On our way to the Winter Palace, St Petersburg, despite no entry sign.

Outside our hostel, St Petersburg. Our place was on the second floor of the building on the right. We were amused to see this enormous pile of wood get delivered during the first night of our stay, perhaps inconveniently blocking the entrance behind it. During our week long stay it moved not a jot, nor did its purpose become clear. Things like this happen in Russia all the time, and no one pays any notice at all.

Our reading of Crime and Punishment lead us to search out some of the sights of the book, which is set in St Petersburg. Thus if you havent read it, this will look like a pointless picture of a knackered attic flat at the top of an oldy, crumbling apartment block downtown. Which, of course, it is. It is also considered to be Rodia's dingy flat. Which is impressive given that he is a fictional character. Nonetheless, on the way up the stone stairs graffiti praises the antihero as, well, a hero. Rodia forever.

Another Crime and Punishment shot. Staring morosely into the very canal en route to axe down a pawnbroker. You needed to be there. In the middle of the 19th century.