He's got a ticket to ride...

What an anti-climax! I've had a harder time buying a train ticket in the UK. Still, no complaints and for anyone reading this, I'd recommend doing your homework before hand and come as over prepared as I did.

With all the relevant details of train and required ticket (the cheapest going) printed off all I had to do was hand over my passport, registration and the money.

I used the following guide to navigate my way through the Russian state rail network website (RZD) where you can find the relevant details for the day you want to travel. Its pretty much just a case of running the site through 'Google Translate' once you've inputted the relevant stations in Russian. [Санкт-Петербург / Москва]

Similar info is on the guide above but the important things from my experience are:

1. The date, time and tickets for each train are only released up to 45 days in advance.
2. The cheapest tickets [плацкартный ] sell quickly so get in there early. Even a week and a half in advance didn't give me much choice.
3. There are high-speed services (3-4 hours) from St Petersburg to Moscow but they're, unsurprisingly, quite a bit more expensive.
4. I went to the ticket office at about 10:30am on a Wednesday and there was no queue. The office is open from 08:00 - 20:00 so probably best to avoid peak times in morning and evening.
5. My train is going overnight, comes in at a pretty awful time (04:47) but only cost me about £15! Yes, £15! Considering what I'd pay for an equivalent trip from say London to Edinburgh this is incredible. And I get a bed to sleep in!
6. Though I'm planning on coming back to St Petersburg when I return to the UK it doesn't seem to be the norm to book return tickets. I think each journey has to booked seperately.

Happy travels!

P.S - For someone who doesn't own a single Beatles album I'm doing well with my song references!

Back in the USSR...

I'm back! And this time I mean business. Literally. Well sort of. It says as much on my [3 month!!!] visa and if anyone asks I'm here for various seminars and other commercially minded reasons...

The real reason for my trip, besides the obligatory Russian lessons - still very much needed despite steady progress over the summer months while I had a willing Russian speaking Pole to practice on in Oxford - is that I'll be travelling down to Moscow for a couple of months in the archives. Yes! Those archives!

Allow me to bring you all(?...hello mum x) up to speed...

Managed to get involved in a week long workshop in Moscow in Easter aimed at introducing DPhil students to working and researching in them. Largely a chance to have someone experienced there to help navigate us through the endless form filling and beaurocracy. Now a proud owner of two Russian library cards - one for the old state 'Lenin Library' and the other for the state history library - and the necessary paperwork for entry into the former Party archives in RGASPI and (hopefully) the more general holdings of GARF.

Besides access to real, dusty, history in your hands, butterflies in your belly (just me still?) documents, most of the above still boast their old Soviet era kitchens that continue to provide a decent meal for a student friendly price. Hopefully won't starve at least while I'm there.

After that it was the obligatory revision / exam run that Oxford loves to make us all suffer. The fear wasn't there after getting through finals in my undergrad days and I was pleasantly surprised by the overall performance. Aced the history paper - which I really should be doing if I'm at all serious about playing this game long term - and comfortable passes in the other two.

That left me with a summer ahead to work every hour available to earn the money to come here and stay here for any decent amount of time..."I don't know how lucky [I] are!"

P.S - The photo is from that earlier Moscow trip. Currently sat tapping away in St Petersburg so will start updating properly as of tomorrow.