....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...