A Ruff Ride..

Russia has been a great experience, and you'll be unsurprised to learn that my linguistic skills now cover the essentials - I can now order two beers (not one mind you!) and say thank you - luckily all Russian Beer is excellent, so simply pointing hopefully at an appropriate beer tap has been successful so far - and you don't get a scowl when you gesture for a 'large' beer over here as every Russian drinks far more than I ever imagined. It is most usual for an average Russian to sit down for a lunchtime or evening meal with a sizeable carafe of vodka and a shot glass and have several shots of the fiery stuff over their food - it's amazing!

Yesterday Grem and I ventured out into the woods of Ekaterinburg (Boris Yeltsin's birthplace and third largest city in Russia) with a guide in the back of a basic but unbelievably sturdy ex-military van - somewhat like a VW Camper but instead of surfboards on the roof there were sledges with skis for runners and what looked like an couple of old zimmer-frames for the main frame....we jumped inside the van to head out of the city and it took us a little while to realise that in the boot behind us were 12 large husky dogs! (Grem interupting here - it seemed to me i was the only one slightly concerned about their well being! But they turned out to be very well-loved animals.)



Upon arrival it turned out that our 'driver' was in fact the dog owner who quickly hoisted the sledges from the roof of the van and had released the dogs ready to be attached to the sledges. After much barking and gnashing of teeth (also from the dogs) we had 5 dogs attached to our sledge and with Daniele wrapped up warm in her seat on the sledge and me at the helm(!) we were off into the woods at the mercy of our huskies! We had nothing to be worried about as the dogs knew exactly which way to go and far from me steering them, the dogs were fully in charge of us! After riding for 30mins (with Daniele's feet as cold as they could be - actually colder) we stopped and had our first taste of medicine for the cold, a couple of shots of vodka, which went down surprisingly well!



Our next stop is a town called Irkutsk on the shores of Lake Baikal, and if we thought it was warming up (now a mere minus 22 degrees) it's forecast to be around minus 31 degrees when we get there after a two day train journey! More warming vodka required I think!

Teej