Lenin giving a speech at Finland Station, St Petersburg

When we finally arrived off the train at Moscow, we were met by our driver from the hostel, Alexei. He drove us for what seemed like forever but was in fact only about 45 minutes, to the hostel. I remember quite clearly the moment we emerged from Yaroslav Station. There were two other stations in the immediate vicinity, Leningrad and Kazan, and after a week of small towns in Siberia, the impression Moscow made on us was instantaneous due to its monumental architecture. We arrived at the hostel and checked in. Although we had arranged to meet up with Udo, Berndt, Bettina and Eva, we were too tired by the time we got our passports back to even consider going into town; luckily, we met an Israeli guy in the next room who offered to feed us. To the great amusement of the Russian and Ukrainian women using the kitchen, we prepared delicious spaghetti and after stuffing ourselves, went to sleep.

The next morning we got up, made coffee and caught the metro into town. Although we were actually twelve kilometres from the city centre, in Moscow this is not a problem, as the metro is fabulously efficient - in our three days in the city we never once had to wait more than a couple of minutes for a train, and often just walked on to the platform and straight onto the train. Within twenty minutes of leaving our room, we were in Kitay-Gorod in the centre of the city, a short walk from the legendary Red Square.

En route to the Red Square, we3 came behind the hotel Rossia, the largest hotel in Europe with over 5000 beds. Behind the hotel are several churches in the classic Russian-Orthodox style brightly coloured onion-dome picture-perfect style - beautiful. But even this could not prepare us for St Basil's Cathedral, the picture that everyone has of Red Square, and as Lonely Planet puts it, the single building that says Russia more than any other. With its multiple domes, each painted in a different combination of colours, each at a slightly different height and each subtly different in design, it could have been a disastrous hotchpotch, but instead it worked out to be a wondrous whole, simply one of the most amazing buildings I've ever seen. Legend has it that after it was completed, the tsar had the architect who designed it blinded so that he could never again build anything quite so beautiful. Combine that with the stark historicity of the walls of the Kremlin as the backdrop and you have an opportunity to bust the budget by taking too many photos, which inevitably Veronika did.

St Basil's Cathedral, Red Square

Red Square itself is vast, and surrounded by beautiful buildings - a church here, the Kremlin there, some administrative buildings presumably requisitioned in Soviet times from their previous imperial purposes and the legendary GUM, Gozudarstvenniy Univerzalny Magazin, or National Universal Shop to give it its slightly more prosaic English title. Intended to be the showcase of everything that was right in the Soviet wonderland, it ended up being a paradigm of all that was wrong with the communist system - until perestroika it was beautiful but barren, with most of the shops empty. Now it is the paradigm of all that is wrong with the new Russia - the architecture is still delightful, the shops are almost exclusively western-owned or stocked, and the prices are high by even Western standards, so that the vast majority of the people of Moscow cannot afford to buy anything there at all, and most of those who can only do so because they've made illicit fortunes in the chaos; perhaps some of them have made money legitimately, but it seems somehow unlikely.

Having failed to meet up with Simon et al on the previous evening, we were delighted to find them in GUM, and readily agreed to wander around with them for the day. As we were standing inside GUM admiring the scene and discussing our plans, a babushka came up and harangued us; at first we weren't quite sure what she was saying, but it eventually emerged that she was giving us a hard time along the lines of "It's all very well for you to come here and see things and say how beautiful it all is, but we can't afford to buy anything and it's all your fault. If that's democracy for you, you can keep it. Go home." Not the last of our memorable encounters with babushkas.

Leaving GUM, we wandered more or less aimlessly around town oohing and aahing at the gorgeous architecture and stopping for some of the more famous sights (the Bolshoi, the Marx statue (Karl that is, not Groucho etc) before heading in to the Hotel Metropol for a cup of coffee. At least that was the original plan until we saw the prices, at which point Veronika and myself opted to stay out of the indulgence of paying $5 for an espresso, or even more farcical, $5 for a pot of tea made with the tea bag still sticking out of the pot. The surroundings were beautiful though, although they became a bit annoyed with us traipsing through the stunning restaurant (needless to say, at $50 a head, we didn't eat there) to the toilets, so that by the time it was my turn to go, we were shunted off to the scaffy toilets at the other side of the hotel 8-(

By this stage we were becoming a bit confused as to why half the roads were closed to traffic and why there were so many people on the streets and so many performances going on - surely this couldn't be a normal Saturday afternoon in Moscow? We soon saw a banner draped across the street informing us that we had lucked out in stumbling upon City Day, allegedly the anniversary of the founding of Moscow 853 years ago. The party had supposedly been toned down a little after the Kursk disaster, although the powers that be still took it seriously enough to charter half a dozen planes to seed the clouds around the city to ensure that the weather was good for the party (at a cost of some $300,000 according to the Moscow Times), also thereby ensuring that the people around Moscow had a wet and dreary Saturday.

We wandered up Tverskaya Ulitsa, the shopping heart of Moscow (GUM notwithstanding), which had become one large party zone. After fighting (fortunately not literally - everyone seemed to be in a good mood and determined to have a good time) our way through the crowds, we made it to Pushkin Square, where we ate baked potatoes and rested for a short while. We then split up, with Udo and Berndt heading off for some pivo while the rest of us aimed to go to the Kremlin. After a pleasant walk there, we were gruffly informed by the surly guard (in stark contrast to the vast majority of Russians we met, who were extremely helpful and friendly) shoved us away distastefully, implying by his look that if it were up to him we would not be allowed to sully the Kremlin with our filthy presence (it was quite an expressive look), and saying merely "Closed". Slightly disappointed, we opted instead to go in search of a church, and lo and behold one appeared around the next corner. This turned out to be a newly constructed church (only completed in 1997), a pet project of the Mitterandesque mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, stunning, gaudy, indulgent, beautiful, excessive, immense, opulent and unnecessary are just some of the adjectives that spring to mind. There was a service going on was we went inside, so we had an opportunity to hear some gorgeous Russian Orthodox music as well as gawp at the frescoes.

Next stop was the ridiculous Peter the Great monument, an absurd statue of an indistinct figure supposedly representing the man Peter on top of a boat, which seemed to be perched acrobat-like on a series of other boats in an unwieldy fashion.

After that we eventually found the sculpture park, which truth be told was a bit of a let-down. I'd been looking for more of a sculpture graveyard, with hundreds of statues in various stages of decay and rust lying haphazardly about; instead it was a genuine sculpture park, with only a few Lenins providing photo ops. There was however a moving monument to the victims of totalitarianism in the form of a Stalin surrounded by human figures, with a huge mound of heads in a barbed wire cage. You had to be there really.

Mosaic at Finland Station, St Petersburg

By this stage we were running late for our rendezvous with Berndt and Ude, so we hopped in a taxi and headed off for a baked potato. We tried to go to the toilets in McDonalds, a tried and tested technique for finding clean loos anywhere in the world, but the queues for the women's toilet were ridiculous; the men's was not so bad - I was in and out in five minutes, but the girls gave up. Eventually Udo and Berndt turned up, and we joined the crowds watching the drag-queen street entertainment. After they finished, a band came on and before I knew quite what was happening, we were approached by a slightly drunken babushka who was keen to communicate. At first we thought she was begging, so we offered her a few roubles which she refused. Then we thought maybe she wanted a cigarette, which we also offered, but she refused. Finally her goal became clear, after much confusion, smiling and "Nie razumayu": she wanted to dance. Much to the amusement of the young locals, Udo and I took it in turns to dance with her to a series of Russian folk-rock/traditional songs. I tell you this - for an apparently frail looking old lady, she had a grip like a vice, and on more than one occasion nearly broke my finger. After a couple of hours of partying with the locals we reluctantly had to leave as we had to catch a train back to our hostel.

The next day we had arranged to meet Eva and Bettina outside the entrance to the Kremlin, which was this time open. On Sunday though, Luzhkov had failed to charter cloud-seeding aircraft, and so the heavens opened and it was cold and wet. We waited for a while for E & B to show, but then decided to go on into the Kremlin and find them there. The Kremlin is a prime example of the Russian system of foreigner pricing - Russians pay 25 roubles to get in, foreigners 250. Fortunately, students get half-price, so our dubiously acquired student cards came in very handy, saving us ten dollars each on the Kremlin visit alone. The Kremlin is a beautiful, historically important place, full of stories and vignettes better described elsewhere. Unfortunately much of it is closed off to visitors (unsurprisingly, since it is the seat of government of Russia), and it also has, for instance, the world's largest bell, which was never actually rung, as a chunk fell off when they were trying to cool it down after it had been cast.

The Winter Palace, home of the Hermitage

On a separate entrance ticket was the Armoury exhibition, Moscow's smaller but just as opulent answer to the Hermitage collection of St Petersburg. The highlight for me was the collection of 16th-18th century carriages from England, France and Germany as well as Russia, as it was something different. We also saw the crown of Monomakh, which was used to crown all the rulers of Russia until one of the Peters (I can't remember which one) and the throne of Ivan the Terrible.

Next day was the turn of the Novo Devichnnaya Monastery, which was a bit of a disappointment. Only after we'd paid to get in (luckily, student discount again) did we find that almost all of the buildings in the complex were closed for renovation, due to bad weather or because of the wrong phase of the moon. It was pleasant enough wandering around the grounds, but somehow I'd expected more. Next door was a cemetery, the second most prestigious in Moscow after the walls of the Kremlin, and home to numerous dignitaries. We tried to find Chekhov, but failed, but did find Gogol and Andrei Gromyko, as well as an inordinate number of Generals, Admirals and Professors. By this stage it was pouring with rain, and we decided to head back into town. On returning to Red Square we gave into temptation and decided to pay to visit St Basil's Cathedral. The inside is almost as impressive as the outside, a mazy warren of old brickwork and plaster walls painted in rich frescoes, some dating back to the fifteenth century - wonderful stuff.

We had another baked potato (apart from street food, (Moscow is an obscenely expensive city to eat in) and wandered back to the hostel, where we waited for our train to St Petersburg. We made it to the train, slept the night through, and woke up the next morning on the outskirts of the city on the Neva.

Getting to the hostel was simple enough, as the St Petersburg metro system is almost as efficient as the one in Moscow, but since we had arrived in rush hour, we had to stand all the way, not an easy task when you have to balance heavy backpacks. We checked into our room, which was unusually spacious, and headed out into town. First stop was the famous Finland Station, where Lenin returned from exile to launch the revolution, and which is still home to one of the few Lenin statues which have not been removed from their plinths. We then caught a train to the equally well-known Nevsky Prospekt, perhaps the most famous street in Russia. It is a bustling, lively, extremely crowded street, thronging with new Russians eager to spend their (largely) ill-gotten gains and in a constant state of flux due to the incessant renovation programme intended to beautify Russia's window on the west.

St Petersburg is a city designed to impress, built on a grand monumental scale. This is fine and makes for a very attractive cityscape, but it also means that it's a very tiring city to visit on foot, as the distances tend to be large. It's also a very expensive city, one where we couldn't afford to eat out - all the restaurants are aimed at affluent Russians and free-spending tourists, since ordinary Russians can't afford to eat out. This means that even a simple restaurant costs $15 per head. Consequently, we ate in sandwich bars (Minutka, which was originally opened in partnership with the American firm Subway; their Russian partners basically ripped them off and continued trading themselves).

Our first stop was the beautiful Anichkov Palace. Previously the home of (among others) Catherine the Great's lover Potyomkin), in 1935 it was converted into the headquarters of the city's Pioneer Club, a role it maintains to this day. It retains an extraordinary elegance and opulence, despite years of Soviet neglect, all glitzy chandeliers and beautiful marble. Most of the building is closed off to the public, but the friendly doorman switched on the lights for us to take pictures, and the even more friendly lady guarding the staircase, after telling us that we couldn't go inside, took us into a couple of rooms, normally locked, decorated with stunning paintings representing stories by Gorky and Pushkin. Despite some of the scare stories we'd heard, most Russians proved to be extremely helpful and friendly.

We continued along Nevsky Proskpekt, stopping for the obligatory photographs at the statue of Catherine the Great before reaching Gostinny Dvor, one of the oldest indoor shopping centres in the world, and lined with beautiful arcades. It now houses the inevitable luxurious, expensive shops, including the incongruous sight of an extremely upmarket cigar shop which also sold dodgy-looking hookahs.

Just along from Gostinny Dvor is the magnificent Kazan Cathedral, whose semi-circular colonnaded arms reach out to the main street. The original plan was to build a mirror image on the other side of the street, but this was never brought to fruition. In a classic Soviet-era move, the cathedral was converted into a Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism.

Continuing our slow progress towards the legendary Hermitage, we explored some of the city's many canals, lined with beautiful grand very European buildings. Suddenly, we came across the arches giving out on to the Winter Palace, home of the Hermitage Museum. This building is vast, over a hundred metres on each side, with over a thousand rooms. Fortunately, we had student cards, so we were able to get in for free, as opposed to the normal foreigner price of $10. It is worth visiting the Hermitage just for the architecture, even if you ignore the stunning and diverse collection of artworks everywhere you look. Our personal favourites were the Malachite Room, with tons of stunning green columns and vases, and the Oxfordesque private library of Nicholas II, a room I would dearly love to own.

After leaving the Hermitage, we wandered to the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, modelled in part on St Basil's in Moscow. This church was built at the place where Alexander II was blown up by the People's Will group in 1881. Although not quite as amazing as St Basil's, it is still a beautiful church. The area around the church is lined with souvenir sellers, mostly selling matrushka doll sets and the usual tourist kitsch, although there was one stall selling stunning chess sets at the equally stunning price of $150. If only I had the money!

St Petersburg skyline

We moved on to the Peter and Paul Fortress, the oldest building in St Petersburg. Originally planned as a bulwark against Swedish encroachment, Peter actually defeated the Swedes before it was completed, so that it never served its original purpose. Ever practical, Peter converted it into a political prison, home at various times to such trouble-makers as Dostoevsky, Gorky, Trotsky and Alexander Ulyanov, brother of Vladimir Illyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin. By this stage it was late in the afternoon, so we didn't have to pay to enter the grounds and wander around exploring the fortress.

Next day we continued our wanderings, stopping at the famous Bankovsky Most, a beautiful bridge supported by cables dangling from the mouths of four griffins, visiting the Hermitage again (this time to see the ancient cultures section, much of which unfortunately was closed for renovation) before heading along the shore past the absurdly-expensive-to-visit St Isaac's Cathedral (needless to say we didn't go in) before starting our Dostoevsky tour. We visited the house where he wrote Crime and Punishment, then followed Raskolnikov's route along the canals to the house where the old woman lived; the residents of the nondescript flat are used to tourists coming along to take pictures of an otherwise unremarkable building. We then headed towards the Dostoevsky metro station, home of a newly commissioned statue of the great man, and then to the Dostoevsky Museum, which was alas closed.

Next morning we visited the Dostoevsky Museum, which was interesting without being spectacular. We then headed through the Tauride Gardens, where the Lenin statue has been removed, only to be replaced by a large graffito "Vernite Lenina na mesto" (roughly: put Lenin back). On the other side of the park is the huge blue and white Smolny Cathedral, which unfortunately was also closed. Tired, we returned to the centre for some food and then went to check out the Summer Palace. By this stage we had almost run out of money, so we didn't go in. Instead we walked back to the hostel and sat playing cards until it was time to catch our train to Estonia.

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