Having had his feet on terra firma for almost two full days, North Korea's political leader, Mr Kim Jong-Il, was back on his train last night for the overnight journey from Moscow to St Petersburg, completing his voyage from the Yellow Sea to the Baltic.
He will have a number of official engagements today in the northern capital, including visits to the cruiser Aurora whose guns signalled the start of the Bolshevik revolution, to the Hermitage Museum and the Kirov Ballet at the Mariinsky theatre.
In Moscow yesterday, Mr Kim visited the Russian space centre and the Khrunichev factory which produces rockets for commercial space flights. Western journalists were banned from attending any of these occasions at Mr Kim's express request to the Russian authorities.
After talks with President Putin on Saturday, Mr Kim and the Russian leader signed a document announced as "The Moscow Declaration". The declaration stated that North Korea's missile development programme was designed for peaceful purposes and no country that recognised North Korea's sovereignty had anything to fear.
Both leaders declared their support for the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, which is a major obstacle in the way of President Bush's plans to install an expensive and elaborate ballistic missile system popularly known as "Son of Star Wars".
Russia, China and some western countries, argue the system would undermine international stability and militarise space. The US Administration believes it needs the system to protect itself against attack by "rogue states" including North Korea.
The visit, which involved a 6,000-mile train journey across the breadth of the Russian Federation, was designed to show the west and the US, in particular, that Russian does not regard North Korea as a "rogue state".
Moscow over the weekend turned the clock back to produce Soviet-style ceremonies including Mr Kim's laying of a wreath at the Lenin mausoleum in Red Square.
A military guard of honour in the style of the old Red army was provided.
Among the projects discussed between the two leaders was the construction of a spur of the trans-Siberian railway into North Korea and onwards to South Korea. This would had the effect of making Russia a transit country for South Korean exports to Europe as well as bringing the two Korea's together.
While Western powers watched proceedings with little comment, the summit was welcomed by the South Korean government. It would, according to a statement which was released by a foreign ministry spokesman in Seoul, have a positive effect in overcoming the impasse in relations between the two Koreas.
Many ordinary Russians, however, were furious at the restrictions imposed on them during the visit and this anger was reflected in the leading Moscow newspapers at the weekend. Moscow's Yaroslav sky station was closed to traffic for four hours on Friday evening in order to provide security for Mr Kim's arrival. Thirteen commuter trains were cancelled leaving more than 15,000 passengers in the lurch.
The daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta called for an apology and compensation to the stranded travellers. Vremy MN, which described Mr Kim as "the spectre of communism" wrote that hundreds of thousands of Russians had been inconvenienced.
The highly-respected Izvestia wrote that no arms deals would be done, no money would be handed out on ideological grounds and no debt would be written off.
This, the newspaper said, with no small hint of irony, was not much of a return for "days of travel and tedium in the titanic and stoic voyage by the great leader".
