Russian forests are dizzying. Under enamel winter skies, snow and bone-like birch trees flood out any horizon. It's claustrophobic, blisteringly white. The road turned to dirt before we pulled out of the city, the houses to wood. It was here Hitler had planned to stop and draw a defensive line across the Urals. Ivan only wanted to talk about that war. "We lost 28 million people and now the Balts tear down our statues. That's why these lands are empty. And then Stalin killed a whole lot more. We took the blow that saved Europe from the Mongols, from the Germans and we never got any thanks." Only the Jews have been more profoundly scarred by the war than the Russians. The USSR lost 14 per cent of its population (Britain lost 0.8 per cent). But the endless documentaries, conversations and celebrations mark something more tragic: Russians have nothing else to be proud of.

"This is it. This is the spot where they buried them. Get out and take a picture or whatever..." A young man called Dmitri approached. "Are you here for the miracles?" He worked in the monastery's kiosk selling key rings of Nicholas II. "This is the history border. Come and meet Father
Vyacheslav. He will explain."

I stepped into the nearest chapel. The smell of pine and the glint of golden icons filled deep shadows. Vyacheslav was praying. "Do you have a present for the holy family?" he asked softly. I apologised and asked him to explain. "The Tsar is like the Christ. He died for our coming sins. His blood was spilt so that Russia could live for what came after." He had the eyes of the illuminated. 

The huge snow-filled pit outside marks the start of the arc of accelerating Bolshevik killing: the road to Magadan.

Fifty miles west lies that other border in Russian heads. The Europe-Asia column, a Greco-Roman edifice, sits on the old road to the east. The idea of being between two continents is fundamental in Russian cultural history. Since Peter the Great, the superstate has been in search of its lasting place in the world. Anton Surikov, a former military intelligence agent, explained how this debate continues inside the Kremlin. "Putin wants integration with the West, but on his own terms. That's why he created Medvedev. He says the things Putin cannot for fear of ruining his relationship with the hardliners. They want Russia to be European — a second Japan, linked to the West, but not part of it."

But the real border of Europe is on the shores of Lake Baikal, the pearl of Siberia. Halfway to the Pacific and due north of Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia, this is where the mainland ends. Between the Urals and Baikal live around 34 million people in a thick belt along the Kazakh border. The cities are large and industrial, closely controlled by the Kremlin and almost exclusively Russian. Beyond Baikal the population is just 6 million and a mixture of races. To the north and into the emptiness, Russians mix with indigenous peoples. The map is a patchwork quilt of titular republics and autonomies. Politics are less under the government's grip. Things are much more corrupt and there have been mass demonstrations against the regime.

Not long after I had stepped off the train from Yekaterinburg on to the icy platform at Irkutsk, the nearest city to Baikal, after a three-day journey, I began to notice things were different. The temperature was bitingly cold. A wall of steam rose on both sides of the bridge. "It's freezing. It's warmer than the air," was the explanation. I started to notice Chinese characters seeping in, ideograms nestling on the marks of most wrappers and brands.