Russia is intriguing. It is a superpower but weak. It has 4,650 active nuclear weapons but is disorganised. It believes in power above all but apart from a few gas pipelines it can not project power outside its central Eurasian sphere. So we went to visit...

In truth our close friend was quite insistent we should visit her homeland and family, which was fortuitous because we really wanted to go. The ILPH (me) was flying Etihad, rather! The hubby was flying Aerofloat and that was where the Russian experience started for him. It was a new perfectly functioning plane it was just the stewards made you feel that they really really did not want the inconvenience of you being there and the inflight enterainment was one shabby newspaper in Russian.

Yes in contrast Etihad was ver nice, they do smile but i too had to fly Aerofloat in the end, all will become clear! We landed at different airports but once all collected we drove to Rzhev, about 3 hours, to stay with our friend and her family. They were all incledably welcoming and made us feel right at home. The highlight was their sauna in the garden. Now this suana experience was like none other. You go into a very hot room, so far so good, but then it starts to get strange when the tree braches come in and you are told to lie down. You are then what i can only describe as whipped with the branches. Next you get out of the suana and have a freezing cold bucket of water tipped over your head. Finally you go into a different, cooler, room and eat saletd fish and drink beer. This whole process is repeated 3 times. Oh and i forgot to mention that whilst in the sauna women have to hear a woolen hat so that you hair does not burn.

Once recovered we got the train to St Petersburg, I had visited once before but was struck again by it beauty and majesty. If you have never been it is worth the visit, there is the hermitage museum, the church of the spilt blood and the museum which has a 2 headed dog! Thank you to our friends brother and her friends for showing us round and even giving up their bedroom for us. The image of Russians as unfriendly is not justified.

So onto Moscow to see the Red Square. The Kremlin is home to a stunning collection of Faberge works of art which being a priceless world masterpiece i was happy to pay a slightly higher entry ticket price to see. However this was all lost on my husband who sat on the steps outside refusing to pay the difference! Moscow is loud, busy and has lots of western shops. Our Russian adventure was coming to an end and we headed to seperate airports to get our seperate airlines back to the UAE, or so we thought. A volcano in Iceland had erupted and Ethihad were not flying, don’t panic maybe one of the other airlines from this airport was flying, Qatar airways no, Emirates no, Trans-Siberian Air no but hold on there is one airline still crazy enough to go against all the flight contol advice . . . yes you guessed it Aeroflot would not be put off by some smoke and ash. The only problem was Aerofloat fly from the airport on the other side of Moscow. Not to be beaten, and with the help of some texts written in Russian from my friend, I navigated a bus, the metro and a taxi to cross the city and get the last available seat. Hurray and for once it meant my husband and i were on the same flight and even got seats next to each other. I have failed to mention the costs of buying a new ticket that were involved in this, if I think about it I may cry!

P.S. never trust Ethihad that they will give you a full refund!

P.S.S. The ILPH created and wrote this post