| The whole trip was a new experience. we travelled
with the band, ate caviar, stayed in 5 star hotels, got interviewed and
asked for autographs. The gig in Zagreb was just mass hysteria. It was like
the Ayatollah's funeral. In Kiev, there was a seeming endless cue of people
looking for bribes........ the fire officer, the customs official, the policeman.
Nothing could happen until money changed hands. Just like America really.
The audience were forbidden to stand and remained seated throughout out
the gig. which made things a little flat after the near riot in Zagreb.
Moscow and I would never have ever believed when I was at school all those
years ago learning Russian that I would one day ride around Moscow in a
Zil with two pop stars. St Petersburg - a morning off We wandered across
the ice and into morning mass in the local cathedral. Suddenly we were in
this wonderful golden grotto as a choir from heaven sang beautiful devotional
songs in Russian. then back out into the biting cold and a roller-coaster
taxi ride around the "Venice of the north". You don't really understand
what the word imperial means until you go to Russia. Even the small buildings
are massive. On the way to Estonia we travelled along the route of the Nazi
invasion and siege of what was then Leningrad. Nothing was left standing,
it's all new. Even now the children build snow Pill Boxes instead of Snowmen.
Little bunkers with gun slits and Russian flags on top, all made of snow,
looking back down the road to Germany. wow |
