I started thinking about The Cold War, that led me to the break up of the Soviet Union and in turn to the rusting Russian nuclear fleet (that now officially has no owner) this led me to consider  the current sanctions against Russia particularly by the US. Then I considered the 19 trillion dollar US debt, the rise of China as the worlds supermarket, the oil crisis, Korea, The Middle East, India, Pakisan etc. etc. As I spiralled into this mind numbing consideration of this list of ever increasing social and economic potential disasters I reached the the inescapable conclusion, we have way to many megalomaniacs. But you already knew that.

Sankt Peterburg, to use the correct name, was established by Peter the Great in honour of his patron saint and from day one he was determined to make it a show piece. To use a previous pun….. Czech!

After a whole day of touring a fraction of the available optic delights we have gone into art overload, so you will have to sort the pictures out for yourselves or wait for the book. You could be waiting a long time though.

JUST IN  CASE YOU THOUGHT WE HAD RUN OUT OF BEER OPTIONS.

By the way, Peter the Great named the city Sankt-Peterburg (with no “s”), World War One saw the name changed to Petrograd (to get rid of the German “burg”), in 1924 it became Leningrad (for Lenin) and in 1991 back to Sankt-Peterburg. The locals call it Piter.