Turns out Cooter had been up too. We walked to VDNKh market.

Breakfast-->1 pc ham, 1 pc cheese, cinnamon roll, 2x bliny (nasty), kofe.

City tour: 45 min @ Red Square--fuzzy dice pix. Bought 2 matreshki. Tour guide advised us against buying from people on the streets because she would take us to a store with a good selection. It did have an excellent selection, but the prices were astronomical! The 2 matreshki I bought for $20 would have cost $45 and $55! Drive, drive, drive. KGB, University, lots of stuff. Bought bust of Lenin for office at flea market on bridge by University. Saw White House-drove across bridge the tanks were on! Lunch at Hotel Rossiya. Kremlin tour (a bit too long-if you've seen one of the cathedrals, you've seen 'em all). Some stayed to see Tsar's jewels, some went on tour of Metro. Cooter and I went out on our own-Novyj i Staryj Arbat (New & Old Arbat)! Lots of books for sale in Novyj. Staryj had lots of everything. Bought lots of souvenirs. Salt and pepper sets for 20,000 rubles. Shoulda bought more than 2. Oh well. Matreshka chess set. Found it for about $45--best price and nicest set. Still about twice what I wanted to pay, but less than half the price of the one at the Ramstein Xmas tent.

Sat and talked in compartment with Paul, Gerald, Beatrix, Lyudmila and a guy named Vasilij. Cooter was trying to sleep off his hangover in his bunk. Vasilij's brother used to be stationed in the DDR with a SAM brigade near Stendal. Got off the train for a few minutes at Kirov (12:38). Lots of people selling stuff on the platform.

Lunch: first meal we've had that was mostly pretty good. Not that we've had anything really bad, but a lot of weird, unidentifiable stuff. Russia is truly a land of mystery...meat. Anyway, the borshch we had today was pretty good.

Got off the train at Perm' (21:20). Paul went off to take a picture of an old locomotive, and the train left without him. The "Sankt-Peterburg" is 7 minutes behind us. If he gets on it, he'll catch up to us in Ekaterinburg tonight.

Got off at Tyumen' for fuzzy dice pix. Got off again at Ishin. The trade on the railway platforms is fascinating. You see people selling homemade foods in improvised containers or completely without containers. One old lady at Nazyvaevskaya was going up and down the train with a big bowl of poached fish. I saw another lady selling milk in jars and bottles of all types. They were "sealed" with a piece of foil or cellophane held in place with a rubber band. It's the free enterprise system in its rawest form. Several of the Germans in our group keep buying beer from people at the stations. It looks and smells terrible-I haven't been brave enough to try any of it yet. Also got off in Omsk.

We pulled into Novosibirsk at about 3:30 this morning-Cooter and Gerald went out, but I didn't because it was still dark.

All the Russians are fascinated to have a couple of Russian-speaking Americans in their midst. They all ask a lot of questions, but it's nothing too probing.

We stopped at Taiga--didn't get off, but I took a picture of a train hauling tanks; I'll probably get hauled off myself for that. Cooter saw a FOXHOUND flying yesterday evening, but I missed it. I did see a BLINDER on the ground the first day at Sheremet'evo.

We're now in the Taiga, the pine forest.

Now at Angarsk, one hour from Irkutsk--the snow has given way to freezing rain. For the first time on the trip, we're hitting some really rough track. That, combined with the crappy weather, makes it feel like a storm at sea.

Arrived at Irkutsk in a snowstorm! +2°C. One-hour bus ride to Listvyanka--Hotel Bajkal directly on Lake Bajkal. Even in this crappy weather, the lake is beautiful. Took a long, hot shower-I feel wonderful. Except for my legs; after 84 hours on the train, I'm very wobbly.

Drove to the Museum of the Limnological Institute--a rinky-dink little museum about the lake. It was mildly interesting. Then on to the village of Listvyanka. We went inside the church right in the middle of a service. It made me feel very uncomfortable. To top it all off, the weather seems to be getting worse. Meanwhile, I think I feel another cold coming on. I'm taking sudafed, but it might be too late already.

Dinner was good: omul' (local fish) appetizer followed by salmon from Lake Bajkal. Dessert was a bowl of redcurrants, which they assure me will help me get over this cold. I certainly hope so.

Meanwhile, the latest from "Marco Paulo" is that he is on a 3rd-class "hard" train and will arrive in Irkutsk at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. I have his suitcase.

City tour of Irkutsk after checking into Hotel Intourist. Saw newly married couples placing bouquets at the WWII memorial's eternal flame.

Got to play "guess the meat" at both lunch and dinner.

Visited the torgovyj kompleks: flea market, department store, food market and vegetable market. Very interesting. Couldn't find any souvenirs to buy, so decided to get them from the hotel's store, which was closed when we got back. I'll try again in Khabarovsk.

One of the Germans lent me a sweater. Debbie was right!

Got to witness some Russian corruption this morning: Cooter told me that the hotel security guard had brought a prostitute to his room last night, and had been very angry when Cooter sent them away. This morning, the same security guard was distributing money to other staff members in quiet huddles-likely their cut of the take from last night's entrepreneurialship. We've seen a lot of money exchanged in such huddled meetings, especially in the streets of Moscow. It has mostly been unlicensed currency exchanges. The official rate is around 5000 rubles to the dollar, but we found a store in Staryj Arbat that gave us 5025. The black marketeers are said to give better, but your chances of being slipped counterfeit money are greater.

Stopped in Ulan-Ude; got out for a few minutes, but nothing much to see. Food not as good on this train as on "Bajkal."

I forgot to mention that on Sunday we saw a base with about a dozen FENCER on a hardstand. It was maybe 400 yds north of the railway between Petrovsk-Zabajkalskij and Khilok, nearer the latter. We also saw a HIP landing near a building called Dvorets Metallurgov ("Metallurgists' Court"), but I don't remember exactly when or where. Time on the train doesn't hold much meaning for us.

We reach Khabarovsk tonight. The "intestinal complaint" I anticipated has been with me all day, but it's not too bad. I'll drink lots of mineral water tonight at the hotel.

We're in the Jewish Autonomous Region now-pulled into Bira; interestingly, the sign was written in both Russian and Hebrew. Same thing at Birobidzhan.

City tour: Khabarovsk is a wonderful city, not nearly as in-your-face Russian as Moscow. Saw very nice WWII monument and the market. The latter was not as large as Irkutsk's, but it seemed to offer more. I could live here easily: the Amur River is right next to our hotel, and the TsPKO (Tsentral'nyj Park Kul'tury i Otdykha - "Central Park of Culture and Relaxation") is too. Walked in park and sat on Ploshchad' Komsomolya ("Komsomol Square") with Cooter and Gerald for some beer and girl-watching (mini-skirts are "in" in Khabarovsk!).

After a lunch of mystery foods, we took a cruise on the Amur River. Khabarovsk is a very nice city, and I would love to go back there sometime.

Arrived in Vladivostok at 0900--beautiful train station in nautical style. (In fact, almost everything in Vladivostok has an anchor or something sea-related on it). Bus to Gostinitsa (Hotel) Vladivostok. This is not an Intourist hotel, and it shows. Vladivostok was a closed city until recently, and there are very few facilities for Western tourists. Meanwhile, the Japanese and Koreans are everywhere!

Breakfast was followed by a quick shower, then it was off for a city tour. Not nearly as pretty as Khabarovsk, but still a few things of merit: old fortress, submarine museum, port (saw two guided missile frigates, one cruiser and a recce ship).

After an excellent lunch that Debbie would have hated (squid stuffed with mushrooms, and cube steak), we were given a few hours' free time. Cooter, Gerald and I decided that a nap would be the best way to spend the first hour, so that's what we did. Then we set out for the market district. After walking around and shopping for a while (Gerald wanted some Ginseng essence), we learned that a pro-Yeltsin concert was about to start at the stadium. We walked down toward the stadium and looked around for a while. Thousands of people were flocking into the stadium. More interestingly, a few people were walking around with anti-Yeltsin signs and pamphlets. I guess they're making some progress towards real democracy. Came back to the hotel to wait for the rest of the group to go to dinner. While we sat in the lobby, a young man with long, dark hair walked through the lobby and out into the parking lot. It was Filipp Kirkorov, a singer whom I had seen on an MTV-type program in the Pekin-Bar in Irkutsk. A security guard was nice enough to give me the singer's autograph.

They're real jerks about baggage weight. You're allowed a total of 20 kilos, including carry-on. Needless to say, many people went over and had to pay 15,000 rubles per extra kilo. Cooter and I were, fortunately, under our weight.

We took off (another Boeing 757) more or less on time. Miraculously, no one ever asked about the 60,000-ruble airport tax, so we will go souvenir shopping when we get to Moscow (time permitting).

Arrived in Moscow on time, where bus was already waiting to take us to the hotel. Checked in and put our stuff away. Gerald, Paul, Cooter and I met in the lobby at 5:45 p.m. to head into town. The Moscow Metropoliten is a very fast and efficient subway system. You can travel anywhere in town for 1500 rubles (30¢!). I found it very easy to use, as everything was so clearly marked--even better than the London tube! The one thing that made me nervous was all the looong wooden escalators. I couldn't help thinking of the King's Cross fire. Anyway, we made it to Arbatskaya without any problems. At Staryj Arbat, our two German friends went absolutely crazy. It is, without a doubt, the best souvenir shopping to be had in Moscow, and probably in all of Rossiya. (After my 1998 trip, I changed my mind on this issue. Click HERE to read my revised opinion--MRB.) Gerald bought a beautiful tea set consisting of a samovar, teapot and tray for 567,000 rubles. Paul bought several expensive matreshki. My purchases were far more modest: another salt-and-pepper set and five small matreshki. All I had left was 100,000 rubles, and my goal was to get rid of all of them. Cooter, meanwhile, spent all his time trying to sell some old blue jeans and t-shirts.

We made it back to the hotel (Kosmos again, by the way) in time for our 9:00 supper. Immediately afterwards, I went upstairs, took a shower, and went to bed. I was awakened three times by various girls offering "seks-programma." I politely declined each offer.