Thanks for the offer Sam...
and thank you to all of you for your input... even the poor chap I just reamed for thread-jacking...
I think it's interesting that I basically came to the same conclusion prior to thinking about Russia, and that is to crate it and ship it, and insure it, and I think I can get some kind of indemnification with the mechanics on each end, based on other things I've read, so that reduces the impact of damage in transit. It might have been fun to fly it half way around the world though!
Although, having an excuse to lounge around in the Med for a few days (weeks/months/???) ...