This documents our journey in Russia and the Baltic states during August 2004. Russia was fairly hard work compared with some of the other places we've been, particularly with the difficulty reading the alphabet. I've helpfully given you, Gentle Reader, a taste of that difficulty, by writing most Russian words and names in the Cyrillic alphabet. If you don't want the mental exercise of transliteration, most modern browsers will offer you the English equivalent if you hover the pointer over the word or phrase.