St Petersburg & Moscow | Estonia | Latvia & Lithuania

At 16. June 2003 I arrived on the station in Moscow after the 6-days-traintrip. Because the Russian embassy in Beijing only had granted me a transit visa for 10 days, I didn't want to spend longer in Europe's biggest city. After Beijing everything seemed extremely clean and European. Still being totally full of impressions I wandered across the Red Square, past Kreml and Basil's Cathedral. Two days later I peacefully rolled overnight to the 300-years-anniversery in St Petersburg. The whole city was shining freshly renovated and I should have stood longer. But my days in Russia were counted.

Since St Petersburg I was back in the saddle. Now I was paddling my bike across Europe again, I reached the Estonian border post in Narva at 21. June 2003. The summer was fully awake and I couldn't sleep as it wasn't more than one hour dark at night. After the successful entry to Estonia I was heavily relieved. Although my luggage was checked no-one had worried about my 50 films. Lonely beaches on the Baltic Sea and the Scandinavian charm accompanied me through the beautiful capital Tallinn and on to Latvia. Riga didn't seem to have changed much since the Russian times - it reminded me a bit of Russian cities I had seen further east. Nothing could have stopped me now; I was on the road back home. Endless fields of wheat and rape still remind me today of Lithuania. It all passed by quickly. In my mind I was still in Asia, it was still hard to realize to be back in Europe. Already on 07. July 2003 I reached the border to Poland.