Into Russia (with parsnips)

In Dr Zhivago, Boris Pasternak (or 'Parsnip', in Russian) refers to the Russian custom that before a journey people sit down for a few moments for good luck. Waiting for the train in Helsinki station we sat on our backpacks and pondered what lay in store for us at the other end of the line in Moscow.

We were leaving Finland, with its endless trees and lakes, double windows and ladders on roofs, markets selling berries and peas and kids swigging strong cider in parks, and now heading east to travel the length of its enormous neighbour - Russia.

The Moscow sleeper passes through St Petersburg, tracing the footsteps of Vladimir Illich Ulanov, AKA Lenin, and like everyone’s favourite bearded revolutionary , I enter Russia with excitement mixed with no small measure of trepidation.

This is partly due to my last visit to Russia (a rather miserable affair: cold; wet; the street in which the ‘hotel’ stood was in the process of being demolished; the staff refused to believe we had a vacancy) but also perhaps thanks to the reputation which often precedes this enormous nation.

Ivan the Terrible…the Politburo…food queues…goose-stepping red guards in front of the Kremlin…nuclear Armageddon….the cold war…cabbage soup…

This is a fascinating time to visit Russia; have all these negative images finally been buried? Or does Russia’s new-found wealth (thanks to its enormous oil and gas reserves) pose new concerns to the rest of the world. A resurgent Russia, strong, powerful and keen to flex its muscles.

The mind boggles at how much change people must have seen over the last 15 years or so. Have they really managed to shake off the bad old ways of the past whilst not sacrificing the many wonderful and unique elements of their culture which enrich the rest of the world?

We wait to find out. In the meantime we have certainly noticed that we are entering a very different place from ‘the West’: the Cyrillic alphabet poses new language challenges to us (does this button set off the emergency alarm or flush the toilet?) and the guards’ hats just seem to get better the further east we head - you could eat a Sunday Roast off the top of them, complete with pasternaks.