Schoolteacher Gail Ford visited Russia 18 times in 20 years, so her unique travels provide snapshots of Russian life during the pivotal times of a crumbling Soviet Union and momentous change.
When Gail first took a group of students to Russia in 1989, disaster struck before they had even set foot on the Trans Siberian Railway. But they journeyed on through Siberia and Uzbekistan en route to Moscow and Leningrad and along the way were wooed with cakes and flowers by ardent young soldiers, shared a train carriage for far too long with a nappy-less baby, and were booked into a hotel–brothel by officials in Samarkand.