Karelia by snowmobile – Russia’s undiscovered hinterland

It was the first turn of the day. As I moved the handlebars, I applied a dab of throttle so the snowmobile’s skids at the front would dig into the snow. And suddenly we were careering at speed straight towards a fence. Zivile, my pillion passenger, let out a high pitched shriek. I had just long enough to realise that we were definitely going to crash, and wonder how much damage I was about to do.