Mornings in the outskirts of Moscow

One of the great pleasures of being a freelance it to be able to get up on a fine, sunny morning like today and, after drinking a pint of tea, head out on the bike for a ride in the fresh air before starting work (and before the day gets too hot).

My normal route takes me right round Sheremetyevo airport, which is exactly thirty kilometres, door-to-same-door. The roads are mostly dual carriageways with a hard shoulder to cycle on (though the traffic in Russia is, on the whole, considerate to cyclists: see my article in Passport magazine which covers this issue). The route takes me between an hour and a few minutes and an hour and a quarter depending on wind, traffic conditions and my own state of "health".

On the right in the picture you can see all the people cramming down the Leningrad highway on their way into Moscow, and in the centre-left upper, the monument which stands on the spot where the German army got closest to Moscow on 5 December 1941. Out of shot further to the left now stands, ironically, the largest mall in Europe, owned by IKEA.