This ancient, Arcadian region showcases Mother Russia at her most fertile: Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and nothing less than the modern country itself were all born here. It’s a lofty legacy and nowhere does Western European Russia let you forget it.
Coverage includes: South of Moscow, Tula Тула, Yasnaya Polyana, Yelets, Voronezh , Oryol, North & West of Moscow, Smolensk, Tver, Ostashkov & Lake Seliger, Veliky Novgorod, Staraya Russa, Pskov, Stary Izborsk, Pechory, When to Go, Sights, Sleeping, Drinking & Nightlife,.Entertainment, Eating, History, Festivals & Events and Shopping.
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by Chris Raven & Simon Raven
The legends of Jason and the Argonauts, Noah’s Ark and a tribe of fierce female warriors known as the Amazons all originate from the Black Sea. Gripped by curiosity, Simon and Chris fire up their twenty year old Volvo that looks, “as rustic and weather-beaten as a Cold War tank” and embark on a quest to drive full circle around this ancient body of water at the birthplace of civilisation.
Driving the Trans-Siberian
by Simon Raven & Chris Raven
Ever had the desire to jump in your car and keep driving? Well, that is precisely what overland travel writers, Chris Raven and Simon Raven, decided to do whilst stacking boxes of frozen oven chips in a -30 degrees freezer. Not being petrol heads and having zero knowledge of the internal combustion engine, the brothers fired up their rusty Ford Sierra Sapphire and headed east. After clocking up over 11,000 miles, quite literally living in the car, they miraculously arrived in the Far Eastern city of Vladivostok in Siberia on the Sea of Japan. What they had in fact done was to drive the entire length of the new Amur Highway before it was finished, which crosses Russia and the notorious Zilov Gap in a 6,200 mile swath of cracked tarmac and potholes. Along the way our trusty heroes drink vodka with Chechen criminals, escape highway robbery, trade banana flavoured condoms with Russian cops, meet the eccentric and plain weird at truck stops in darkest Siberia, endure torturous road conditions and have a race to the finish with the Germans.