Of all the countries I’ve visited, Russia offers possibly the best free entertainment in terms of people watching. Either Russians are lagging behind other countries in the fashion stakes or – an even scarier thought given the cyclical nature of fashion - this is what we have to look forward to: velour tracksuits, animal print leggings, vibrant red perms and the most ridiculed hairstyle of all time – the mullet.
Sit down at a sidewalk café or take a ride on the Moscow metro and you’ll be blown away by the business up front, party in the back haircut. But it’s worn here without any sense of irony – we’ve spotted it on the heads of trendy Russian teenagers, small children, grown women and even by a groom on his wedding day – and I must say he had a very healthy length at the back. I’m getting a little worried about the future of my locks.
So I’ve spent a happy 10 days people-watching my way from Siberia’s Lake Baikal to the Russian capital Moscow, and up to Russia’s cultural capital St Petersburg. Lake Baikal is the world’s deepest fresh water lake, containing 20 per cent of the world’s fresh unfrozen water - and it’s also possibly the coldest. I know this after stupidly jumping in the water and swimming around for five minutes. I was dared to brave the icy conditions, and I’m not one to pass up a physical challenge. After my core temperature warmed up enough for me to walk and breathe again, we wandered around the town, relaxed in the mountain air and marveled at the sheer size of the lake. It was formed by moving tectonic plates, and is predicted to eventually become the earth’s fifth ocean. From the shore it already looks like the sea.
Armed with an arsenal of 2-minute noodles, we then jumped back onto the train for a three-night train trip to Moscow. There’s only so much looking out a window you can do. At one point I became so bored I ate 15 wasabi-covered peas at one time to see what would happen. Not much, so Damien ate 25 of them to see what would happen. Not much again. We went back to staring aimlessly out the window.
The tiny wooden cottages finally gave way to soviet-style apartment blocks, and then we were in Moscow. Red Square is dominated by the flamboyant onion domes of St Basil’s Cathedral, which looks like it was plucked out of a Disneyland ride and dropped into Russia’s capital. Also on Red Square is Lenin’s Mausoleum, where people queue to catch a glimpse of the Bolshevik leader’s body. I remember studying the Russian revolution in Year 9 at school – but actually seeing Lenin lying on a red velvet platform was quite a jolting experience.
We also caught a performance of Giselle at the Russian ballet, before shooting up to St Petersburg, the cultural capital of Russia, where we wandered through the fantastic Hermitage museum and took a boat trip through the city’s canals.
And St Petersburg is home to Odd Spot number three – the Osama bin Laden matryoshka doll. The terrorist leader has been immortalized in the traditional Russian doll set, which has the figures of other dictators placed inside it. We found this doll sitting next to the George W Bush doll and, strangely, the Harry Potter variety.
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