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Tuesday, June 18, 2019
Moscow, Russian Federation
Our Story: Trans Rossiya
A Sequel 
This is our story of the second leg of our 2019 summer journey to the Russian Federation.
The first part of our trip took us across the Russian Northern Caucasus, travelling east to west from the ancient capital city of Makhachkala, Dagestan on the Caspian Sea through the formerly war-ravaged and still volatile subjects of Chechnya, Ingushetia and North Ossetia to Karbardino-Balkaria, Stavropol, Adygea and finally to the ultra-modern city of Sochi on the coast of the Black Sea in Krasnodar Krai. 
The journey through these troubled lands was a fascinating collage of geography, history, religion and culture. The legacy of its conflict-driven nature, both past and present however, was all too apparent. In fact, even today, Dagestan and its neighbouring subjects are regarded as some of the most dangerous destinations in the world. We were fortunate not to encounter any real issues during our journey, most probably due to our experienced and careful Chechen-Ingushetian guide Abdullah. 
All in all, we travelled a staggering 24,000 km convoluted journey from our home in Australia to our first destination of Makhachkala, Dagestan, followed by another 1,100 km mostly by road to Sochi city, Krasnodar Krai. By then, we had in fact travelled more than halfway around the circumference of planet Earth.
Our blog of the first leg of our travels through the North Caucasus is published in TravelArk as "Forbidden Lands: Journey Across the Russian North Caucasus" http://v2.travelark.org/travel-blog/crowdywendy/11.
For the second part of our journey, we embarked upon a completely new adventure: a Trans-Siberian rail trip along the Trans-Mongolian and Trans-Manchurian Railway routes, spanning the entire width of the Russian Federation west to east from Moscow to Harbin, China; a distance of some 7,000 km across seven different time zones. Our long rail journey was punctuated only by a stopover in the city of Irkutsk and a four-day visit to the famous and staggeringly beautiful Lake Baikal.
It was also a strange re-connection with the Trans-Siberian Railway from the Russian Far East end when in 2017 we visited Vladivostok, "The Beginning OR The End" of the Trans-Siberian, and also a rather bizarre short rail trip from Khabarovsk to the curious Jewish settlement of Birobidzhen in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. Refer "Siberia & Beyond: Russia's Eastern Eagle" http://v2.travelark.org/travel-blog/crowdywendy/8   
We invite you to join us on our long rail voyage across the vast Russian Federation.

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