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1. Let your parents, who've been abroad once, to Vienna, Austria, book a 10-day holiday in Caucasus, Soviet Union. Terrain to be covered: The future Armenia and Georgia with a side pass to Azerbaijan.

2. Behave relatively well during the 6 hour wait for a connecting flight in the Leningrad airport, the architecture of which was probably inspired by the blossoming prisons of the pre-perestroika era. In awe of the sheer amount of concrete around you, contemplate the communist doctrine.

3. Fly to Tbilisi on an Aeroflot flight populated by about 150 Finnish tourists smoking their lungs out. Let your condescending mom tell you how most of them were on their way to the Soviet summer drinking den Sothsi and that's why they behaved a little oddly.

4. Once in Tbilisi get the queen sized suite and seriously start believing that this is how you will always be treated when staying in a hotel.

5. Marvel the amount of water fountains and ponds in Tbilisi. Begin your career in country counting by keeping track of how many ponds you see. Who would have thought there were lots of fountains in the periphery of Soviet Union? Seriously, I'm sure they were plenty.

6. Eat cherries for the first time in your life, not knowing that 24 years on you still reminisce how those cherries, bought from a street stall on the side of a road, were the best cherries in the world.

7. Be surprised by the fact that random people want to touch your hair, which at the time wasn't even that blonde. Forget you initial wonder when the same people offer you sickeningly sweet Eastern block style chocolate.

8. Ride a bus for ages to get to Yerevan, while stopping on the way in Azerbaijan (pic on top). 24 years later wonder what could you possible have done to stop your parents from taking you to, say, Legoland, in Billund, Denmark, something which you at 7 probably would have enjoyed more than this god forsaken bus ride to eternity. Thankfully you were perfectly oblivious to the fact that there were a zillion longer bus rides awaiting in the years to come.

9. Once in Yerevan start comparing the cities you've been to which are Tampere in Finland, Tbilisi and Yerevan and possibly Helsinki. Decide you like Tbilisi best.

10. Fly Aeroflot home with the reeking Finnish drunks, one of whom has burnt himself so badly after passing out in the sun that he has to picked up by an ambulance from the plane. Be thankful that your mom is a journalist - otherwise you might have missed this curious insight into traveling in the Soviet Union in the mid-eighties.

Inspired by some old pics I went through this weekend when I was visiting my folks at home.

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