The Russian Federation : Not just the Eurovision

Yesterday morning I found my first geocache in Moscow, just before flying back home. And in the evening I watched the Eurovision song contest with some friends and the Russian Federation won. Looks like it was my Russian day yesterday !

This country is moving very fast. I have been there several times and although there is a lot of talk in the press about India and China growing fast, Russia is showing incredible dynamism and growth. I have only seen Moscow so far, and its terrible traffic jams can be irritating, but overall I like the atmosphere and the sense of energy and pride the people are showing. How things have changed in just 10 years.

I went on a short walk last Friday with a colleague, and the Kremlin and the Red square are simply magnificent. I really like St Basil's cathedral with is colorful domes. It looks like it is coming from a fairy tale


On Saturday morning I had to fly back to Brussels, but before I did I woke up early and went to find my first geocache in Moscow. A quick look at Google Maps showed that there was a geocache just 2.5 km from my hotel : the Novodevichy convent cache. It was raining and the walking was not ideal, but obviously because of the rain there were very few people in the streets of Moscow, and even fewer around the parks of the Novodevichy convent. I took a walk around the place, and it is an interesting area full of churches, cemeteries and green parks. Worth an in-depth visit when I visit the country again. The cache was easy to find and I left one of my geocoins in the cache. I also picked up the two geocoins that were in the cache and brought them back to Belgium.

This was the 35th country where I found a geocache.

Milestone achieved : 500 caches found

Well it has finally happened. Although I am not trying to break records and spend my entire life finding geocaches, I discovered my 500th cache yesterday. I found it while I was participating in the 'Sir Emile' geocaching event near Cerfontaine in Southern Belgium. The event was fabulous, with great caches near the lakes created by the river dam of the 'Eau d'Heure river'. Last time I visited this site was 15 years ago, and the changes are obvious. You can now do canoeing, sailing and even scuba diving in the lakes

It is a nice and peaceful place, and the caches were well hidden in the woods and near the lakes. Since the dam and the lakes are used to regulate electricity production, the water level can change suddenly and actually one of the caches ended up drowning under 1.5meter of water (that's around 5 feet). But luckily, my number 500 was not under water. It took me 2 and a half years to get there. let' s see how long it takes to find the next 500....

And here is the 500th find, recorded for eternity. It was a classic ammo box, very close to the water edge