TARJA TURUNEN (ex-NIGHTWISH) has issued the following blog entry:

"Tour was awesome! It is hard to think that next shows with the band will happen only in May 2009. It is a long time to wait, but I guess the time will run fast as it has done so in the last years. Anyway I have many activities that will keep me very busy starting right now. I will tell you about it in the next posts. Let me tell you what happened during the last weeks of the tour. I got a big surprise from Bulgaria. There were around 5000 people in the audience in my show in Sofia! Absolutely amazing considering it was my first time ever to visit Bulgaria! WOW. People were so kind to us there. I will never forget that spirit and feeling.

I was also very happy to visit Israel. Jerusalem was exciting and interesting. We had a good guide there with us, the local promoter who knew amazing stories and a lot about the history of Israel. You should always consider using a guide while visiting Jerusalem. There almost every stone has a story to tell. The concert was nice and people were happy to receive us there.

A couple of hours after the show the whole band and crew travelled to Eilat and spent the whole day in a yacht on the Red Sea. Many of us went to dive, some of us for the first time ever, like Mike and Oliver!

It was a great great day for everybody and the best way to relax during the tour. Sun gave us a lot of new energy to keep on going with the tour.

After Israel we travelled to Kiev and to Minsk. Both places were new for me as well and I felt that I had just enough time to see a glimpse of the beauty of these great, big cities. I received many beautiful presents and greetings from my fans in Ukraine and Belarus.

It was just great to get to know many of them personally. I hope to be able to return one day.

The same day we arrived to Moscow, I already had a pleasure to meet my Russian fans in a meet & greet. There were people that I knew from years back, but also many new people to greet. My youngest fan was only 4 years old and she loved to sit on my lap all the time! It was so funny. I guess the concert in Moscow was again one of the best gigs on the tour. I felt really relaxed, since I saw many familiar faces in the audience.

And again, I received hundreds of beautiful flowers! It was so big pity not to be able the travel with them…well I hope the hotel staff took really good care of them.

After Moscow’s show we had the pleasure to experience Moscow’s Metro. Since the traffic in Moscow is a bit chaotic, we needed to literally run underground just not to loose our train, which was going to Samara, our next destination. All band, crew and local people in charge needed to run like crazy to reach the main train station.

It was not very fun even the smiles for the camera! In the end we made just 3’ before the departure. What is not that bad

The train was very cosy indeed. Really nice service and comfortable beds to sleep over night. The trip took 16 hours, but everybody slept well. We woke up in the chilly Samara and had the last show in a nice venue. It was a great ending for the tour, even though everybody agreed that they would have wanted to continue still with the tour a bit longer. Everything worked so well this time, better than ever before.

I am sure there will be more fun to come in the future for us all. Thank you for you all for making this tour again to happen. I love you my winter storm!"

(Tarja: "This was our last photo together after Samara concert)