The trip from Novosibirsk to Krasnoyarsk was a fairly short trip on the Trans Siberian route at just 473 miles. The actual Trans Siberian Express or the Rossiya to give it the official name (Train No 2 running east bound) is one train that does the entire journey from Moscow to Vladivostok every other day and takes seven days/six nights to do the trip end to end. Wiith us hopping on and off different trains as we journey eastwards we only ever travelled on Trai...

Novosibirsk is a big city plonked pretty much in the middle of nowhere with around 1.5 million people living here in Western Siberia. Fortunately for us the Congress Hotel was just a few hundred metres walk from the railway station which is one of the largest in Russia so after a night on the train it was not too far to drag our bags. When planning the journey across Russia it was always difficult trying to balance the amount of time spent travelling on the trai...

Arriving into Yekatrinburg (or Ekatrinburg) saw us cross into Asia as we passed through the Ural Mountains although I must admit that I do not really remember seeing any mountains. Yekatrinburg has the dubious honour of being the place where Nicholas II, the last Russian Tsar, and his family were shot during the Russian Civil War in July 1918. The Church on the Blood was built on the spot where this happened although the church is actually very modern having onl...

Arriving into Moscow from Kiev at just before 0700 gave us time for a bit if a whirlwind dash around the Russian capital city. We had been to Moscow previously in 2008 on a trip that also included a visit to St Petersburg so it was nice not to have to rush and see all the major sights - although we did obviously have to see one or two! Our Hotel was located pretty much adjacent to Moscow's Kievskaja station where we arrived, but being this early in the morning w...