My trip to Russia

33.000km, 22cities, 250million people, one hell of a time

St. Petersburg.

'Every man is the son of a woman.' - Russian proverb

Unless you've trekked across Africa from north to south, sailed halfway around the world, or crossed the Arctic on food, you can not begin to imagine the size of Russia.

From June 24 until August 7 1999 I was on holiday, traveling through Poland, Belarus and Russia, I mastered close to 33,000km going places like Murmansk, Sochi, Vladivostok, but of course also Moscow or St. Petersburg. It definitely was a trip of a lifetime and I did have the time of my life. Meeting a bunch interesting people, shooting some 1500 pictures and basically learning a lot about humanity and Russians particularly. In short, it was great.

The one thing I realized during my trip was, that although at first its not easy to see, but that where you are now, just like anywhere else, people live, love, work, play, are inspired, hate, kill, steal, die, just like anywhere else. Although you might not think it, the whole world is one. Different but equal.

'To speak is lead, to work is gold.' - Soviet wisdom

This website is something of a travelogue, showing some of the pictures I took, telling stories of the beauty I encountered, the things I saw and the people I did. Or something. Of course, I didn't arrange my trip in one afternoon, although the truth is pretty close. You can read what I had to do before setting sail in the What happened before page. You might be surprised at what the whole trip cost me. Less then $2000 all in all! How did I do that? You might ask. Well, traveling in Russia is quite cheap. You can see what cost me how much on the At what cost? page. And if you want to know a bit more about myself, check this page out.

Its that bald guy with the goatee! It's difficult to see, but just above Lenin's head, there's a yellow sticker with the text 'Free Kevin'. This relates to Kevin Mitnick, the American hacker who got sentenced to five years imprisonment and was released in January 2000.

You can walk through my trip, all 22 stops, with four cities honored with a double visit, by clicking on any of the cities in the navigation on the top or bottom of your screen. Have fun. If you want to start at the beginning, go to Amsterdam

More on the web

Sources