I have visited Russia on a number of occasions for work but the first visit in 2005 was the most eye-opening as I saw Moscow in the snow, staying in the now demolished old Communist party hotel the Rossiya, just off Red Square. I also had the opportunity to see an opera at the Bolshoi - beautiful theatre but I am not a fan of Evgeny Onegin! The second stage of my trip took me to the Urals and Yekaterinberg, where I saw the Church built over the site where the last Tsar, Nicholas Romanov II and his family were held hostage in 1917 and executed. This was on the way to visit the huge steelworks at Nizhny Tagil. A town built for the steel plant, it was not a glamorous place...
