Sakura - Cherry Blossom.

We took a side trip from St. Petes to Peterhof on the Gulf of Finland.

Surprisingly the Gulf of Finland was very warm.

We also swung through Pushkin to see Catherine's Summer Palace.

To wrap things up, we picked up Keith Hekman and drove back to Moscow, this time getting only one ticket which we talked down to $3.50.