It took my wife and I about 22 hours of flying to get here (St. Petersburg). Pretty brutal for a guy like me who doesn't like to fly. Three stops in total. Washington DC, Germany and Russia. It is really hot here. The air conditioning (such as it is here) barely cools the room 5 degrees. I'm used to heat, but heat + humidity = very uncomfortable. Temps are about 30 degrees Celsius.

Speaking of shopping, we walked a huge (I mean huge) block long building full of nothing but watch shops. I was surprised to see mostly Swiss brands, and names such as Orient, Seiko and Citizen. They have just gobs of high end and middle end Swiss brands. I have only found a small case or two of Russian watches that I am familiar with. Out of this block long line up of stores it amounts to less than 5% of the watches on display.

I'm not sure yet, but it would seem that the prices on the Russian watches are quite reasonable. We got confused on the coversion rate stuff, but we think we have it now so we can check prices.

The city is pretty old. And, there is security everywhere. Someone is watching you constantly while you are shopping. There are security guards posted about every 100 feet. And that is just the visible ones. Not many people smile either. :)