Our internet is down at home so still no pics of Saratov but here's a few points about the lovely town on the Volga:

• Going there on the train, expect to be stared at by one man who is bookless, paperless, radioless, basically has nothing to do but stare at foreign girls...for 16 hours!
• The volga, Russia's longest river, separates Saratov from Marx and Engels, its neighbouring towns... it was frozen.
• If you fancy grabbing a quick bite to eat in the town, don't even think of trying it without reservations. You can walk into a deserted restaurant to be told that they have no free tables (but I have all this money and I just want to eat!)
• Don't expect to be able to buy phone credit in the phone credit shop, Sinead's local had run out of credit, the mind boggles.
• If you are going to only have one famous son of your city, you could do much worse than Saratov's famous ex-resident, Yuri Gagarin, the guy who beat those arrogant yanks into space and then snuffed it in a weird, covered-up, air accident.
• There's a cool irish pub (now there's an oxymoron!) there that does amazing steak cooked by their french chef who comes down to say hi to you and which plays very eclectic music such as Mozart (for his birthday, I think) mc hammer and the wolfe tones...nice!

We went to see the Nutcracker in the bolshoi today, after buying our tickets from ticket touts outside, it was brilliant, except for one tiny thing...we were sitting on the far right hand side and all the action seemed to take place on the left hand side of the stage (think about it!) so a good few times we were left staring at a blank stage...nice!

Its -20 outside today, thats a whole 42 degrees colder than the current temperature in the flat.