Paul Karchut sends us an update from Russia

We're back in the bustle of Saint Petersburg and it's been a wild week.

When I last wrote, Alex and I had just arrived in the Mount Elbrus region (Europe's tallest peak at 5642 metres) and were settling in for a week of resort and backcountry skiing in the area.

Locals call themselves Balcarians - not Russians - following a long battle for land rights and against suppression - even slavery in the form of Kazhakstani work camps through the mid 1900s. But these are some of the kindest, most welcoming people I've encountered in my travels. Some of the best skiers I've seen on this trip, too! Sporting the most incredible vintage one pieces, these guys whip off cliffs, and tear through bowls despite the crusty, punchy, icy conditions we found on Elbrus.

When we arrived, skiers complained about a three week dry spell that had left both Mount Elbrus and the neighbouring resort, Cheget, in pretty challenging shape. This sent Alex and me on what was sometimes a wild goose chase for good snow. You'd just find a decent pocket of wind-sift when a rock hard patch of ice would suddenly buck you out of the groove. But we still managed to find some incredible couloirs, bowls and tree skiing. On one such hunt, we started to skin up a valley floor only to be stopped in our tracks by a pair of AK-47 wielding soldiers who clearly didn't want us to go any further. The Georgian border is very close to Mount Elbrus and the region has seen its share of bloodshed so the military and police presence in the area is quite large.

This wasn't our only encounter with the authorities either. Walking through a train station last week, I passed through a metal detector manned by around a dozen bored looking cops . My large backpack jammed in the tight confines of the detector and I almost walked away with it attached to my back. This caused a great commotion and an angry demand for my documents. "Ka-na-ta?!", the officer said, clearly surprised to see a Canuck in his town. It wasn't an hour later when our driver got pulled-over by a convoy of police vehicles for what was, admittedly, some pretty spicy driving. A combination of police and military men stepped out of the cars, scanning the mountains with machine guns for any threat while the cop in charge tried to fleece our driver for a bribe - to which he refused and instead accepted a court date.

This is clearly not a weekend in Banff. And that has even scared many Russians away from the Elbrus area. The hotels, in various stages of disrepair, are almost entirely vacant. Half-finished construction projects have been entirely abandoned. Business is slow. One long-time visitor, a test pilot from Moscow, remembered wistfully Elbrus in its heyday and said it was sad to see the area's vibrancy slipping away. But a particularly outgoing snowboarder we met, Genech, is trying to breathe some new life into his town - perhaps putting Elbrus back on the map - with a big mountain freeriding competition planned for the coming weekend. Every time we saw Genech, he'd be having three conversations at once in a manic attempt to have everything done in time. But even he is being slowed by a bureaucracy that forces him to pay off the proper officials.

Our week in the Elbrus region up, we hired a taxi and got back on a train that would take us on a trudging, lurching path back to Saint Petersburg. Having now spent five nights in total on Russian trains, I can officially say that the romantic notion is entirely dislodged from my mind. Coal-fired samovars (kettles that keep a constant flow of boiling water for passengers to make soup, tea and coffee) heat the cabins to a sometimes unbearable temperature. And on all of our trips, we've opted for the third class cabin. The reasonably priced tickets are achieved by packing 60 people into each train car. And, perhaps because we're foreigners who don't know any better, we've always been given the cramped top bunks. During the day, this would force us down to share the lower bunks with other travellers who, while at first blush, were rough and surly, once disarmed were always incredibly jovial, curious and generous.

It's Russian train etiquette to share food and drink with your fellow passengers so Alex and I would find ourselves being force-fed questionable meats, melted chocolates and yes, alcohol. Last night, for example, Boris and his wife Ivanava were most willing to share their reserves. Premium Russian vodka (Boris says the good stuff stays in Russia, while the junk gets sent to Canada) and boot-legged cognac (a 15 year old vintage served in plastic pop bottles that had been procured in a dodgy fashion they didn't care to further explain) were poured generously as Boris, a Balcarian pensioner, explained that he was on his way to Saint Petersburg for open heart surgery on Friday. Then he excused himself for another cigarette.

I'm in Saint Petersburg for a couple of days before starting the journey back home. I hope to see some more museums, go to a Russian bath house and hit an outdoor market before I go.

The Russian experience is exactly what I'd hoped for - both sustaining and smashing the stereotypes we think of. This is a country of paradoxes. When I'd ask our snowboarding friend, Genech, about corruption or the challenging skiing conditions or the lack of vegetables on store shelves, he'd say in his broken English, "This is Russia. #*&^ing place!"
But I seemed to detect a certain pride in this - like, "We're Russian. We endure."

It's been a fabulous trip and, if you're hearty enough, I'd totally recommend a visit here. But I'm looking forward to some broccoli! See you all soon.

You can check out Paul's photos from Russia at facebook.com/cbceyeopener.