.....Stayed in Vilnius for two nights.....We were tourists for the day!...It was scorching hot.....We visited a holy relic.....I drank some beer in the shade......Saw a bit of the Olympic Opening Ceremony on TV.....Wandered around the Old Town.....It's a very beautiful city.....

...part of the holy relic...

.....Then on Sunday we got up early......5am....The bike was packed and we were on the road before 6am.....destination Augustow in Poland 135 miles away......We were there by about 10am, and had the tent up on a campsite (£2) next to a crystal clear lake by 11am....Spent the day being holidaymakers.....swimming, then going to the bar, swimming, then going to the bar......until the scorchio weather stopped and the thunderstorm came......By the morning we were the only campers left!......

...Changing money at the Polish border...

..We were on the road again by 6am but it was not quiet Sunday!....Instead it was Lorry Monday.....We're sort of on the way to Krakow but we've veered off to the east to Bialowieza on the border of Belarus where Ruth is keen to see the Bialowieski National Park......It is one of the last remaining areas of Primeval Forest in Europe and is also home to bison...although so far I have only seen large plastic ones adorning the bars and cafes of the district.....

...Lots of Storks nests on the road...

...Google Translate??...

.....Getting out of Russia wasn't too hard.....We filled up the tank and the jerry can before leaving Russia.....I'll miss the 58p a litre fuel.....It took us about an hour to get out of Russia and a similar length of time to get into Latvia...

...4 mile queue of lorries at the Russian border...

...After the crossing we drove another 70 or so miles before finding a lovely lake to camp beside....The next morning went for a swim in the lake before setting off to the Latvian town of Daugavpils for breakfast....

....camping by the lake....

....Yesterday was been the hottest day of the trip so far.....It was well over 40 degrees and although we only had 150 miles to cover, it was a long day.....We were heading for Vilnius in Lithuania....but about 10 miles before we arrived, the rear tyre blew doing about 40.....fortunately kept the bike upright and soon had it parked in the shade....Took the wheel off and headed to a Yamaha dealer I could see in the distance.....I thought about doing it myself but this time, as it was getting late I fancied a bit of help.....Soon had the Dunlop off and the new T63 on.....Me & Ruth got it back on the bike in (our) record time and then we headed into town.....It took us about 40 minutes to find a hostel....saw a bit of the Olympic Opening Ceremony on TV! with Lithuanian Commentary!.....

...Quick Update!....Bike now running well minus starter motor...so it's push start or kick start from now on!....


...Last night was the first meeting of the Moscow Chapter MT Riders!....It consisted of me & Ruth and Pavel & Anton, both of whom live in Moscow, both have MT350's bought from LMS....At the meet at Honky Tonk We were surrounded by Hell's Angels, Biker Brothers, Night Wolves and a few other assorted gang members....You could see they had MT envy.....

....MR Riders Moscow....

...Ruth & I were really looking forward to an early start....We were up at 5, the bike was packed by 6....Then Dmitry sent a text to say that a Goodbye breakfast was being prepared at the Honky Tonk bar for us.....I still haven't mastered kick starting the bike.....Last night Pavel lent us a rear footpeg....I'd fitted Ade's brilliant big ones but sadly they get in the way trying to kickstart........Despite the new footpeg, I was struggling so it was time for a pushstart...


...Moscow clearly wasn't ready for us to leave and decided to deal another hand.....With Ruth pushing, I was just a bit too enthusiastic putting the bike into gear and I snapped the end off the gear lever!....F***!.....So off I went on foot with my gear lever, still wearing my leathers in the Moscow heat to find a welder....I tried a few places but most were still shut (it was about 7:30am)....Eventually found a place and got it welded up (another story!)....back to the bike, managed to kick start it then off we went.....

....Ruth tries out a comfier bike....

...Garmin managed to get us out of Moscow.....I can't say I enjoyed it....Getting into the 6th lane of a highway 2-up with baggage on an MT350 to take a left hand fork....It's a dangerous city to ride in and I was glad as the countryside started to take over after about 30 or 40 miles...The road wasn't quite as bad as had been suggested but it had it's moments....


..I think we were both glad to leave Moscow and we made our longest day's ride of the trip so far of 249 miles....We'd have carried on had Ruth not been stung by a bee on her hand....So we turned round and headed for a motel we'd seen a mile or so back....Which is where we are now....900 roubles for the night (£18)...Sorted!....


...Only 157 miles to the Latvian border in the morning....

....Moscow's a tough city to ride in.....As you enter the city the roads widen to about 6 lanes.....You've got to be so on your guard.....Was nearly sideswiped by a new Range Rover at one point and had to cross several lanes as we approached Red Square....I was using Garmin to direct us to Dubrovka Metro from where we had to send an SMS to out contact Maxim....Half an hour later his business partner Dmitry turned up on a Harley chopper to escort us to the "Night Train" Biker Hotel....We soon settled in before being treated to a fine meal in the Night Train restaurant.....There were about 100 bikers there, mainly on Harleys (but not MT's!)....

...The current state of the bike....

....That was Friday and now it's Sunday!!....We are currently broken down in Moscow with only seven days left on our visa!....So it's time to sort out an extension on the visa as the bike could take some time to repair....We're not quite sure what the problem is but we can't get it to fire....Yestaerday we checked the valves which were out and got compression back to the engine...THe carb has now been stripped and rebuilt twice....so the next thing to work on is the electrics....However in working on the bike, The starter is now making the bike clunk a bit!....not a good sign.....
...Fortunately we're in the good hands of our friend Maxim and his business partner Dmitry....Together they own the biker Motel that we're stopping at....Maxim also owns the custom bike shop where the bike is currently under repair....One bit of good news is the spare tyres sent by Huw Lewis Tyres of Aberystwyth have been located in a Parcelforce garage in Moscow so if we get the bike going then we've got tyres for the journey home....
....Last night an Angel in the shape of Pavel appeared at the "Night Train" Biker bar....He's possibly one of only two owners of an MT350 in Moscow....He has a Desert bike which he bought from LMS some time ago.....Fortunately he has a second half bike from which we will borrow some elecrics to hopefully sort the problem....Meantime we need to sort out an extension to our visa....

....Monument to Yuri Gagarin....

...Having upto now never required the assistance of a British Embassy or Consulate abroard (me, not Ruth), We wandered down to the British Embassy yesterday (Saturday) to find it closed at weekends (Phone a helpline in London for emergencies!).....(outside the embassy is a bronze statue of Sherlock Holmes & Doctor Watson).....so we went for breakfast at a local eatery and instead met the Belgian Ambassador to Moscow who keeps his Embassy open all hours in case of emergencies for his citizen!....
...Anyway Dmitry knows someone who can help us with our visa so we're hopeful that we can get an extension to our visa long enough to fix the bike....

...Everybody rubs the dog's nose...

...So today we've had a great day in the heat of Moscow.....The metro is 10 minutes walk from "Night Train" so we travelled to Metro Ploschad Revolution (Revolution Square).....The underground was the most beautiful and elaborately decorated I have ever seen with beautiful bronzes on every corner...It is truly stunning.....We walked up into Red Square, and queued to see the Lenin Mausoleum..... Last year I tried to visit Lenin but he was closed on Mondays.....Fortunately he was open on Sundays....
....I found it very special.....After security checks (No cameras / Mobile phones) you walk along the wall of the Kremlin...The bit you normally cannot see from Red Square as it is hidden by the seating for the Generals for the Mayday parade.....You go past lots of memorials before entering the mausoleum through the front door.....It's very dark inside and you go down some steps  and through another door into the dark tomb...The whole room is built of polished black granite with a kind of zigzag effect in Red Granite around the ceiling....
....Lenin was housed in a large glass & bronze casket his hands and face are eerily lit in the darkness....There was a peace to the place, very silent compared to the outside bustle of Moscow.
....As you exit the tomb, you are leave via a line of statues of former soviet leaders including Breshnev & Stalin....I think that these are their graves but I am not sure....Stalins had some flowers on it, Brezhnev's did not.... 

...Changing of The Guard atThe Tomb of The Unknown Soldier...

.....I've wanted to visit Novgorod for about 25 years and finally I'm here! and not at all disappointed!....In addition to being one of the most ancient cities in Russia, Novgorod holds the esteemed title of being a twin town to Watford which is where I was student of Printing all those years ago!.....I used to think Watford was a bit greedy in the twin town department as it was twinned with at least five towns (maybe the councillors got to go on jollys) but Novgorod was the only one that stuck out for me....After I finished my degree, I managed to avoid entering real employment for a further year by being elected sabattical president of the Students Union....It was a great year but I failed in my attempts to organise an exchange trip with some students of Novgorod University....

....Anyway, here we are, we arrived yesterday afternoon after a 125 mile ride from St Petersburg....Getting out of St Peterburg took about an hour before we were on the Moscow Highway which seems to have driving laws of it's own....When we arrived here we met Micha, a couchsurfer, an ex-hairdresser turned mechanic.....Micha lives on the eighth floor of a towerblock and has an LPG conversion Lada with electric windows and central locking but dreams of owning a vintage Volga....He also has a small garage about a mile away where we locked the bike last night......

....Last night Micha took us for a walk to see The Novgorod Kremlin.....which was stunningly beautiful....a walled fortress housing several churches, one of the most beautiful monuments I have ever seen....Built to celebrate 1,000 years of Novgorod back in the 1,800's....The Nazis liked it so much that they dismantled it to take it to Berlin during the war but it never left the city and was reconstructed soon after.....Novgorod is very clean, no grafitti and no litter, It has a fine statue of Lenin in the square outside The Kremlin and has a very grand local Govenment building built in Soviet times overlooking the square......
....This morning we visited an ancient monestary which thankfully was a happier place than the one on Solvetsky Island.....

Then this afternoon I sweated over the bike....It got a bit uncomfortable as I ended up being surrounded by a bunch of Russians telling me what to do and prodding the bike!.....Had the carb off, cleaned it, used a compressor on it.....put it back on and the bike ran then stalled!.....bugger!...Probably back to square one with it's running issue!....


While I was at it, I did an oil change and topped up the front brake fluid....Tomorrow onward bound towards Moscow!.....I'm starting to feel a bit restless here!.....

.....This is now our 4th day in St Petersburg....On our first day we went for a wander around the city visiting Peter & Paul Island, Revolution Square, The Church of the Spilled Blood (built on the spot where Alexander II was murdered) and the Hermitage (what can i say!...lots of pots & pictures!)......

.....The next day was great....Took the metro to Lenin Square......saw his Statue...met with our Russian teacher from Russia/Aberystwyth who was also in town on holiday.....She then took us to see the train which brought Lenin to Russia at the start of the Revolution........

......Then met Irina, a couchsurfer from Leningrad who took us out to Kronstadt, an old military base/fortress where we met Maxim, a local dude who showed us around some of the hidden sights on the island including Peter I's dry ship dock (quite a technical wonder considering it's age, some nuclear submarines (from a distance!), some of the Russian baltic fleet (close-up) the place of the "first ever" Radio transmission (Yes I thought it was Marconi too, the Russians say otherwise!), a suicide cemetery and of course a statue of Lenin........A dyke now exists to the island so took a bus & metro back to town......

....Yesterday I went for a ride around town and visited Harley-Davidsom St Petersburg who were like must Russians we meet, very welcoming......

....Just had two wonderfully exhilarating days getting to St Peterburg.....Set off from Petrozavodsk yesterday in the rain....But it was hot which made the daily game of "dodge the pothole in the town" even more scary as my goggles were steamed up even before we set off!....After 20 miles on the highway, we turned off to follow the 260 mile road around Lake Ladoga.....Much of the road yesterday was new highway and a simple pleasure to ride....Soon it was sunny and remained like that nearly all the day....At one point we followed a sign to a memorial.....

....It was a very sad place, My Russian was not good enough to understand but I had the feeling that it was a mass grave and the site of a wartime massacre....There were old relics of life and war on the graves including horseshoes, helmets, bullets and gasmasks....It rained while we were there.....Afterwards we rode into the town of Sortavala, not far from the Finnish Border. There we met two Russian guys on 250 Honda XR's. We'd heard about a beautiful canyon close by so we rode upto the canyon with them and hired a rowing boat....One of the Russians rowed.....It was very beautiful.....an old granite quarry, now filled with water and hosting bungee jumps etc.....

Afterwards, we headed back to town, had a meal and searched for somewhere to make camp.....We found a lovely village by a lake where we pitche the tent....Lots of village kids visited us as did the local dogs!....

Todays road was not so luxurious....It started with nearly 40k of corrugated gravel....Because of the discomfort 2-up with all the luggage, we rode on the muddy hard shoulder whenever possible....I was wishing for a new T63 at this point instead of my new Dunlop racing tyre which does a good job on the road but not so good off road!....Whenever there was a town or village, there would be a little bit of tarmac.....At one of these I got so excited, went yippeee!, opened the throttle and was then promptly stopped by the local Police for speeding....59kmh in a 40 kmh area.....He looked over the bike for a few moments then let us on our way....Wow!
The road got better and busier as we approached St Petersburg....Once again we were chased by a pack of dogs....It happens almost daily!..... 
....Riding into St Petersburg was great.....We rode right into the centre before looking for our appartment....We're renting a room from a family member of our Russian teacher....We've landed and it's going to be great spending a few days here now....

....After a lovely night in a cabin by the second largest lake in Europe, we blasted south 100 miles.....managed in in just over 2 hours.....the highway was fairly new and it wasn't until we were in town that we had to play the daily game of dodge the pothole......The weather was perfect again.....high 20's, crystal clear blue skies, sunglasses on all the way......
...We got to Petrozavodsk (Peter's factory) .....The second city built by Peter the Great (The first being St Petersburg) ...... It's a fantastic town, on the shores of Lake Onega (the same lake as the previous night 100 miles away)......
....Not many motorcyclists on the road.....sometimes I'm amazed by the suicidal nature of some of the drivers.....finally got a haircut yesterday......much needed in the heat here (i've heard mention of rain in the UK)......
.....In Petrozavodsk, we're stopping with a couchsurfer, Nikita, an English teacher who spent some time showing us around the sights including the largest remaining statue of Lenin in North West Russia, the entrance to a nuclear bunker, and Peter's Factory.....which last turned out a tractor in 1990.....
.....We've got 2 more days here before the long 260 mile drive to St Petersburg.......

....Crazy few days!.....The haircut never materialized but I managed to get some antibiotics over (or under!) the counter to deal with my toothache...Visited the now retired nuclear powered icebreaker LENIN which is one of the few "visitor" attractions in Murmansk...It was pretty interesting although the guide who could speak good English decided not to do so and conducted the whole tour in Russian....The visit ended with us being sat in a room and subjected to a propoganda film in Russian explaining the joys of nuclear power!...Then visited the Murmansk State museum which had it's interesting moments....
....We were glad to finally leave Murmansk...Our new friend Igor wanted us to stop another week there and go into the hills with him at the weekend on his quad bike (a Rotax CCM) but we just had to go!....Our first day heading south took us about 150 miles to Kandalaksha...We went straight to the port to see if it was possible to get a ship to Archangelsk....Nyet!...so pretty knackered, we headed into town to find a hotel... 
....Just as Ruth was checking out the second hotel (the one next to the war memorial made out of an old tank), I was approached by Olga, a lady offering us a room on the Kola Peninsula....It sounded good so we followed her car for 25km and ended up at a beautiful wooden house on the shores of the White Sea.....It was lovely...Dinner was soon on the table....lots of vodka flowed and we had a great night.....It was nice to be in Russia and not worry about locking up the bike....

...The following day was gruelling.....229 miles south...The road was hard...and just didn't exist in parts....there was about 30 miles of dug up road to navigate which I find quite hard 2-up with all the luggage...We met quite a few bikers heading north to a festival in Murmansk....Getting south of the Arctic Circle was the highlight of the day...We stopped to take photos and have a coffee....We were both a bit sleepy by the end of the day....
....Yesterday we decided to get the boat (minus the bike) to the Solvetsky Islands in the white sea where there is an old Russian Orthodox Monastery.....To be honest it was all a bit of an anticlimax (read s**t!)....At one point it had been used as a gulag but revived as a monastery during Peristroika....Despite the revival, the monks all looked really miserable as did all the faces in the icons....The highlight of the day was the boat journey by far!....Despite there being quite a few tourists on the boat, no information is made available in English....They're really missing out there on coining it in!....
...The Dunlop Arrowmax is doing it's job well so far.....

.....Today 172 miles south to Medvegjorsk....Blue skies all day, liner out of the jacket,....only about 10 miles without road, the rest of the road was great.....arrived in the town.....Checked out the first hotel (again next to a war memorial made out of a tank)....went onto the the next which is a cabin by a lake.....had a swim, sorted....internet sorted and made plans for the days ahead.......