July 12th, 2016

I am back in Leonoids house now! Little did I know last October when I was here for the " Path to Spring marathon (mentioned below in the original post) that less than nine months later I would have walked the distance Leonoid and his wife Marina previously measured out from their home to Dublin! =D
To be honest, when I applied for my Russian visa at that time I made an application for a six month multi-entry visa with this walk at the back of my mind, and much to my surprise my application was accepted. I owe a great debt of service to the race director Aleksandr Radchenko for his wonderful help in this regard and now he is helping me in Russia.
This walk was very much on my mind then, I had already retired from running due to a lack of appetite for the sport after having achieved the ultimate endurance challenge, to run around the world! After walking this marathon near Chelyabinsk I wondered if my body would be up for it, then six weeks later I read about an Australian man aged 89 who planned to walk across Australia!
Shag it I said, let's try and two months later I set out to walk around the world!

Photos from Chelyabinsk to St. Petersburg. After the marathon I was guest in Leonid's house. He and his wife pointed out Dublin and also their location on their huge wall map which is about 4 metres by 2. In the morning we went over to his friend Sev who spoke fluent English, his family helped me book my train ticket to St. Petersburg. Before leaving the train station I did an interview with Aigul who was of great help to me, she is passionate about promoting Sri Chininoy races. I traveled second class on the train for the 42 hour journey. The seats convert to beds which had fresh clean linen, a mattress and blankets. Other than sleep there was not much else to do but chat and drink tea with the other passengers. Hot water was obtained from the burco. At some station stops I got out to stretch my legs, I really wanted a photo wearing this guards furry hat, but as he was the boss he was having none of it and instead he ordered his lieutenant to loan me his. I accepted as I really didnt want to go over his head =D
I thought it strange they were loading up charcoal into each carriage some of it for the burco and I never found out if it also fueled the heating boiler.
Later I went out for a stroll from my wagon number 11 to number 2 and dropped in for a visit to the marathon race director Aleksandr Radchenko who was travelling home on the same train. Of course I left my cup behind, no worries I opened up the six piece china tea set I won in the race, from here on all tea drinking was done in style, high-class in second class =D If I had a few more days I would have visited Moscow, instead I spent four lovely days in St Petersburg where I was the guest of Aleksandr and his family who spoilt me rotten.