Brief information :It seems the place has quite a history and a pretty bright future

The city is located on both sides of the Ural River. The history of the area and the city has for many centuries. The first mention found in the III – IV centuries BC, and the city begins its chronicle in 1640.
The land is harsh, but generous. The Caspian Sea and Ural River is rich in fish and the depths of the oil. And so the main richness red fish and black caviar, oil and gas. No wonder the crest of the city of sturgeon and oil derrick.
Today Atyrau – the main hydrocarbon region of Kazakhstan, the largest center for oil and gas, a promising market investments. Well, black caviar from Atyrau well-known in the CIS and Europe.

To cut a long story short – It started tentatively but they got really friendly and treated us with Russian cognac and vodka

It was only later we found out they were all plain clothes policeman – confirmed by seeing their id !
One of them gave us a tour of the city and escorted us back to our hotel -how cool was that.
Have only experienced wonderful hospitality from the Russian people,during our short stay in Russia

Russian state Tsar Ivan the Terrible conquered Astrakhan Khanate and its capital city Astrakhan in 1556. The city became the main Russian gate to Orient in the 17th century. It was the place where merchants from Armenia, Persia, India and other counties of the East met.

We left Volgograd for Astrakhan at 9.15am distance of 265 miles reached 4.45pm
Pretty good journey with no stopping for lunch.Roads were pretty good,again long but on this occasion we hardly came across any towns
Two stops to fill diesel at petrol station took over an hour.At every petrol station so far ,money has to be paid up front at the counter
Can see a distinct change in peoples appearances and ethnicity.Russian,…… And Muslim women with hijabs
Interesting fact ,Astrakhan lies 70 feet below sea level – our GPS on the land cruiser seemed to confirm this- never travelled this depth below sea level – good thing I can swim!! (Manvir ‘s comment)
Still in Russia but now only about an hour from Kazakhstan border

Now the adventure really begins ,we are planning to travel about a 1,000 miles to Kazakhstan and into some very mountainous terrain – so time to stock up on fuel,food and a lot of water and a lot of luck!!

Have been lucky with the weather and today continued that theme – nice and sunny,pleasant to walk around the city .Perhaps because it’s Sunday,there doesn’t seem to be many people walking around.

There has been a lot of violence in the last six months in Volgograd with suicide bombings,so the place is not without its problems.But have to say again , with regards to the people we have met whilst here, they have been very helpful and considerate,not rude,abrupt etc – we have definitely not experienced any unfriendliness of any kind .Perhaps this may become a theme on this trip – that we need to be a bit weary of press and media opinion in the uk about this and other parts of the world.
The pharmacy we visited was quite unusual – from the outside we thought it was a sports bar- Manvir looking for a place to watch the football,stumbled on it,but from the inside,quite cute and functional
Peter falling asleep on railway tracks – as you do,counselling being arranged!
Saw an absolutely awesome structure of The Motherland Calls,it was jaw dropping.A solid,towering giant statue over seeing the river Volga.Also saw the Battle of Stalingrad memorial and the Hall of Military Glory.

Kirit the mad Liverpool fan – managed to find a pub near our hotel to watch the Liverpool Chelsea game.Trust me this place was like finding a needle in a hay stack – he found the needle and although I’m not a Liverpool fan ,I had the best spare ribs ever at this place – a reasonable trade off in the end
Liverpool lost – not a good day at the office for Mr K Patel

Started planning for tomorrow – targeting Astrakhan to the south- another 9 and a half hour hour journey

Tomorrow relax ,site seeing tour around Volgogard