As we head south to Volgograd and Astrakhan before heading west towards the Crimea, the Georgia/Russia conflict over South Ossetia has blown up in our faces. The Russians reckon ethnic cleansing of villages is occurring, the Georgians reckon Russia has just invented an excuse to snatch South Ossetia and make it part of Russia. Who […]
Today, with the assistance of the good offices of NZ Ambassador to Russia, Chris Elder – we had the privilege of spending an hour with Vice Admiral Nikolai Ivlev now aged 90 who played a significant role in the Northern Convoys of WWII that provided supplies from the UK to the Russian port of Murmansk. […]
Tony has this great mate who lives in Moscow – Konstantin Mekhanoshin without whose help we would have found Russia one hell of a lot harder to get around. While Joanne has learnt the Cyrillic alphabet and can read the street signs, menus and find the loos, Konstantin has dealt with the big issues for […]
Here we are in Moscow, home of the Communist Revolution and one would have thought an influence in New Zealand who have sought equality between citizens through redistribution via progressive taxation. Yet the Russian income tax scale is flat – a rate of 13% !! This rate was implemented by Vladimir Putin in 2001. Combined […]
…. was bloody wet and dangerous as we battled our way through a day-long thunder and lightening storm and road surface flooding of an extent that at times you couldn’t tell if you were planning along or still in touch with the bitumen. And the 18 wheeler lorries only slowed down marginally so passed by […]
Finishing our flick through the Baltic States we are heading back to Mother Russia to continue our north-south traverse of this gigantic country. From the hedonistic and free-wheeling lifestyles of the capitals of the Three Sisters, the transition to Belarus crosses a stark boundary. We encounter it initially at the border where a 3 […]
Sad day today, Tony has had to cancel the rest of his tour and head for home as one of his nearest friends is gravely ill. We’re sitting in Riga, the capital of Latvia – wonderful town, but quite tricky for him to work out how to get the bike back to the UK so […]
Today we had a rest day. That means we still get on our motorbikes – but rather than go from A to B, we leave from A, have an excursion and come back to A. These are the days that can be really treasured on a long journey like this. There is no compulsion, you […]
Riding south toward St Petersburg we have come abreast of Lake Ladoga, famous as the escape for 1.3 million during the Nazi’s siege of Leningrad (as it was named then) in WW2. When the winter comes and it freezes around here, the lake freezes as well and this provided the ice road route out of […]
You’d think Tony would be celebrating his research into the price of petrol, which has revealed that here in Russia it’s the cheapest yet. But as the photo shows this hasn’t stopped him getting down on his knees and begging the station attendants to give him a discount as he has spent all his money […]
