The ultra-necessity when visiting a foreign country is to return with near tacky but still quite nice gifts for friends and family. Souvenirs, more often than not they are the very things friends and family expect you to bring back for them! So, I wanted something Russian, sort of touristy but not too camp in that way, after a few moments deliberating a group of us went searching for Russian dolls – or matryoshka (mat-roo-sh-kar) as they are known in Russia.

We found an open market selling the usual touristy things; trinkets on strings or chains, humorous t-shirt designs, the odd hat or two and rather unfortunate looking paintings (it wasn’t that the art-work was in any way poor, just that the subject matter was, well, not the best taste in the world). It was a strange conglomeration of Portabello Road and midwinter eastern country; it may have been pushing -10C that day but that didn’t stop the stalls coming out. What struck me as pretty odd though is February probably isn’t the time of year when tourists are likely to descend on the city so the revenue from a stall this time of year can’t have been that great…I guess its a show to the strength and determination of characters you get in the town. After just 10mins our feet were begining to feel the cold, its ok when you’re walking around but standing still or just meandering along allows the chill from the ground time to penetrate through the soles in your shoes and chill your feet in a most uncomfortable way… We managed to get our dolls and grabbed a drink – which hadn’t been in the fridge so we improvised in the only way we could, a good use for all the snow after all! Also picked up a couple of bottled of good vodka; Russian Standard…that’ll keep us warm at night back home