I'm in Chita now, back on the route of Kropotkin and Bakunin - although it's the Ingolda not the Amur river here which I somehow got confused. Now that I've come this far, I'm realising where all the big gaps are that I'm not going to fill.
If I ever come back this way, I will need to go to that Volcano in July (found a probable reference to it in Kropotkin's writing), and go further down the Amur, to Blagoveschensk and Khabarovsk etc..
But right here, now, is the furthest east and the furthest away from home I will be going. As of midnight, local time, I'll be starting my gradual return home. Plans are still to be fixed, abandoned travel companions to be looked out for, and the possibility of a shamanic island stop is still there. But I have a fixed date to be back in Copenhagen now, so I will have to decide what to skip and where to spend my few free days.
Irkutsk is the next stop (21st Sept), and the obvious main places to visit still are Bakunin and Kropotkins' homes in Moscow; and Kronstadt & Shlisselburg outside St Petersburg. One thing pretty definitely OFF the cards already is the slower, more expensive land route north out of Helsinki and round to Stockholm. The ferry straight across saves too much to be ignored. I could always say I did it and who would check up on me!
Here I am reading Dostoyevsky, looking for Decembrists' street, walking up the hill to leave offerings at the ovoos, and generally being a bit crap. Here are pictures from my walking tour of the centre:
Locations of the pics.
Post Office.
Oh those happy memories of stalingrad.
A feminist carwash.
And my comedy purchase at the station.
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