.....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!.....