Jacko is a world traveller. Since 2008 he has been circling the globe in search of stoke and adventure. Only a few weeks after landing in California he is now back touring the globe on skateboarding adventures - this time in Russia... Jacko: It was only a few weeks ago I landed back in California after spending nearly 6 months at home in Oz healing from bone graft surgery, it was time to get back into action and think about racing again. I called Louis to start organising my travel plans for the upcoming IDF races in the USA and asked if we could make plans for Pike's Peak. Lou said I should come into the office and have a 'talk'. I arrived at the S9 warehouse to Louis telling me unfortunately I'm not going to Pike's, instead we are going to Russia... Apparently longboard sales in Russia (and other parts of Europe) have been booming in the past few years with Russia having the fastest growing community in terms of board sales. Sector 9 decided it was time to pay Russia a little visit and check out the skate scene. Louis and I were lucky enough to be selected for such an epic trip which consists of community events, shop tours and product knowledge seminars for the retailers. As i write this we are a few days into the trip, not exactly sure how many as we had no time to rest and recover from the jet lag - It has been non stop since we got here! First on the agenda was a quick walk around the Red Square in Moscow and a few cold ones with the locals. Following that we found ourselves on an overnight train to St Petersburg where A few other Russian skaters joined us on the journey to make sure we weren't sober. Running on less than a couple hours sleep from the flight it was a little difficult to keep up with the locals on that leg of the journey, but as true professionals Louis and I held it down and partied our way to St Petersburg. Being so far north on the globe the sun stays out much longer than we are used to, and being a surfer my body decided to wake up with the sun - around 4:30am - thus adding to the mondo jet lag we were already experiencing but now also coupled with a mighty Russian hangover. Wiping the crust from our eyes we disembarked and started rallying through St Petersburg true skater tourist style, roller bag trailing behind skating and barging through the crowds, fully stoked on the adventures ahead. Cruising around Russian cities is pretty strange, all the signs are in a language so foreign it's impossible for someone like me to know what's what or where we are. Lucky for us the locals played tour guide and made sure we didn't end up in the wrong place, or end up with a strange Russian bride, or missing a kidney. After a bit of playing tourist we dropped our gear off and headed out to the hills, or should I say hill... Russia is a very large, yet extremely flat country. There are not many places to downhill skateboard in this country but the spot we were taken to was indeed quite awesome. It was a skiing biathlon training ground that consisted of several routes down, some stepper and some more windy and was paved with some amazing smooth black-top. There was a solid crew of about 10-15 Russians joining the shred session, some of which had traveled far and wide for a chance to skate with some 9-ballers. After the skate Lou and I decided to sneak in a little shut eye on the ride back into town, ready to hit the hotel and pass out. Unfortunately when we got there it was announced we had only 20 minutes to get ready for the first shop visit, which was followed by a late dinner (around 11pm) and a full night of ripping around St Petersburg bar hoppin' sampling some of Russia's finest vodka. Shot after shot the party rolled all the way through the night and as I saw the sun start to rise we figured that it was probably a good time to actually do the sleeping thing. As I'm writing this, we are on the train headed back to Moscow for more vodka sampling, shop visits and hopefully more shredding with the rad Russians! We will be spending two more days here soaking in the culture (and vodka) before heading to Europe for two weeks of more shop visits and amazing alpine free riding. So far we are ultimately stoked with our time in Russia, the locals are way friendlier than imagined and we have been looked after extremely well. Super stoked to have an amazing tour guide, Constantine from Capital Distribution translating and guiding us around this crazy place. If it weren't for him I'm sure we would have ended up somewhere we really don't want to be... Stay tuned for more stories from road!