For the getting in to Russia thing I did a quick Google (so don’t take this as a full answer) and it seems like there’s no way from Europe to get in without flights which includes a detour to Dubai or similar. Seems fucking stupid
For the China leg - The high speed rail from Peking/Beijing to Shanghai is 4-6 hours, so that part is much easier to sort out. The high speed rail goes all the way inland to Chengdu at the moment, and all the way down the coast to Guangzhou, so you can really take on most of the country just by train if you have time. I am hoping to do a high speed rail trip around China myself in the coming years. The biggest issue with visiting China, outside of language barrier, is making sure you get Visa approved early, they’re quite strict with it
Another option is going in to DPRK from Beijing
How many of these actually show a gay couple?