Word has reached me once again from our travelling comrade Elliot. You'll be pleased to know that he is now in Ireland enjoying real Guinness and the warmth of the notorious Irish hospitality. No, I keep telling myself, I'm not envious. After all what has Ireland got that Russia has not? There's the literary heroes; can we compare Dostoevsky to Joyce, or Yeats to Pushkin? They've got Guinness, but we've (I'm a temporary Russian) got Baltika number 7. They've got the fiddle and we've got the balalaika. We have opera and ballet and they have Michael Flatley..... need I really go on.... Yes? Well I can't think of any more so that'll have to do.

I took myself off for a walking tour of the city, with a Russian companion, who seemed to have an ulterior motive of trying to get me to become an Orthodox Christian, which she has tried and failed to do before (it was once again a case of me saying 'no' and a Russian person ignoring me). We walked for miles and funnily enough ended up at a church, a most sacred place here in Tyumen for it is the oldest church in the town. Having been destroyed in the Soviet days, it's still undergoing repairs, but it has a very fine selection of portraits of all the well-known Biblical characters adorning the walls. It's recommended that when entering an Orthodox church ladies should cover their hair and legs (or hairy legs haha) with dirty rags that are provided at the entrance, not for any religious reasons but to stop old women tutting and old men perving! It's true. I suggested that they just have a door policy – no judgemental or lecherous people can come into a place of holiness, seeing as they're not very admirable characteristics anyway....

Moving quickly on, there's not much else to tell, folks. I have done a colossal 6 hours work this week so far, which has been tough I can tell you. The weather has been good for a change and we went a whole day without rain. This weekend I am going to Tobolsk, which is another Siberian town, smaller than this one, but more historic.