A lie in – what bliss!! I will be working in Vladivostok on Saturday and Sunday so this is my weekend, you’ve got to take these little snippets while they’re on offer, you know.  A lazy breakfast and I even treat myself to a second cup of tea (which the gits charge me an extra 30p for), then we head out to go to the forests and the dam which adorns the 10 rouble note in Russia.  Bbbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrass Monkeys!!!! It had fallen to -20 overnight and was still around -13 now.  It’s so cold that even Nik gives in and finally buys himself a hat.  I think he’s gone demob happy.

We have the option of an extremely cheap but extremely long bus trip or a protracted negotiation session with a taxi driver to take us on our way.  Given how cold it is, we wuss out and for a remarkably cheap 1000 roubles, Mr Taxi man agrees to take us to the dam and back – result. 

The trip through the outskirts of Krasnoyarsk does nothing to make me think any better of the place, but soon we are out of the city and heading up a river valley on an icy road cutting through thick birch and pine forests.  It’s actually really nice.  We stop off en-route to the dam at a local beauty spot which is where married couples from the city come to have their photos taken.  It’s really nice there with the views of the river and the forests.  All along the railings I notice hundreds of padlocks and ask what it’s all about.  I’m told that this is a Siberian tradition where as long as the lock remains locked, the bond between the couples will remain.  A number of the locks have inscriptions bearing the happy couple’s names.  Quite sweet really.

We head back into the taxi further up the valley to the dam.  Now after the major plus of the earlier beauty spot, Russian reality kicks back in full swing.  We can see the dam and the hydroelectric power station but we can go no further as we are now entering a “closed zone” and the young looking Russian policemen (you know you’re getting old when even foreign policemen look young) let us know in no uncertain terms that we can take a few quick pictures then must make tracks.  It’s freezing anyway and the wind chill makes it seem even colder so we head back to the lovely city. 

Polina has sent us details of where to collect our flight tickets so we decide to go to the travel agents to pick them up then do a tour of the city.

As ever, nothing is straightforward with these things and there have been errors while converting my name from our alphabet to theirs, or the other way round, whatever, we have to wait for it to get sorted so decide to do our tour and come back later.

Mr Taxi man does himself huge credit and takes us to all the sights of Krasnoyarsk.  My earlier impressions of the place are reversed as we go to a Catholic church in the middle of Orthodox Siberia, an old steam paddle boat, up the hills to an Orthodox chapel which again is on the 10 rouble note, I snap away, amazed that I could ever have thought bad things about this place.  We have some great local fish from the river in a nice place where President Putin had once dined, then decide to walk back through town, across the river and to the hotel.

It’s still cold, but the sun is shining and my spirits are lifted.  We even go “extreme” and have an ice cream as I feel sorry for the people in the dozens of ice cream booths dotted around the place, despite it being so blooming cold all round.

We see the final night of our joint venture out with yet more top notch Bloody Marys, say our farewells, arranging to meet again in good old Laandaan town and retire for the evening.