Moscow

Vlad took us to an underground shopping centre very near Red Square. I was amazed at the quality of the building, it's all very new but the whole thing is made of granite and marble and looks spectacular for a shopping centre. The underground Metro stations here were also magnificent and extremely well ventilated, the two Russian guides could not be convinced when I tried to explain how crap London underground is in comparison.

Had a look inside St Basils, this was build for Ivan The Terrible. Legend has it that upon completion he asked the architect whether he could produce anything more beautiful, the architect natuarly said yes so Ivan had his eyes stabbed out so that he could not!! A little harsh in my opinion but then he was terrible.

Having explored the inside of St Basils which has many small rooms inside and thin passage ways between them and is still in need of some restoration we headed over to Statue Park.

This hosts some sculptures of past days including the founder of the KGB, Lenin and Stalin as well as some more modern pieces.

Having met up with Vlad's mate Deniel, who Vlad described as a good lad who drinks like a horse, we took a boat ride down the Moskva River, there was torrential rain so couldn't see much, There was a bar though and Vlad and Deniel decided to get some very large vodkas in, by the time we got off the boat we'd had the equivelnt of 12 English shots. During the conversation Vlad talked about a Russian game where you drink many glasses of different sizes and then stand on one leg, the glasses make up about two litres of vodka, this scared me a little as Vlad seemed up for a drink that night.

Sure enough upon returning to the hotel we bought another half litre of the clear stuff and got tucked into some fast paced downing. This went on until Vlad a was sick!! Excellent. Just to rub salt into the wounds I poured him another when he returned from the bathroom and that just made him sick again. So it has been proved that a non Russian can indeed drink one under the table. (Sorry Vlad if you are reading this).