Spread across the entire Eurasian continent between the seas Baltic and Bering, the Russian Federation has had a long and chequered history, much of it self inflicted and unnecessarily so. The erstwhile Russian Empire expanded across the continent to its maximum extent in the 19th century, when it included all future Soviet states, plus Manchuria, Alaska, Finland and even parts of northern Iran. Famously uninvadable due to its size and harsh winters, that didn’t stop Napoleon and then Hitler having a good go during their respective centuries. Ruled by tsars until the revolution of 1917, Russia then embarked on a seven-decade experiment with communism, rapidly industrialising and entering a long-running nuclear stand off with the United States: the Cold War. The country has been beset by various issues, often self-inflicted, since the Iron Curtain came down with the fall of the USSR, as the ambitions of its leadership and oligarchy continue to be at odds with the common good of the people and their neighbours.

Our 2004 trip to Russia was part of a circuit that started and ended in Helsinki, Finland, taking us overland through Saint Petersburg and Moscow, then onwards to Latvia and Estonia before crossing back to Finland and heading home. We spent three nights in each city in Russia, seeking out culture, history, bars and nightlife, and avoiding the police. I had learned some basic Russian before the trip, which came in very useful particularly where there was no signage in English, such as the Saint Petersburg metro system. I found Cyrillic to be quite straightforward to internalise and be able to sound out words, which came with the pleasing satisfaction you might get from cracking a code.