Introduction: Email sent June 11 to Travels with ShavaSue group

For those following our adventures (with a small a), know from February that this was supposed to be the year of no trav-el. Ireland was a bonus trip since the deal was one we couldn’t pass up. Well, another deal came our way and things fell into place nicely. All the pieces and parts fit well: the price was deeply discounted for a two-week period that we both could get away; Ed’s brother, Paul, and sister-in-law, Cindy, were available and interested in joining us; Ed had enough avail-able vacation time (barely) that his supervisor, Kim, was kind enough to work through with me when Ed suggested that I go and work it out with her (he said I was more persuasive); and we were able to pull all the details together in less than five days. With all that, we were booked for a cruise in Russia for June. The itinerary can be found here.

Russia has long been on my bucket list as a destination. I suspect its mostly because both sides of my family are Rus-sian. But partly it is for the history and the culture. I did take Russian as a language in high school but wasn’t very good at it. I’ve got a great ear for languages but a lousy memory for vo-cabulary. We’ll see if any of it comes back once I’m surrounded by it.

Anyway, I think I truly discovered the meaning of SQUeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee when we actually had everything ar-ranged. I mean, I get to go to Russia. I get to go to the Her-mitage! I get to see the Amber Room in Catherine’s Palace. I get to see the Moscow Circus in Moscow! [?] We get to be in St. Petersburg over midsummer’s eve and experience White Nights. Nearly 19 hours of daylight and over 22 hours of vis-ible light. Wow!!! After all, do I really need to sleep while we’re in St. Petersburg. We’ll have plenty of time to sleep while we sail the 1143 miles between St. Petersburg and Moscow, right?

The final stuff is being done now. We’re wrapping up stuff at work and at home so we’ll be as caught up with the world as we can. We have a house/critter sitter arranged (she even gets the first couple of weeks of our half-share of the CSA [com-munity-supported agriculture] that we decided to do for the first time this year) and just set up a ride to the Van Galder bus stop for Thursday morning. Our flight leaves from Chicago at

Between June 14 and June 29, 2012, we went on cruise that has to be listed as a “Trip of a Lifetime”, cruising on the wa-terways of eastern Russia.

Russia RevealedSt. Petersburg

to Moscow

June 14June 15June 16June 17June 18June 19June 20June 21June 22June 23June 24June 25June 26June 27June 28June 29

Depart USArrive St. PetersburgSt. Petersburg / Hermitage visitSt. Petersburg / Catherine Palace TourSt. Petersburg / Wandering AroundSt. Petersburg / Peter & Paul FortressSvirstroiPetrozavodskKizhi IslandKirillo-Belozersky MonasteryUglichMoscow / City Tour / Red SquareMoscow / Armory & KremlinMoscow / Jewish Heritage TourMoscow / Scenic MoscowTourReturn to U.S.

Itinerary

June 14 - 15 From Madison to Chicago to Amsterdam to St. Petersburg: (A Long Way to Go Before We Sleep)

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21610hrs and arrives in Amsterdam at 0800hrs on Friday; the second flight leaves at 1000hrs and we arrive in St. Pe-tersburg at 1440hrs that afternoon. We get to go straight to the ship and check into our cabin right of—we just heard the other day that they are upgrading us to cabins on the upper level for no extra charge. (It seems odd that they couldn’t fill the ship for a trip in the middle of June but I guess it probably could be the economy or the uncertainty about politics in Russia or who knows. All I know is it seems that we’ve lucked out.)

I plan on writing daily and doing a travelogue again for this trip. I will send updates to this list if we have internet access. If not, I’ll post the travelogue to this list after we get back.

If anyone wants a postcard, send me an email off this list to viscountessshava@gmail.com with your full name and address.

And we’re off! Since we’re going to be gone over two weeks, we figured it was easier to take the Van Galder bus from Madison to O’Hare rather than drive. I put out a call for some nice soul to give us a ride to the bus stop at the Dutch Mill Park & Ride and Elizabeth, a seasoned traveler herself, took pity upon us and was at our place promptly at 0945. We were almost ready. Always some last minute things especially considering Giles received 5 bow orders in the last few days before we were leaving. So, after a trip to the Post Office and Walgreen’s (for a couple of last min-ute thoughts), we were almost ready to go. Elizabeth being there kept us on track and we made it to the bus stop by 1000 for a 1015 bus.

The bus down was pretty uneventful though we dis-covered they are currently testing out a WiFi service (that was free). Giles kept himself amused by catching up on some of the Geek & Sundry stuff he never has time for other wise. And I amused myself by posting on Facebook that I was on a bus. We made it to the airport on time and other than getting our boarding passes twice (redun-dant systems don’t necessarily mean more efficiency) and a LONG wait for security (didn’t help that I had decided to wear a knee brace that seems to have some metal in it that I hadn’t realized it had), we made it to the gate about 15 minutes before Paul & Cindy—and about an hour and a half before boarding. Slight delay at the gate once we were boarded (only about 15 minutes) and we were off.

Full flight, uncomfortable seats, food was okay (we were served dinner [I chose pasta and Ed had a beef stew—both came with a salad, freshish roll, cheese/crackers, and a not-too-sweet piece of a carrot cake] about an hour and a half after takeoff and a snack [yogurt, muffin and juice] about an hour before landing). I did catch up on a couple

of movies, though, and finally got to see The Iron Lady and The Muppets. I only got about 2 hours of sleep for a 7 ½ hour flight, though.

Long trek from arriving gate to our departure gate (where I’m sitting right now) and now we wait again. So far, so good. About 0130 home time and 0830 Amsterdam time/1030 St. Petersburg time. It’ll be a long day by the end of it but maybe I can sleep a bit between Amsterdam and St. Petersburg.

I had to take a break in writing to go through security at the gate in Amsterdam (starting meeting some of our fellow travelers); fly from Amsterdam to St. Petersbug; arrive, go through Migration/Customs, and being met by one of the six Program Directors for the trip (one PD for every 30 tourists, each group colour-coded—those 30 people will do most everything together); transfer airport to ship; find room; shower/unpack; get orientated by the Captain, Bo-ris; have dinner; and explore the gift shop/internet bar on the dock.

So, the flight from Amsterdam to St. Petersburg was a bit rough-er than I’m used to but not bad enough that we weren’t able to get a bit of sleep. The airlines we flew was Rossiya (still part of Delta/KLM, etc) and what I found interesting was that it was very Rus-sian—one of the flight attendants did not speak English very well which I found fascinating for some reason. Maybe because, up until now, most of the places I’ve gone the people that serve the public have a good command of English, whether they’ll admit it or not. I don’t say this disparagingly but more out of curiosity. The flight left on time and arrived on time.

Another thing interesting about this trip is that they are very clear that all foreigners have to register in the county. Not just go-ing through Migration (which is what we usually see as Immigra-tion) but when we finally made it to the ship—they collected our passports to deal with all the paperwork. The forms that we had to fill out for entry and departure were exactly the same and attached to each other. One was left with Migration (which was quick and easy—the young lady who processed me did not speak to me at all—I guess our visas speak for us) and the other stays in our pass-ports until we leave the country.

M/S Rossiawas fully refurbished in 2007. This vessel a c c o m m o d a t e s j u s t 216 travelers and feature all outside cabins, Western de-cor, and a friendly Russian staff. Eng-lish-only shipboard announcements; a

dining area with regional and international cuisine; two bars and a library onboard; and panoramic views from the lounge and sun deck. The cabin featured a picture window, twin beds, refrigerator, flat-screen TV with movies, and a private, Europe-an-style bath with shower. (Information from the Grand Circle web-site / photo by me.)

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3Baggage pickup was quick and painless for us though one wom-

an who was with the tour did not get hers—it was promised to be delivered tonight or tomorrow—(good thing that we’re in St. Petersburg for five days so it doesn’t have to chase us down around the country. We were met by one of the six Tour Directors, Katya, who told me that I had a great accent for Russian (thank you, Mr. Ambrechevich (sp?), my high school Russian teacher—I took 3 se-mesters [I do have a good ear for the language but even then a lousy memory for vocabulary] before quitting in favour of AP English [an A first semester, a B second semester, and a C third semester and flunked the final]). It took over forty-five minutes to collect the fif-teen of us that came in on our flight plus deal with the missing bag.

The bus trip to the ship took about 30 minutes with Katya pro-viding some welcoming commentary. We were met at the dock by a pair of people in native costume—one playing the accordion and the other offering each traveler bread and salt. We also encountered one of the differences that this GCT tour is providing us that we had not seen before—a professional photographer that took a pho-to of each guest accepting the bread and salt. One of the welcome handouts explained that there were three of them who would be traveling with us. This has to be a nice feature for those that do not take photographs themselves so they can still have something tan-gible for their memories after they return home. (For anyone who knows me, this isn’t a problem unless my cameras fail.)

We easily found our cabins, the last two aft on the third deck (the ship has four decks altogether but the top deck is the Presi-dent’s Bar and sundeck), showered and unpacked, and relaxed a bit. A bit of coffee for Ed and a five-hour energy for both of us along with the shower and an hour’s downtime revived us enough to get us through the next five hours. While we relaxed, we watched a biography about Peter the Great (made by the History channel—there are three movies offered as well as an information station and one that is hooked up to a camera on the bow of the ship so we can watch where we’re going if we don’t want to go watch it in person (still a weird concept for me since I can’t imagine wanting to sit in the cabin and watch this experience go by on a TV screen.)

The ship’s manager, Olga, and the captain, Boris, greeted us with a welcome talk at 1800 to help us understand safety issues and how the ship operates. Then we had one of the Tour Directors, Igor, provide more basic information about how things will run for the next two weeks along with basic information like where to change money (unlike the ship on the Rhine we were on a few years ago, it is illegal for the ship to offer a currency exchange—this is a privilege

of only banks and hotels [and I do not understand the distinction between a hotel and the ship for this but it is how it is], buy stamps and mail postcards, etc. She also gave a rundown on all of the optional tours along with her opinion about the quality of each one.

At 1915, they announced that dinner was ready and we proceeded to the restaurant. On these river cruises, there is only one timeframe for all three meals with open seating. It is one of the things I enjoy about GCT since it gives one a chance to site with different people every meal. Breakfast each day is a buffet and lunch & dinner, both, are a fixed menu. This evening we started with a cream cheese terraine which was followed by a cream of celery soup, a choice of a Cossack beef stew or potato dumplings in a yogurt sauce (Ed had beef, I had the dumplings), and a dessert of chocolate/vanilla mousse served with dried pineapple and raspberry & chocolate sauces. Wine is of-fered with the meals as well as iced tea or soft drinks. Ed and I sat with a couple from New Jersey who were also Inner Circle travelers (three or more trips with the com-pany—we joined that elite group on this trip) and had a pleasant dining experience.

We spoke to three of the tour directors, who were on duty, after dinner (one being Katya who had met us at the airport, one Evgenia who will be our leader for the whole trip, and Lena—all three had been working in the tour-ism industry for over six years, I believe) and then left the ship to wander over to the gift shop across from the ship to get some money from the ATM. We picked up some postcards and a book on St. Petersburg, Ed had a beer and tried to use the internet but for some reason he couldn’t get his password for his gmail to work, and we looked at a lot of stuff—some very kitschy and some quite beautiful.

We took a short walk on the dock and finally admitted that we were tired enough and late enough to collapse. It’s now around 2200 and I think its time to stop moving and thinking. Tomorrow we will have a short tour of the city in the morning and get to go the Hermitage in the afternoon.

Schedules, Menus, and Photos for St. Petersburg

• Photos:FirstImpressions• Photos:St.Petersburg1

(IncludingSt.Issac ’sCathedralandtheHermit-age)

• Photos:St.Petersburg2(IncludingCatherinePalaceandCanalBoatTour)

• Photos:St.Petersburg3(IncludingtheTheChurchoftheResurrectionofJesusChrist,KazanCathedral,andPalaceSquare)

• Photos:St.Petersburg4(IncludingthePeter&PaulFortress,theAurora,and the State Museum of the Political History of Russia)

•ScheduleforJune15-17•ScheduleforJune17•ScheduleforJune18-19•ScheduleforJune19

•MenuforJune16•MenuforJune17•MenuforJune18•MenuforJune19

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I do wish I had slept longer last night. I did collapse pretty thoroughly after getting back to the cabin but first slept about three hours, was up for about two, and then fitfully slept for about two more. My brain seems to be on over-drive (I can’t remember ever having this many songs running through my head almost simultaneously—I once saw a button that said “The problem with reality is there is no background music” and I didn’t get it—still don’t—since my life always has a soundtrack.) I was up at 2300 to watch the sunset (St. Peters-burg is located about 59 degrees north which will treat us to a bit more than 18 hours of daylight/day) and to listen to the rain (St. Petersburg only sees about 62 days/year of sun.)I fi-nally stopped trying to go back to sleep around 0500.

Breakfast was almost identical to the ones on the Rhine (we did the Christmas Market cruise three years ago) and the Dan-ube (we did the cruise in Eastern Europe last year.) It consisted of a well-stocked buffet with cheeses, sausage, a few salady things, various hot foods (eggs, sausage, vegetables, potatoes, waffles, etc.), breads, fruit, yogurt, and probably a lot more. The wait staff also took orders for fried eggs or omelets and/or French toast (the special today). A small omelet sounded like it was just the thing for me and Ed went for the French toast. After having been on a couple of these cruises before, I made it a point to try to eat pretty light while still getting a chance to try a few things that were familiar but yet still different.

By the time I finished eating, I was ready for a nap, funny that. Luckily we had about 2 hours until our busses were sup-posed to be ready to take us away. Of course the nap was inter-rupted a couple of times but we both slept a bit and really did help us get through the day.

Our Program Director, Evgenia, was ready for us along with Olga, our city guide and Viktor, our bus driver, with a match-ing blue sign and blue flag for we are the Blue Sky Russians for this trip (each of the six groups are colour-coded to make or-

ganizing 180plus people each day.). We were off for a city tour with 30 others—this group will be together for the duration of trip. It was now adventure time (note the small “a” in the word adventure) and we set out to experience St. Petersburg.

We were regaled with much history as we wound our way around the outskirts of the city to the city centre. Two photo stops gave us an opportunity to stretch our legs, take photos, We stopped at the Smolny Cathedral which is now a theatre and again at the Church of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (aka Church of the Savior on Blood) (an impressive, beauti-ful church that has multi-coloured and textured onion domes) before finally getting to go into St. Isaac’s Cathedral. St. Issac’s is the largest church in the Russian Federation and the fourth largest in Europe. It is very ornate, done in the Russian Ba-roque-style, and will hold 8000 for services if it was used that way. Today, only one small chapel is used for religious services and the rest is more a museum.

Olga, who will be our guide for the time we are here in St. Petersburg’s is well-versed in the history of her city and the sites that we are visiting. She gave us a nice tour for about 45 minutes and then allowed us about 15 minutes on our own to explore more and take photos. We have been especially warned that pickpockets are very prevalent in St. Petersburg especially around the more touristy sites. After having my pocket picked

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St. PetersburgSt Petersburg is a relatively young city, by both Russian and Euro-pean standards, and was only founded in 1703 by Tsar Peter the Great. Despite its short life so far, Petersburg has a rich and excit-ing history. From the early days of Peter the Great’s “Venice of the North” to the modern events of the 1991 coup d’etat, the city has always bustled with life and intrigue, revolution and mystery.

June 16St. Petersburg, city tour and the HermitageIf I were to die tomorrow, I would be happy.

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5is why this day’s chronicle is called “If I were to die tomorrow, I would be happy”, I knew I would survive. For after lunch, we boarded our bus once again and made our way to the Winter Palace and the other buildings that make up the Hermitage.

The Hermitage is one of the most impressive museums in the world, filling four buildings and an impressive amount of storage, with classical artwork from around the world. The buildings themselves stand out as prime examples of the Rus-sian Baroque-style and the galleries snake on and on. Olga led us on a tour trying to make sure we saw the highlights (a pair of pieces by Leonardo da Vinci, a few pieces by Rafael, a small statue by Michelangelo, and a room that contained 24 pieces by Rembrandt. But there was SOOOOoooooooooo much more, it was almost over-whelming. I was hot, sweating pro-fusely, and my back was killing me but it did really diminish the awe and sheer joy I felt in this museum. From the intricate parquet floors to the gilded features on the walls and ceilings to the marble, lapis, and malachite walls and columns, the palace and its adjoining buildings were a magnificent backdrop for artworks going back in time to antiquity.

The organized tour was about two hours and then we were given a chance to head back to the ship or stay for another hour and a half. The four of us were part of the five of our group that chose to stay on. After sit-ting for a bit and get-ting something cold to drink, we worked our way back to a hall that we had been rushed through that housed some beautiful Medi-eval pieces that included some incredible, intricately-carved ivory, enamel work, and even a sixth century tabard (I would have called it a surcoat) that was in remarkable shape. Paul & Cindy split off from us since we were mesmerized by this col-lection. Once done in that hall we tried to find the arsenal/armory collection. Unfortunately, we thought we had found the correct hall but thought the doors to be barred and ended up missing out on it (as we found out at dinner when compar-ing notes with our dining companions.) Our time was soon running too short and we had to double-time it back to the meeting point for all of those who had chosen to stay behind. I was sore, I was sweating, and I was happy.

It was a bit of hurry-up-and-wait, though since the bus had a bit of trouble with the traffic (even though we had been told we were lucky to have weekend to explore St. Petersburg in, the traffic was still bad. It turned out that the Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, was in town and security was blocking off a number of the streets.) We were finally able to board our bus for the trip back to the ship. We took a different route than in the morning and so were able to view different areas of the city.

A shower, some stretching exercises, and a change of cloth-

The HermitageThe collection of the State Hermitage includes more than three million works of art and artefacts of the world culture. Among them are paintings, graphic works, sculptures and works of applied art, archaeological finds and numismatic material.

The main architectural ensemble of the Hermitage situated in the centre of St Petersburg consists of the Winter Palace, the former state residence of the Russian emperors, the buildings of the Small, Old (Great) and New Hermitages, the Hermitage Theatre and the Auxiliary House. The museum complex also includes the Menshikov Palace and the Eastern Wing of the General Staff building, the Staraya Derevnya Restoration and Storage Centre and the Museum of the Imperial Porcelain Factory.

in Cologne three years ago, I am well aware of this and am grate-ful that the purse I carry now is made to be anti-theft (straps are made so they can’t be cut, all zippers have a way to anchor them down. It still leaves me gripping both purse and camera tightly and, perhaps, taking a little away from the moment I’m in when exploring. However, I still enjoyed the beau-tiful mosaics and other features of this church.

After this stop we were taken to a local restaurant for lunch. The place seemed only set-up for tour groups from what I ob-served. We were promised a light lunch since it was thought a heavier version of the meal would make it hard to survive and enjoy the afternoon. We started with a very nice bowl of borscht that reminded me of the kind a restaurant in Madison, the now-defunct Russian House, used to serve—only this ver-sion was vegetarian. It was followed by a salad with chicken—unfortunately, more salad and less chicken would have been better for Ed and I and our meal companion, Bill. The chicken was quite dry and somewhat tasteless. We all left most of the chicken. For dessert we had a small scoop of vanilla ice cream with strawberry sauce. We were all served a shot of vodka which I liked (it was reminiscent of the local plum brandy that we had in Budapest last year) and Ed didn’t. He still drank all of his and most of mine.

For some reason, I was feeling very warm and wrung out all morning and through lunch. Unfortunately, this got worse in-stead of better as the afternoon continued. Since the afternoon

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The Legendary Amber Room•Construction of the Amber Room began in

1701.•Originally installed at Charlottenburg Pal-

ace, home of Friedrich I, the first King of Prussia.Peter the Great admired the room on a visit, and in 1716 the King of Prus-sia—then Frederick William I—presented it to the Peter as a gift.•In 1755, Czarina Elizabeth ordered the

room to be moved to the Catherine Palace in Pushkin.•In 1941, Hitler invated Russia, looting

thousands of art treasures, including the illustrious Amber Room. The room was re-installed in Königsberg’s castle museum on the Baltic Coast.•In August of the following year, allied

bombing raids destroyed the city and turned the castle museum into ruins. And with that, the trail of the Amber Room was lost. But no one knows for sure.•The history of the new Amber Room, at

least, is known for sure. The reconstruc-tion began in 1979 and was completed 25 years—and $11 million—later.

ing plus an hour to rest our eyes and we were feeling a bit re-freshed by the time we were called to dinner. The appetizer was a beautiful caprese salad, followed by a wonderful fish soup, for the starters. There were three choices of entrée and I wish I had chosen different. We both chose the lamb which was more mutton than lamb (the other choices being tilapia or a stuffed red pepper for the vegetarian option.) The lamb was served with some bread stuffing and fresh, sautéed vegetables that re-deemed the meal. I chose a cheese plate for dessert since I felt I had enough sweets for the day. Ed went for the apple streudel that he said was okay.

After dinner I was definitely drag-ging but I had hoped to write up the day before my memories became dim. I gath-ered the netbook up and we went to the larger of the two bars on the ship, the Presi-dent’s Bar (one wall is

covered with photos of the Russian leaders since Lenin). There was live music, which was loud but the pianist and accordion player were decent musicians that sounded much like elevator music to me. With both of our backs very sore, we weren’t up for dancing. Ed tried some vodka that was supposed to be one of the better brands but I didn’t like it as much as the one we had at lunch. I had a Coke light (diet Coke) with the hopes it would keep me going so I could write of the day. Unfortunate-ly, fatigue won out and I seemed to type sssssssssssssssssssssssss a bit too much as I would start to dose off in mid-sentence. Despite the fact that the sky was still bright (a bit cloudy but the sun was still high enough in the sky to be blindingly so) it was 2200 and our beds were calling.

I woke at 0445 awake enough to write up my memories of the day before details floated away on the Neva River. It is about 0600 now and our day will start early when we meet the busses at 0745 for our trip to Catherine Palace. Hopefully the weather will be more like yesterday ended rather than how it began (very cloudy and drizzly)—at least for the afternoon—so we can enjoy an excursion on the canals and rivers (an optional tour). Fingers are crossed.

June 17Catherine’s Palace (Pushkin) / Rivers & Canals TourOpulence and rain

Sleep came a bit easier last night, though still not enough to keep me from taking a nap midday. I was able to finish up yesterday’s section of this travelogue before breakfast. Breakfast was oatmeal and a fair amount of protein with a bit of fruit. Seemed to be the right combination since, as I mentioned, a nap came midday lunch lost out.

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Catherine PalaceStarting in 1743, the building was reconstructed by four different architects, before Bartholomeo Rastrelli, Chief Architect of the Imperial Court, was instructed to completely redesign the build-ing on a scale to rival Versailles. The resultant pal-ace, completed in 1756, is nearly 1km in circumfer-ence, with elaborately decorated blue-and-white facades featuring gilded atlantes, caryatids and pilasters designed by German sculptor Johann Franz Dunker, who also worked with Rastrelli on the palace’s original interiors. In Elizabeth’s reign it took over 100kg of gold to decorate the palace exteriors, an excess that was deplored by Cathe-rine the Great when she discovered the state and private funds that had been lavished on the build-ing.

We set out early for the Catherine Palace which is located in the town of Pushkin (about 35km south of St. Petersburg) was built in the last half of the 18th century under the Em-presses Elizabeth and Catherine the Great. The cruise ships have gotten it worked out with the powers-that-run this attrac-tion to allow their passengers in two hours before the general public. Since it is such a popular attraction, this is a very good thing. Not only that, GCT had arranged for our ship to be first in line. We arrived before the gates opened and had a very short wait before being allowed to enter. We had to put on paper booties much as you would see workers in a clean room wearing. We did so and proceeded through the turnstile into a beautifully restored and maintained structure that, like the Winter Palace we saw yesterday, gave much credence to why the Russian Revolution occurred in 1917. It is not surprising that the masses would rise up against those that had so much while they had so little.

Much of the restoration was in the Russian Baroque style though it moved, as we moved through the rooms, to the later Classical style. The public rooms that are on display are covered with gold-leaved decorations, faux marble (which is actually more expensive than real marble but is more versatile while be-ing much lighter), marble, silk painted panels, paintings, and most impressively the famous Amber Room.

The Amber Room, the recreation of which was completed and opened to the public in 2003, is a place of myth and leg-end. Visitors, at the beginning, once were able to take photos in this space as long as flash is not used (as in the case of the rest of the open rooms) but a few people who did not listen have ruined it for the rest of us. No photography or videography is allowed in this space and it is a pity. Although it would prob-ably slow the massive lines so much that some people might never get in—it is said that in 2003, when the room was first opened, people would stand in line for up to six hours. Words really cannot do this space justice, nor do I think photos can. Amber laid in mosaic fashion covers most of the walls creating a framework for paintings; some of the little furniture the room is outfitted with is covered in amber as well. Some pieces are smooth, some carved. Personally, I have some doubts that it is

all real amber since fake amber is easily made and, unless its properties (taste and ability to float), often substituted for the real thing. After all, amber is petrified tree sap which basically translates as really old resin/plastic.

After working through the building with Olga, who will be with us for all of the time we are in St. Petersburg, again for our guide, we were given a bit of time to shop and use the WC (in Russia WC or toilet is definitely universally understood). Evgenia will forever hold a place in our heart when she sought out Cindy and I, as well as other women in our blue group, to lead us to a much, much shorter line. Much like Moses parting the Red Sea and leading the Israelites to freedom, we were led to our relief. We found the men’s room across the way had no line at all so Cindy and I along with another woman slipped in there much to the confusion of men who sought entrance as we departed.

Olga then led us for a short walk around some of the beau-tiful gardens. She explained that there were three gardens—English, French, and Italian—but since many were planning on going on the optional tour of Peterhof tomorrow, it was not

an extensive tour. (Cindy is going on that one while Paul, Ed and I will further explore the city on our own.) We stopped for a group photo in a spot that has the façade of the palace in the background and then were given a bit of time to wander through the souvenir market before loading back on the bus for our trip back to the ship.

I certainly was tired since I dozed off and on all the way back. We arrived about a half hour before lunch was to be served and I lay down to relax a bit. When the call came over the loudspeaker that it was time, I was pretty groggy since I had obviously crashed big-time. I decided to forego a meal, know-

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ing I can certainly afford to do so, in favour of sleep until called for our next excursion.

Unfortunately, the day that had started out sunny and beautiful, had turned to gray and rainy but we set off on the optional tour that was a boat tour of the rivers and canals (St. Petersburg is built on 42 islands with many bridges and canals and, is often referred to, as the Russian Venice). Olga had told us that it is a common saying here that “we don’t have climate, we have weather” and this is certainly true. Being as close to the sea, the Gulf of Finland, as the area is, the weather is predict-ably unpredictable. We boarded the buses anyway for our ride back to the city centre to load until the boats. There was a little combining of the groups since, although many opted for this excursion, a number of people chose to stay on the ship or go exploring on their own. (It is one of the nice things about trav-eling with GCT—one can have as much or as little guidance as one wants as long as you are back on the ship when it sails.

Most of our group took shelter in the covered part of the boat while a few of us brave, and crazy, souls chose to stay on deck to have a better view of everything. Ed stayed out with me until I found that I was so soaking wet that I was beginning to shiver (an odd sensation since both yesterday and today, I spent much of the time we had in the crowded, un-air-conditioned sweating) and we took seats inside. I was still up and down between the spaces when I thought there was something worth taking photos of. My rain jacket is water-resistant but not wa-ter-proof and I was soaked to the shin from neck to ankle.

Our guide for this excursion, also named Evgenia, was very knowledgeable and thorough in her identification and history of the buildings were seeing and the city in general.

We made it back to the ship around 1700 and we were greeted by members of the kitchen/dining room staff who were serving up a sweet, hot spiced tea which was lovely. I couldn’t wait to peel off my wet clothing and get into a warm shower. My best camera was acting up by the end of the trip and it wasn’t working when we got back to the cabin. I’m hoping that it will be better tomorrow or, before the end of the trip, at least.

I spent the time between our return and dinner putting

address labels and messages on postcards. Before we left, I put out a message on my Facebook page that if someone wanted a postcard from Russia to drop me message with their name and address and I would do so. I printed address labels for everyone as well as printing a message that would repeat on all of the postcards: “We’re having a wonderful time. Wish you were here. I promised you a postcard, I never promised you a personal message. ” By the time I was done, I had 53 ready to send. At 100 rubles a stamp (about $3) this will not be cheap but it is fun. I had picked up some packs of cards for a reason-able price: The Rooms of the Hermitage, the Amber Room, and a large collection of various sites around St. Petersburg. When I had asked about where to purchase stamps at our first briefing the other day I was told that the ship provided that service and would even mail them for us when they were able to. They promised that they should arrive at their destinations with in the year.

I was reasonably hungry, despite half a banana, a cup and a half of the sweet tea, and a piece of candy, by the time dinner was called. We found what would turn out to be one of the

Rivers & Canals of St. PetersburgSt. Petersburg was built on the delta of the River Neva and is spread out over nu-merous islands of varying siz-es, frequently prompting the nickname the “City of 101 Is-lands”. Over the centuries nu-merous bridges were built to connect these islands across the various tributaries of the Neva and the city’s many ca-nals (Moika, Fontanka, Kanal Griboyedova, etc.).

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June 18On our own in St. PetersburgBusses and Subways and Rickshaw, Oh My

Two postcards of the Bank Bridge that we never did get to see in person

best combinations of people as dining companions and settled in comfortably for a wonderful meal. The appetizer was a beef salad that contained red beans, onions, sweet peppers, and beef in a sauce that I hope I can recreate some day. This was fol-lowed by pureed corn chowder with bits of ham in it, the en-trée and dessert. I chose the pasta dish that had a white sauce and smoked salmon topping it. Ed had the vegetarian dish that consisted of eggplant (EW!! Only food I actually truly dislike) stuffed with zucchini and other vegetables. A few of our dinner companions opted for the roast turkey and from their reviews of their choice it sounds as if we made the better choices. Mine was so much to my taste that I ate it slower than most anything I’ve ever eaten. Dessert was a nut cake covered in dark choco-late which Ed opted for while I decided that the pasta was enough carbs and I asked for the cheese plate. He combination of cheeses—brie, bleu, and, hmmmmmm, I’m not really sure what it is but its tasty—served with a couple of crackers, a few grapes and a few pieces of walnut is a lovely way to end a meal. The option is there every day and I suspect that I will continue to be happy to choose it every day unless the sweet dessert is something that I cannot pass up. (Okay, as a diabetic, every sweet should be something that I do pass up but one really does have to give in once in a while or go nuts.)

After dinner, the sun was shining brightly (it was about 2100) and I told Ed I was in the mood for a walk. After he took his chin up off the floor, we found Cindy and Paul who also had decided that a walk was a good idea. We changed shoes, grabbed jackets or vests, and got our boarding cards (a card about the size of a business card which is assigned to us by room—everyone takes one every time one leaves the ship and they are returned when we come back. This is the company’s way of knowing who is on and off of the ship.) Paul runs every morning so he knows the route already along the river. It was

windy and just cool enough to feel good. My back, knees and hips were aching after about a half of a mile and I suggested that the three of them walk at their own pace and pick me up on their way back. I continued, despite the pain, and they turned around at what Paul thinks is a mile from the ship when Ed’s leg started hurting. (He’s been doing much better but he still has a few limitations.)

It is about 2230 and I have collapsed into bed to write up the day. The sun was just thinking about setting. Tomorrow is an optional tour to another palace (the one where Rasputin was killed) but only Cindy is taking that option of the four of us. Paul, Ed and I are still debating what we will end up doing. And so the adventure continues.

The day broke cool, clear, and sunny, and we ended up almost sleeping through breakfast. Not that that would have been a terrible thing but a bit of fuel is needed to get started. I think I’ve finally figured out the right balance to break my fast when confronted by so many choices, I like the fact that I can actually have some veggies along with my protein while avoiding overloading on the carbs. So, a couple of fried eggs, some cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, and bacon, and I was ready to go.

There was an optional tour today to Yusupov Palace, the place where Rasputin was killed, but only Cindy chose to go on it. We didn’t see Paul, and there was no answer when we

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tin estrud magna feugait veliqua mconum dolorting er si etum velit lut nostisi.Amet, quat. Com-my nis num essenis amet niat. Nulput

knocked on his door, so we decided to try to figure out how to get into the city on our own. We stopped by the reception to ask the way. I also dropped off a few postcards to mail (discov-ering that they would only cost about $1US to mail rather than $3) and still debating about sending more from here or waiting ‘til we get back into the States and sending them cheaply. After all, I only offered to send a postcard from Russia which could mean buying them in Russia but not sending them from there.

We asked directions on how to get to town from the woman at reception and she gave us clear instructions of where to get the bus, which one to take, where to get off to get to the sub-way (Metro) and which stop to get off at that would be near the city centre. Not knowing the language and only hav ing rud imenta r y skills in reading Cyrillic, I am sure we were both anxious by it all but it all worked out well. The Metro, in particular, did have the names of the stops in both Cyrillic and Roman letters so it really was quite easy. And inexpensive, wow!!! The bus was only 25rubles (approximately $.90) for each of us each way and the Metro was only 27rubles each/each way.

We were on Nevsky Prospekt which is the main street in the city centre and almost any-thing that we would want to do and/or see. We were heading to-wards the Resurrection Church (known as the Church of the Spilt Blood) and found ourselves in a square called the Arts Square and we were looking at a magnificent edifice behind an impressive fence. The gate was open and some people were wandering in so we went to check it out. Turned out that it was the Russian Museum, an art museum that covered Russian art going back to about the 9th c. Some of it was very im-pressive—huge canvasses depicting impressive battles that, of course, showed the Russians crushing the barbarians (of some ilk). Some of it quite beautiful—I hadn’t realized that there were Russian impressionists until today. And the stuff that fas-

cinated me the most were the rooms of 9th to 16th century works. Mostly religious subjects, the pieces were quite beauti-ful and impressive. Unfortunately, they didn’t seem to know how to light art exhibits and there was a great deal of glare on the pieces. It wasn’t just because I was trying to take photos but trying to get a full feeling of each piece and the effect was less than optimal.

My back was aching, as were my knees and hips, and I needed something to drink. We proceeded to the Resurrec-tion Church, which looks so impressive no matter which angle you see it from. Many onion domes in multiple colours and textures catch the eye and the imagination when viewed and

I’d heard that the inside was just as impressive. We found a small café with in sight of the church and got some water and some coke light (same as diet coke in the states but more bubbly, at least to me) and sat a bit to relax before going into the church.

Every wall was covered by mosaics—it was incred-ible. It is amazing that it survived both Stalin and the Siege of Leningrad. We en-joyed our wandering around the church though Ed never did find St. Mercurius (we saw a photo of his mosaic that had him armed with a horsebow.)

I continued to hurt and knew that there were only so many kilometers that my knee and back could handle.

We looked around and both came to the same conclusion—one of the bicycle rickshaws would be the way to go to get to the Palace Square (next to the Hermitage). And so we did. It was not an inexpensive mode of transportation but it wasn’t that bad (about $15US) and an interesting experience, getting us where we wanted to be. The young driver did not have change and before we could rummage around in our pockets and wal-lets he ran off saying he could get it from a friend (another rickshaw driver on the other side of the square). We might have been concerned that he wouldn’t come back with the change except he’d left his rig with us and it was his livelihood. So, we

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The State Museum of the

Political History of Russia

The State Museum of Political History of Russia was founded in 1919. It reflects political, eco-nomic, and social life of Russian society of the XIXth- XXIst centuries. At the beginning of the 1990’s the displays were radically reworked to reveal much of the secret history of the Soviet Union, with a new ethos aimed at dispassionate-ly telling the truth about even the most recent history.

waited ‘til he returned with the change and then proceeded to explore. This square is dominated by the Alexander Column which is an 82-foot memorial cut from a single piece of granite crowned by an angel crushing a snake—it symbolizes Russia’s victory over Napoleon.

We wandered down the Nevsky Prospekt after exploring the square a bit and, since I was running out of fuel (we never had stopped for lunch and it was about 1500), we found a café. I didn’t need much so I found a soup that was described as a cold kvass soup with meat and vegetables. Ed ordered a shot of vodka. The soup turned out to be too bitter for me but Ed really liked it. I gave him my soup and ordered two Russian pancakes with some raspberry preserves. Russian pancakes are more like we would think of crepes. This was exactly what I wanted—something light and not too filling.

Further down the Nevesky Prospekt, we suddenly came upon a huge edifice with two colandes of many columns. This turned out to be the Kazan Cathedral which is an active church (as opposed to the ones we’d seen so far which are more like museums. We took the time to wander in, being very respectful of the building. No photography was allowed and I chose to be respectful of this as opposed to a few others.

We found our way to the Metro after wandering around the cathedral for a bit. We took this back to the bus stop where we got off he subway earlier in the day and transferred to the bus that would get us close to the close to the pier our ship was docked at.

Dinner consisted of a salad niçoise for the appetizer; beef consumeè with pelmeni; the entrée was a Georgian meat skew-er that we both chose with chicken and grilled vegetables (in-cluding a bit of sausage and bacon) served with a baked potato and onion salad; and dessert was called Swan Lake which was a cream puff in the shape of a swan which Ed chose and I de-

cided to go with the cheese plate to avoid the sweets.After dinner, there was an optional trip to the ballet,

Swan Lake, which would have been an interesting cultural experience but not worth the $110 price tag for each per-son—at least not to us. We were told it was very good. I’m glad but I still don’t think that I missed much. As much as I’d love to have seen something of that ilk in St. Petersburg, the cradle of classical culture, the place where some of the greatest trained and danced, neither ballet nor opera are among my favourite art forms.

We wandered around the deck for a while before crash-ing and looking forward to our last day in St. Petersburg.

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June 19The Last Day in St. PetersburgTruth will out

We are definitely getting more comfortable in our beds since sleep is coming easily and getting out of bed is not. This was true this morning especially for Ed who didn’t make it up in time to have breakfast. I broke mine as I have become accustomed with a bit of oatmeal mixed with stewed raisins, some veggies, and a couple of fried eggs. I started out trying to get caught up on this chronicle but soon was joined by Paul & Cindy and another couple. We had chosen not go to the Yusupov Palace but Cindy plus both Paul & Cindy had chosen to go to the ballet, Swan Lake, the day before. Now we had had the chance to share our days with each other.

The morning scheduled tour was the Peter & Paul Fortress, where the city of St. Petersburg was founded. This 18th c. fortress, built between 1712 and 1733, is the heart of the city. The cathedral was the tallest building in the city by Peter the Great’s decree until the television tower was built in 1962.

The bus ride to the fortress seemed to be never-ending because of the traffic. I know I fell asleep even though both Olga and Evge-nia tried hard to keep us occupied by filling in history and cultural information. We were able to get out and stretch once we made it into town and across the bridge to see the Rostrol Columns (old lighthouses that were…) for a photo stop. We then had a stop a little later for a rest stop in a souvenir shop that had two rest rooms. (It seems that GCT must have contracts with certain shops to stop at them for these stops. After all, to get a bus worth of people through takes a while and shopping is bound to happen.)

The highlight of the fortress is the cathedral where almost all of the Tsars and Emperors have been buried. The place was packed with many tour groups but were able see much of it along with the room with 9 memorial plaques for Nicholas II and his family who were killed in 1918 by the Bolsheviks following the 1917 Revolu-tion. The bodies were not discovered until recently and then were buried in this space.

Outside of the cathedral we came across a horn orchestra play-ing on traditional horns that each only plays one note. It sounded very much like a pipe organ. While we waited upon the last few of our group to emerge from the chapel, we were able to enjoy most of one pieces and all of another. I was able to get videos that turned out relatively well (I hope.) You can find them here and here.

At this point we left the group behind since we had not chosen to take the optional tour to Peterhof for the afternoon. We had directions on how to find the battleship Aurora which was used in the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War and in World War I. It is best known as the ship that fired the blank shot that was the signal to start the 1917 Revolution. We had a pleasant walk, though rain threatened, and found the place where it was docked quite easily. Unfortunately, for reasons that were posted that we could under-stand, it was not open for the public. Ed spent a bit of time examin-ing the outside while we shared a soda.

From there, we walked in the direction of a mosque we had seen from a distance a couple of times which we knew was not far away. On our way, we literally stumbled upon a museum that I didn’t even think could exist. The State Museum of the Political History of Russia has actually been there for a while but obviously the em-phasis has changed over the years. The highlights were Lenin’s Study and an exhibit on the Pros and Cons of Capitol Punishment. We were museumed out before we could explore the exhibit the Collapse of the USSR: Historical Inevitability or Criminal Conspiracy?

We looked at the time and realized that since the ship was sail-ing before dinner that we needed to work our way back to the dock and forego trying to find the military surplus store that Ed was interested in, as well as the Bank Bridge which is guarded by large griffins (we’d already bought a few postcards and a magnet of it but never did get to see it in person.) We now seemed to be old hands at

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13taking the Metro, even changing lines with no trouble, and the bus to get back to the ship.

Since this was the night that the ship was actually sailing, there was a reception and Captain’s welcome dinner, which was more elaborate than the other evenings’ repasts. Champagne and appe-tizers in the bar were complimentary before going to dinner. Din-ner consisted of two appetizers, one cold (celery salad with chicken galantine and cranberry sauce) and one hot (vegetable risotto topped with tiger prawns served with a saffron sauce); a palate cleanser of lemon sherbet in sparkling wine; a choice of beef tenderloin that was served with a forest mushroom sauce, potatoes, cauliflower, and green beans wrapped in bacon (my choice) or a tomato tart that was served with grilled vegetables, arranged with black olive tapenade and basil pesto (Ed’s choice); and the dessert was crème brûlée with pistachio ice cream.

It was fun watching the scenery start to change during dinner since the ship had been in one place for the first five days. We passed quite a few nice houses, a lot of freighters waiting to go into St. Pe-tersburg (the bridges are only opened for a few hours in the middle of the night and they need to hit that window to go through), and lots of trees. While still on the Neva River, we traveled quite quickly and the scenery rushed by. Finally, we decided to retire although I kept looking out the window. This was a good thing since suddenly I noticed a fortress coming up ahead of us on one side of the ship. Quickly, I put my shoes back on, Ed pulled on his trousers, and we went out to watch us go by the Schluesslburg Fortress. From there we entered Lake Ladoga (the largest lake in Europe) and it was definitely time to crash.

June 20Out and about: SvirstroyMeeting the people

It’s never a good feeling when one wakes up to a stuffed nose and a scratchy throat but even less good when one is on one of those “vacations of a lifetime”. And thus was the way I started this day. So, along with my morning meds, I went for one of the heavy-duty decongestants the hopes to beat back the symptoms if nothing else. Luckily this day was more about putting some miles between us and St. Pe-tersburg so I’m glad if it had to happen it happened now.

Breakfast was fine though we sat in an area where the service was not as good as usual. I tried to order over easy eggs twice—the first time they never arrived and the sec-ond time they came after I chose to give up. Ed said they came to the table over hard so it was just as well. I still had a decent breakfast.

Today was very much about discovery. GCT is big on that which is one of the reasons I appreciate traveling with them. First, we had a talk on the trip itself, Our Ship and Our Trip: Russian Waterways Close-up, with photos by the captain, the hotel manager and their crew. It went over where we’d been and where we were going. Second up was

Schedules, Menus, and Photos for the days on the waterways

•Photos:Svirstroy

•Photos:Petrozavodsk

•Photos:KihziIsland

•Photos:Kirillo-BelozerskyMonastery

•Photos:Uglich

•ScheduleforJune20

•ScheduleforJune21

•ScheduleforJune22

•ScheduleforJune23

•ScheduleforJune24

•MenuforJune20

•MenuforJune21

•MenuforJune22

•MenuforJune23

•MenuforJune24

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a talk by the gift store manager and her helper explaining about the different types of Russian handicrafts we’d fine not only in their store but also when out and about. It did include ways to tell the real from the fake. So, while it was more a sales pitch than anything, there was some interesting history and information about the different pieces. Third up was a port talk about the villages we’d visit today and tomorrow plus a Russian language lesson. I missed the beginning but made the lesson. More and more of my high school Russian seems to be returning—or at least my ear for the language is still good enough to get a few things into my thick skull.

I decided to sleep through lunch so that I’d have energy once we made it to Svirstroy. This was probably a good choice. We went through the first of what will be sixteen locks, the Lower Svir Lock (only two are named, the rest numbered), and I slept through that as well. The village of Svirstroy was just on the other side. We docked next to two other cruise ships and had to walk through their lobbies to get to shore—this made for an interesting comparison which one was not nearly as nicely fitted out as ours and the other was far more opulent.

The village used to be a much larger town, founded in 1927 for a power plant, when the young communist country was following a wide-scaled plan to construct hy-droelectric stations. The station was completed in 1933. With a population of about 27,000, it was destroyed in WWII and has now been rebuilt but the current popula-tion is only around 900. Many small shops awaited our money as we got off the ship but our first stop would be a home-hosted visit (one of the other things that GCT does very well) with half of our group. 16 of us went first, and the other half to follow later, to the home of a babushka by the name of Tatiana. A lovely, lively 72yo woman who had married a pilot and spent most of their working and living in Siberia near Lake Bhakail. Her garden was beau-tiful and filled with not only flowers but also fruit trees and vegetables—enough to feed her family, her daughter’s family, and her grandson’s family. The house was small but there were many, many homey touches and she and her

husband, who had recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniver-sary, had done all the work over the twelve years that they had lived there. One of the things Tatiana really enjoyed was singing and we persuaded her to sing for us (although she had used it as a threat if we didn’t come up with questions for her.) Check out these videos,

here and here, of her singing for us. This home-hosted visit was different

than the two we had experienced previ-ously in Germany and in Croatia. Evgenia stayed with us and translated everything, both questions and answers. And the groups were much larger—in the past it had been 8-10 people per visit and we were 16. It seems that they do not have as many people willing to do this as they wish they could have. It’s too bad although it has to be easier on the local host who might not be comfortable in their command of Eng-lish. We were treated to tea, two kinds of piroshki (apple and cabbage), and sweets. In particular, I loved Tatiana’s homemade jam which I used to sweeten my tea much as I was taught my ancestors did long ago.

We wandered back to the shopping area of the village after bidding Tatiana adieu (I went to thank her and shake her hand and found myself in a tight, grandmotherly embrace.) On our way, a young girl on roller blades stopped us

Lake Ladoga & Lake OnegaLake Ladoga & Lake Onega are freshwater lakes located in the Republic of Karelia and Lenin-grad Oblast in northwestern Russia, not far from Saint Peters-burg. Ladoga is the largest lake in Europe, and the 14th largest lake by area in the world and Lake Onega is the second larg-est lake in Europe. The Svir River connects these two large bodies of water and are a large part of the waterway we traveled.

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15and said “Hello, my name is Lisa. What is your name?” She was so pleased to practice the English she had learned in school. It took her a bit to understand our questions about her age and grade but she had worked hard on her part of what she was interested in. She did quite well and we were all pleased with the encounter. We came across a statue to Sergei Kirov, who, in 1926, was the leader of the Leningrad Communist Party and considered the second person af-ter Stalin. He was killed in 1934 in what many consider a terrorist attack and was made a hero/martyr with many monuments erected all over the country.

We shopped a bit—a few gifts and Ed found the fur hat he was hoping to find—and wandered around admiring the many wood carvings throughout the village. I had hoped to buy a small sample of the carvings but decided to try to bargain for it. The lady selling the pieces wasn’t having any of the bargaining and so I shrugged and left. I didn’t want it that badly and obviously she didn’t want to sell it that badly. We stopped in the local bar/restaurant so Ed could have a vodka before returning to the ship.

Dinner tonight was all traditional Russian dishes with all of the servers dressed in traditional costumes. The travelers had been en-couraged to buy and wear something traditional as well. It was all great fun, with the staff escorting each guest in to music and clap-ping. We started with Russkie Zakuski, a traditional appetizer plate with a Russian salad, stuffed eggs, Beet Salad and a herring canapé. This was followed by Solyank, a Russian soup with assorted meat and vegetables (interesting that the veggies included black olives.) I chose the Pozharski Rissole which was minced pork and chicken backed in a crisy crouton crust with a paprika sauce that was served with zucchini and mashed potatoes. Ed chose the Ryba S Kapustoi which was butter fish on tart cabbage with similar side dishes. The dessert was Sirniki (curd cheese fritters on strawberry ragout topped with sweet sour cream.)

While we were eating, it appeared that we had chosen one of the best tables because we went through the Upper Svri Lock (the other one with a name) along with another cruise ship and we were there to see it all. The other ship had to come so close to ours it was almost touching. Two locks down, fourteen to go.

June 21PetrozavodskCapital of Karelia

My cold made for a very restless night of little sleep but with the help of meds I was able to enjoy part of the day in the city of Petrozavodsk. Our local guide was a tall young man who was very proud of the city and of his profession as a tour guide (also as a singer, movie maker, and actor) who seemed to love the sound of his own voice.

I decided to forego breakfast entirely since I wasn’t hungry and the lunch described in the menu sounded like it was definitely worth trying.

We saw much of the city in a 2 ½ hour guided tour that took us all over. The city is located on the western shores of Lake Onega and is as old as St. Petersburg. It has grown from about 3500 inhabitants in 1717 to over 300,000 today. It had been occupied by Finnish troops for nearly three years during World War II. We were able to hear part of the choir when we stepped inside the church

After dinner, the entertainment was one of the musi-cian/photographers (all three musicians double as photog-raphers during the day), Dimitry, performing a concert of Tchaikovsky works on the piano. The large bar was packed and I’m sure many enjoyed it greatly. It was obviously he is very talented (he has won prizes as a pianist) but Tchai-kovsky is far from one of my favourite composers so I sat in a corner and caught up on this chronicle. As I finish this up the other two photographers, one on keyboards and singing, the other on accordion, are providing Rus-sian music for those left in the bar. I find this preferable to some of the other entertainment I’ve experienced on other trips when they perform American pop classics or whatever they think the patrons want to hear. It looks like I’m the only one actually paying attention which is too bad since I think I’m about ready to crash for the night. It’s after 2230 and though the sun is still shining, it still is past my bed time. Russian is a lovely language for these songs, though.

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for a bit and even got to wish a bride & groom good luck just minutes before their wedding.

We got back to the ship by about 1100 and I realized that the tour had taken a lot out of me. We rested a bit be-fore the port talk about Kihzi Island where we will visit to-

morrow and then went down to lunch. Every day, I guess (since this was my first lunch on board) there is a salad bar set up and I started with that. It was followed by a nice split pea soup, beef stroganoff topped with beet, sour cream and served on spaetzle (which was my choice) or a William’s sandwich which had pear, ham and gorgonzola cheese (Ed’s choice). Dessert was either carrot cake (which was more a torte since it seemed to have more almonds than flour) (my choice) or ice cream with strawberries and Grand Marnier (Ed’s choice).

After lunch, I realized that I was crashing and came back to the cabin to rest/sleep. The video (there are a few every day) that I ended up watching was Catherine the Great (an American production). Ed took a walk along the embankment in the rain. There were quite a few statues along that way including one that is a gift from Duluth, MN—a sister city to Petrozavodsk for almost 25 years. Check out this article about a delegration of Americans who visited in 1986.

The optional excursion today was a Karelian folk show which we also chose not to do. There are many optional excursions and all cost a bit over the basic cost of the trip. We have chosen to do a few of them but not all.

I slept or at least rested through the afternoon. At least we have some good meds with us to handle the worst of this cold. I took a shower—did that ever feel nice on my

June 22Kihzi IslandNature meets man; Man meets nature

The day started early but I wish it could have been earlier so we could have more time on the island. Despite the fact that I slept fitfully again (the cold is getting less intense but that wasn’t going to stop my exploration today), I was ready to go with time to spare. The day is beautiful with very few clouds, blue sky, and coolish weather (I had to borrow Ed’s baklava much to his consternation—“Didn’t you bring your hat?” said he and I replied “Mine doesn’t cover my ears and with this cold I don’t want to take chances.”)

But I’m getting ahead of myself. We were asked to be off the ship and ready to go by 0800 and meet up with our groups. We had a seventh group created that would go at a slower pace which I de-cided to join. Even though I could keep up with our regular group, I was sure that I could take more time taking photos than with the regular pacing of the groups. It turned out that we caught up to the

sinuses—and was able to make it down for dinner. If nothing else, I wanted to try the cream of pumpkin soup. The salad was a Caesar salad with chicken and bacon. The soup was wonderful with bits of apple in it. The entrée choices were a couple of kinds of lamb served with polenta (Ed’s choice), pike perch on noodles (my choice), or a vegetarian option that Cindy chose that was a mushroom risotto with fresh asparagus and parmesan cheese that looked really good. Mine was just what I wanted and Ed seemed happy with the lamb. Dessert was a meringue cup filled with custard and topped with fresh fruit. I had to send mine back to have one with out kiwi (I’m allergic) but there was no trouble doing that. I drank three cups of hot tea just for the hot water.

The after dinner entertainment was about Russian fairy tales. It started out kind of lecture like with some descriptions of basic characters, etc. But then it became a lot of fun when some of the program directors and the staff acted out one called The Turnip (videos here and here.) It was almost as funny as the next one about a Princess and a Robber with all of the characters played by the tour members (video here.) Unfortunately, my memory on the camera ran out in the middle of the 4th act but it still was really funny.

After that was over, I realized my energy was gone and we will be having an early start tomorrow to visit Kihzi Island. So, it is time to close this down and try to get some sleep. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow. (Oh, yea, the better camera is STILL NOT working. At least the little one is.)

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17other group relatively easily but our group was a bit smaller and I really enjoyed our local guide, Alexander (his English was excellent but then again he was wearing a Chicago Cubs cap).

Kihzi Island is a UNESCO heritage site and a beautiful place—in fact, possibly one of the prettiest places I’ve seen on earth. The island is one of the largest in Lake Onega (did you know that in Russia islands are surrounded by water?  So said one of the program directors.) We couldn’t have had a nicer day—the waters around the island are sparkling in the sunshine, the gulls swooping and squawking, and the wild flowers blooming all over the place.

The onion-domed churches, old farmsteads, mill, fields of flax and vegetables, and a lot of beautiful land are found on the island. Only about 100 people inhabit the island and very few of them can live here year round. This is the northernmost point that we will visit on this trip. There were costumed locals spinning wool with a distaff or building a boat, using a small hand axe to shape aspen wood shingles, or weeding a field of flax. In the smaller, winter church, three monks were singing and it was so beautiful that it almost brought me to tears. I attempted to get some video of them and we’ll see how it turned out. You can view them here and here.

Alexander gave us a guided tour for about an hour and a half and patiently answered all of our questions. We had about an hour after that to wander on our own. I continued going in the direction

we were heading and am glad since I was able to watch a man building a boat but I wish we’d had more time so I could have headed in the opposite direction to visit one of the two small villages on the island. At one point, I told Ed he could turn in both our boarding passes and just leave me behind—it was so beautiful. I’m sure that the winters would be harsh, though, and I reluctantly re-turned to the ship.

It really was a shame to have to leave but the memory of it will live for a long time. The day was perfect. One of the amusing things, at least to me, was that while we were wandering the island the Captain went fishing and welcomed any of the travelers to join him if they wanted.

We went straight to lunch and the ship departed the port almost as soon as we were back aboard. The soup was a lovely cream of zucchini that was followed by a choice of marinated spare ribs (my choice) or a vegetable lasagna (Ed’s choice). The dessert was a vanilla milk shake though not much like the ones we were used to (it was more like sweetened milk).

There were two afternoon discoveries. A pelemini cooking lesson and a talk on modern Russian history. The cooking lesson was fun but didn’t teach me anything I didn’t already know. Chef Dimitry, the ship’s head chef, had brought up to the President’s Bar (the larger of the two ship’s bars) already-prepared dough, fillings (dry curd cottage cheese, cherry pie filling, mushroom/potato, and a meat filling), hot plates and water to cook the prepared dumplings. Pelemini are like kreplach, tortelinni, gyoza, and any other number of dumplings from any other num-ber of countries. I made one that was cherry and one of the cheese since I thought they’d taste well together. The talk on modern Russian history was much more interees-ting.

The six groups were split, four of them in the Presi-dent’s Bar and two in the Tsar’s Bar, with one of the Pro-gram Directors leading the discussion in each. We were in the smaller group and had Viotletta, the PD of the purple group, as our leader. She didn’t speak on history as just dates and dry facts but spoke about living through it. It was fascinating. Having been born during the Stalinist re-gime, she spoke of the Soviet era, peristroyka (restructur-ing) & glasnost (openness), and the current era from her point of view. I kind of wish I’d recorded it since there was so much there but there were two things in particular

Interesting Facts about Kihzi Island• Kizhi Island is home to the oldest wooden

church in Russia, the Church of the Resur-rection of Lazarus, which was built in the late 14th century.

• While many of the buildings on Kizhi Is-land have stood for centuries, it was not until the 1960’s that the Soviets decided to make Kizhi Island into an open-air mu-seum.

• No nails were used in the construction of the wooden architecture of Kizhi Is-land. Instead, pieces of wood have been notched together to form even the most intricate structures.

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that I took from it that I hope to never forget. One was her memories of Stalin, more based on her family’s experi-ence than her own. The feelings just with in her family were poles apart—an uncle who once spoke out against something that a Stalin-run factory had done and ended up in Siberia for five years on one hand and her father who believed strongly in Stalin and was devasted after the Gu-lag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was published in 1989 (he pretty much shut down after reading it.) The second part of her talk that will forever stay with me was that when she was growing up, America was never demon-ized to the Soviet people like they were demonized to us. They were always warned to worry about the enemy who might destroy their way of life but the enemy was never identified. It now makes sense that it hasn’t been difficult for the Russian Federation to seemingly embrace Ameri-can companies like Starbucks or McDonalds or the like.

The dinner that night was billed as a Russian Mar-ket Buffet. From the soup to the dessert bar of a variety of fruited cakes, a wide variety of breads, salads, pickles, smoked fish, and stews filled us up wonderfully.

The after dinner entertainment was a classical piano concert by Dimitry but I was wiped out by then and went to bed early. It was a very full day considering how I was feeling.

June 23Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery ComplexA bit of time in the Volga-Baltic region

We slept in quite late today but then again nothing was really happening until 1000 so we skipped breakfast and came awake slowly. After a bit of stretching we wandered up to the President’s Bar for a demonstration on blinis. These are the Russian pancakes that we had in St. Petersburg a few days ago—they’re also similar to crepes or the wrapping for the blintzes that I grew up with . I really do enjoy them though rarely make them. We were told that they are usually eaten with the fingers and can be eaten with any number of toppings/fillings. They provided us with honey, dry curd cheese, sour cream, and raspberry preserves. I skipped the honey but enjoyed a few of them with the latter three. It was a perfect substitute for breakfast.

Of course, almost as soon as it was over, it was time for lunch. It was amazing that they gave us almost an hour between the snack and lunch. Is there any wonder that we skipped breakfast this morning? The soup was tomato supposed topped with basil pesto though mine had little in it. The soup was also advertised as chunky and was far from it. But it was tasty, a bit tart, and hot, and went down well. It was a good accompaniment for the BLT that I chose—served, for some reason, with a chicken skewer. (The chicken was quite tasty and made the BLT even better by slicing it unto the sandwich. Ed chose the Zapekanka (a Russian Sheppard’s Pie, which was layered mashed potatoes with a ground beef and vegetable mixture.) We both chose the Peach Jalousie (a puff pastry with custard and peaches) for dessert.

We arrived at a port near the town of Kirillo just as lunch was finishing up. On the shore next to the dock were some wonderfully whimsical outriggers that apparently had been a part of a contest a few years ago. The busses along with our local guides were awaiting us to take us to a huge monastery, the Kirillo-Belozersky mon-astery, in the town. Our guide, Lidia, was somewhat difficult to understand—her English was very precise and almost too much so which made it hard to catch her meaning. She spoke to us all the way to the monastery, about a 15-minute drive, about the Volga-Baltic region, their resources, cities and people. I think much of her lecture was lost on us.

The monastery really was quite large (the tour book we have de-scribed it as humungous) and the tour kept us moving through the

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19crowds at a rapid clip. Unfortunately, we were given no time after the tour to look around on our own—if we had, we would have tried to track down an exhibit that we thought might be armour (at least the poster had pictures of men in armour). We rushed through the grounds, along the lake whose water is supposed to have restor-ative powers (supposedly, if you take a dip in these waters you will be 10 years younger), through a lace museum (and gift shop), an icon/church artifact museum (and gift shop), and the rest of the grounds. No time to shop (even though we took a few seconds to pick up a book about) or look around on our own. Back on the busses before we knew it and on our way back to the ship. Again, Lidia took time to try to fill us in more about her region including the fact that Father Frost (the Russian Santa Claus) comes from this region.

Back on the ship, we had back-to-back discovery programs scheduled. The first was a Matryoshka (nesting dolls) painting ses-sion. We were each given a blank set of three wooden dolls that came with a set of water colours and a paintbrush. We had an hour to play with this activity and tomorrow, if we wish, we can have our doll judged by other travelers as to which one is the best/nicest. Even Ed participated (I was a bit surprised) and we had fun paint-ing the wooden dolls together. I took a bit of time after we got back to the room to finish mine.

We had a bit of time before the next session was about vod-ka. One of the Program Directors, Misha, taught us much about vodka—dismissing our preconceived notions about the Russian na-tional drink. He taught us its history, what it is made of (wheat, wa-ter, and flavor), and how to properly drink it. We were given three different types (plain, honey/pepper, and cedar nut) of what Misha called mid-range vodkas. He taught us three ways (upon two fin-gers, rolling along the cheek from the ear, and from the elbow) how to drink it. We had a few snacks (herring, pickles, and sauerkraut on rye bread) to go with each shot. It was a fun lesson and the last one, the cedar nut, was my favourite. One of the points that Misha was trying to make is that vodka is not a mixer like most Americans seem to think it is but a good vodka should stand on its own as a sipping drink. (Unfortunately, I overheard some of my fellow trav-

elers talking amongst themselves and saying they didn’t go because they only like vodka if its mixed with something sweet like orange juice or cranberry juice. It’s too bad that some people aren’t willing to try new things.)

Feeling nice and warm after the vodka tasting, dinner was announced. Hmmmm. Eating again we soon would be. Tonight was a Ukrainian dinner that started with a fer-mersky salad made of vegetables with brynza cheese—a dry cheese very much like feta—and herb dressing (too many peppers for my taste); followed by chicken breast Kiev-style served with celeriac mash and sautéed vegetables (my choice) or kulebiaka (salmon and pike perch baked in puff pastry served with herbed potatoes) (Ed’s choice) (there was also a vegetarian option but we couldn’t try all three entrees); and we both chose the vareniki (sweet fresh cheese ravioli served on cherry compote).

The evening’s entertainment is one that we’ve seen on previous cruises—The Liars’ Club—which is much like the game of Dictionary that I used to play in college or Balderdash that is available for party games. Three of the Program Directors are given an English word and each have to come up with a definition that will fool the audi-ence, divided into many teams, or the real definition. It’s an amusing activity especially when the participants, in this case Evgenia, Katya, and Lena, really can get into it. A fun end to a pleasant day, indeed.

One shot of vodka at the beginning of the vodka tasting.

One shot of vodka at the end of the vodka tasting.

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June 24Uglich A little bit of this, a little bit of that

I turned on the television last night as I was getting ready for bed and found a strange movie about Ivan the Terrible. It was in Russian, with English subtitles, and was wonderful for its cinematography—not so much for the story that I had trouble following. I ended up turning to the last half of From Russia with Love with Sean Connery. I’m sure that I’ve seen it before but a long, long time ago.

Sleep came easily and hard—so much so that waking up was hard to do. I was perfectly fine skipping breakfast again. The ship was still moving when I woke up so I didn’t feel the need to rush getting ready. We were due to tour the town of Uglich at 0900 but didn’t dock until about a quarter after. We met up with Evgenia and our local guide, Galina, on the pier for a 10-minute walk to the Kremlin (fortress) of the town. Our walk took us through a tourist market that was just starting to get set up but Galina said would be 200 vendors when we came back through later.

The town is relative-ly old with six churches left and the Stalinist purge (down from 136) but they are up to ten libraries from one. Not too shabby for a small city/large town. The first building we went into had been a church but was now a museum. We were treated to a won-derful concert (well, a concert if you can call two songs a concert)

from a six-man choir. The video of their two songs, one an old Orthodox sacred piece and the other a Russian folk song, can be found here and here.

One of the fun bits for this stop was a stand that had many costumes one could put on and pay to have their photo taken in them. Five of the six Program Directors from our ship did so and had fun hamming it up for group

photos. Since the costumes were generic sizes, one of the things that amused me the most was the use of binder clips to adjust them to fit.

The other building that we went into was beautifully painted on all of the walls and ceilings. It was well worth the extra 50 rubles (about $1.50US) to be allowed to take photos. There was a bell in the church that had been used to call people together to murder their neighbors after the mysterious death of the 9yo Tsar Dimitri. The bell had had its tongue and one of its ears torn out and was exiled to Siberia for being a part of this. There are many versions of how the boy died and no one is really certain of how it came about.

The tour was at a good pace and Galina was a good guide. We then were given about two hours to explore the town on our own and shop. Everyone was very clear that this town probably had the best prices for souvenirs. We found some very high end work which was exquisite but well be-yond our means, unfortunately, but also found some very rea-sonably priced pieces. We even stopped at a small liquor store and bought a small bottle of vodka and another of a cranberry

cordial. We spent the whole time wandering and then finally made it through the gift shop row and found things for everyone we had wanted to get something for.

We stayed away as long as we could since this would be the last small town before we get to Moscow, which will be tonight. Lunch was at 1300 just after we were aboard. The vologodsky (cream of potato and leek soup) was very good and a good start. We split the pasta with cheese, which was nothing special, and helped ourselves to salad from the salad bar. We both chose the crepe a la chocolate (a Swedish pancake filled with banana and chocolate cream.)

I didn’t dawdle much after lunch since we went through another lock that was very im-

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21pressive in a classical style and I wanted to get some photos of the structure. The day has been gray, a bit drizzly but very humid. Much of the afternoon has been totally on our own until late in the afternoon when we had a Russian folk song lesson. We learned two songs, Kalinka and Moscow Nights. The videos of these can be found here and here. The lessons were a lot of fun but my voice is still very scratchy from the cold (which really is mostly gone at this point.) The entertainment tonight is listed as “Surprise Entertain-ment” and those that learned the song will perform it then.

Since this is our last night of sailing, tomorrow we will dock in Moscow, tonight was the Cap-tain’s Farewell drink and Farewell dinner. The ship’s captain, Boris, is a handsome, smiley man who really seems to enjoy people. They set up for drinks in both bars, scheduling them 15 min-utes apart so that Captain Boris could go to both. It was fun to watch the bartenders set up the glasses of champagne and other drinks into a pyramid and ham it up for their cameras as well as

for ours. A few appetizers, both hot and cold, were served with the drinks while the captain and the hotel manager, Olga, spoke many nice words.

The dinner was the all-out presentation from the galley (not that we were hungry enough to truly enjoy it.) It opened with Tsar’s Tartar (smoked and fresh, raw salmon) with a bit of veggies (this had to be one of the best dishes we have had on this trip) which was followed by a hot appetizer of a mushroom ragout with cream, baked with cheese (which I loved but Ed didn’t since he isn’t a fan of mushrooms—the restaurant manager, Ivan, offered to bring him another of the salmon but like I said, we didn’t really need food.) There was a palette cleanser of cassis sherbet in vodka orange that was actually a bit sweet for a palette cleanser but tasty. Choice of en-trées were medallion of beef tenderloin in a green peppercorn sauce served with sautéed vegetables and pomme duchesse (my choice) and a spinach feta cheese tart (Ed’s choice.) Both were quite well done. The dessert was a grand presentation of baked Alaska on parade, brought around the whole of the dining room by all of the staff that wasn’t needed to run the ship at that time (gal-ley, reception, housekeeping, and anyone else not on duty or asleep) that was served with rasp-berry and chocolate sauces. We definitely didn’t need, or much of any of this dinner, that but it was very good.

After dinner, we were scheduled to have a “Surprise Entertain-ment” which turned out to be the “Crew Show” much as we have seen on other GCT cruises. This one was a bit different in that they highlighted the people who had learned the two songs this after-

noon. All of this was in good fun and at times hilarious. Videos can be found through these links: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight.

Just as any night, after the planned entertainment, there was music and dancing. The difference tonight was that we stayed around for a while. Ed danced a few of the dances, we sang with the songs (mostly 80s American music), and he even got me out me on the dance floor for a couple of dances which I enjoyed greatly until my hips and back complained.

Finally, we knew it was time to crash and after cool showers fell exhausted into bed.

Schedules, Menus, and Photos for Moscow

•Photos:Moscow1Including Red Square, Gum Department Store, and the Subway

•Photos:Moscow2Including the Kremlin

•Photos:Moscow3Including the Jewish Heritage Tour and the National History Museum

•Photos:Moscow4Including the New Maiden Cemetary and Victory Park

•ScheduleforJune25

•ScheduleforJune26

•ScheduleforJune27

•ScheduleforJune28

•MenuforJune25

•MenuforJune26

•MenuforJune27

•MenuforJune28

June 25Volga-Moscow canal; MoscowOn to the capital

Another good day to skip breakfast (and maybe even lunch), we rolled out of bed after 0900. We’re still sail-ing through the Volga-Moscow canal and will finally reach Moscow around noon or so. The canal stretches from Moscow to the Volga at the outskirts of Dubna and was built between 1931 and 1937, during what even our Program Directors and guides admit to be the most hor-rible years of Stalin leadership. The construction of the canal was performed by prisoners drafted by Stalin’s gov-ernment and was completed in a relatively short time—4 years and 7 months. There are 12 locks, 5 pumping sta-

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tions, 8 hydroplants, 7 concrete dams, 8 earthen dams, 15 bridges, 2 tunnels, 3 river ports, and the Northern Riven Passenger Terminal w/its accompanying cargo port. It is 79 miles long in total and we traveled about half of it, going through 6 locks in under 12 hours.

It is amazing that this ship has traveled over 1000 miles and we have always been on time for every port.

The first activity this morning was a candid discussion with the six Program Directors and it has been very inter-esting. Questions on Russian finances (credit cards do ex-ist, more education in finance is happening [Misha’s son is studying finance at a prestigious institution and all of his fi-nance classes are in English], choice (choice of professions, where to live, etc. is very open), how they think that the average Russian on the street thinks of Americans (many of them were envious of us during Soviet times and still look up to Americans), what they think of American race relations and the election of Barack Obama (they thought it was a good example to the world), higher education (a bit is financed by the State but it is still less expensive than for us), sports (health and fitness is important), opening small business (a lot of bureaucracy including bribery), and many other topics.

From this discovery program, we went next to the Mos-cow port talk to be told what to expect here in Moscow. We will have the last 3 ½ days of this trip filled with ways to see the Russian capital. We’ve already noticed many larger buildings, huge houses, highways, even billboards as we approached the city. Again, we skipped breakfast and after the morning’s talks I was starting to actually feel a bit puckish. Lunch was relatively light—chicken consommé w/vermicelli to start; Ed chose the beef goulash which was

not at all like a Hungarian goulash since it was just meat, veggies, and potatoes topped w/sour cream; I had the club sandwich, after taking off the extra piece of bread, and it was filled with turkey, cheese, eggs, bacon, and lettuce and was served w/coleslaw and homemade potato chips. The dessert was a cottage cheese pie that tasted a bit like Ed’s mother’s oostkaka but had a regular crust and was topped w/apricot.

While we were eating we came into Moscow—well, the suburbs of Moscow since the boat docks are about 17 miles from the city centre. Many, many cruise boats were already docked here and we had a nice panorama view of the area as we came around to slide into our berth. There seems to be some kind of transportation mu-seum across the river w/a plane and a submarine but I’m not sure. It doesn’t appear to be easy to get to and I doubt we’ll have time to figure that out. (Later note: One of the other passengers, Eric, who had many interests similar to ours, sought to find out about it and how to get there. It turned out to be cheap for a Russian to visit but for a foreigner, it was much more expensive [despite what the link I just found indicates] plus we’d have to hire an English-speaking guide AND take a taxi to get there. Not worth it from our esitma-tion.)

When lunch was finished it was time for our first tour in Moscow. Our guide, Sventlana, seemed to be more cautious than many of our other guides has been about what she said and how she said it about the communist era. She was easy to understand and spoke all the way from the ship to Red Square about the buildings we were seeing and the history of the city.

Today was just a short intro-ductory tour in and around Red Square. We got to see the outside of St. Basil’s, Lenin’s Mausoleum, the Kremlin, the history museum,

and other buildings. After about an hour of walking through the area and hearing about the buildings, we were given an hour to ex-plore on our own. Adjacent to Red Square is the Gum (pronounced Goom) Department Store so Paul, Cindy, Ed and I all chose to explore that. It is amazing to think that this humongous store used to have nothing at all on the shelves during the Soviet era. It is now a very high-end shopping mall with all manner of stores. We chose

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23to primarily explore the grocery department. Our guide joked that the prices looked more like telephone numbers and she was very right on that account. We even had the opportunity to witness the changing of the guard in front of the tomb of the unknown soldier in front of the Kremlin. You can see the video here.

We were pretty wiped out by the time we made it back to the bus to head back to the ship. The traffic in Moscow (or Moscova as they native Muscovites pronounce it) is horrendous—6-8 lanes with virtually no rules on when to change lanes or merge. Luckily the bus driver really knows how to handle it. Part of had wanted to continue exploring but we realized I’d hit a wall. A shower revived me some and the dinner that started w/a shrimp and pineapple cocktail, followed by a nice broccoli soup w/bleu cheese croutons, and a choice of chicken breast stuffed with prosciutto & cheese (Ed’s choice) or the Baltic salmon on sautéed vegetables (my choice) was a pleasant experience. Ed chose the sacher cake and I went for a cheese plate for dessert. There was no entertainment this evening so we went for a walk through a park along the river before we col-lapsed into bed.

June 26Moscow: The Armory and the KremlinOn the inside

We had a kind of early start today, which was a good thing since we got to be one of the first two groups to get into the Armory and the Kremlin. We put in a wakeup call for 0730 and skipped break-fast again to leisurely get moving and be on the bus by 0830. Our group did well and we actually left a few minutes early.

Again, the traffic was very congested and it was a good thing that our driver really knew his stuff. We actually made it down to the center of town with enough time for a photo opportunity outside of the Church of Christ the Saviour—a very large church that had

been rebuilt on the original location of the one blown up by the Stalinists (they had built a swimming pool in its place originally). We could also see a statue across the river that Evgenia referred to as Peter Columbus (The statue of Peter the Great in downtown Moscow which, at 94 me-ters, is the eighth tallest statue in the world. Popular legend states that the Statue was initially of Christopher Colum-bus, but that after being rejected by the US Government, its head was replaced, and it was sold to the Russian gov-ernment as a nautical statue of Peter the Great.Who knows how long it will be there?

We then went to the Kremlin (the word means fortress

or citadel) and first explored the Armory which is a mu-seum of many incredible treasures including the crowns, jewels, gowns, carriages, etc. of the Tsars and Kings. We couldn’t take photos inside so we bought the book that seemed to have the best photos. The wonderful enamels and carvings and gold, silver, and bronze work was defi-nitely worth our time in there. Ed and I, of course, wanted more time to look at the armour and weapons but the group was moving too quickly to examine these things,

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mostly European, closely.We walked around the Kremlin walls for a while after

having some time to shop and rest. There are many, many churches on the ground and face a square aptly called Ca-thedral Square. We went into the oldest one, again no pho-tos were allowed, but the iconistis and painted walls were incredible.

By the time we made it back to the bus, everyone was pretty tired. We drove away from the Kremlin to find the restaurant they had chosen to take us to lunch—The Hard Rock Café. Sheesh!! Not exactly my idea of a good place to go but at least they had a special Russian menu for the tourists. It was a reasonably good, nice light lunch of a cap-resse salad, beef vegetable soup, beef Strogonoff on mashed potatoes, and a dense brownie. We had time to do a bit of shopping afterwards and Ed and I chose to go into the grocery store nearby rather than experience more souvenir shopping on the pedestrian mall. We were all ready for a rest by the time we made it back to the bus for the 45-min-

ute drive back to the ship. We had time to rest for a couple of hours and then get

ready to go to the optional Russian Show that we have booked for tonight. We will get back so late that they scheduled a light snack around 1715 and will feed us din-ner when we return, probably after 2200, but I wasn’t very hungry so I ate a few of the small, tart blueberries we picked up in Uglich the other day.

Since not everyone had opted for the National Russian Show tonight, they condensed the 6 groups down to 5 bus-ses for the trip to the hotel/theatre where the show was. We

were combined with the orange group for the drive. It took about an hour in what appeared to be rush hour traffic. The hotel, Cosmos, where the show was being performed had been given to Moscow by the French and so a very large statue of Charles de Gaulle was stand-ing in front of the large, curved façade. There was an aeronautics museum not far from where we were that had an awesome, sweep-ing statue of a rocket taking off for the sky and we could see a couple of Soviet-era statues from the walkway up to the hotel.

Unfortunately, even though we’d been told some photos were okay, it turned out they were strictly forbidden. Ed was nice enough to buy me the DVD of the troupe at intermission and it will be fun to see it again. The show, while quite commercial (think River-dance), was really fantastic. Over-the-top costuming was combined with music that was oddly familiar yet different and some very tal-ented dancing. The first half of the show, before intermission, was a history of Russia in dance from the time of the early Pagans to the Vikings to the Cossacks through to the Soviet-era and finally the democratic Federation that it is now. The second half of the show was more folk-oriented—taking different traditions from different regions of the country. At one point, I dubbed the section Disco-Korobushka since I recognized the underlying melody of the dance but the tempo was much more contemporary. It was well worth the price of admission and the time we took to go.

The busses were waiting for us when the show was over and we made it back in less than a half hour—a lot less traffic. Lena, the Program Director of the orange group, taught us how to say “I love you” in Russian so we could amuse Captain Boris who was waiting to greet us on our return. The dining room staff had a late dinner of salad, meat skewers with sauces, baked potato, a couple of kinds of tarts and four kinds of ice cream plus fresh fruit. There was also a delicious leek/fennel soup and bread. I tried to eat light since it was almost 2300 when we got back. I certainly know I plan on skipping breakfast again tomorrow.

Now it’s time to crash. Ed went down to check the email—I have NOT spent a single minute on the ship’s computers (there are 2 for the almost 200 passengers) and I’m fine with that. I know I’ll have a lot to catch up on when I get home but I’m not missing it in the least right now.

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2June 27Moscow: Jewish Heritage Tour, Na-tional History Museum, and the Old Moscow CircusFrom Tears to Cheers

The day once again started relatively early and with out breakfast. We had elected to take the optional Mos-cow Jewish Heritage tour which turned out to be an ex-cellent choice for us. We boarded the bus at 0845 and met our tour guide Elana who is a member of the Jew-ish community here in Moscow. We would be seeing two synagogues with her today—the Memorial Synagogue which is dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust and the Choral Synagogue which is the oldest of the five syn-agogues in Moscow.

Elana proved to be very knowledgeable about the his-tory of Jews in Russia and gave us a good overview from the time of Catherine the Great, who inherited a million Jews when she overran Poland in 1772, to the present day. Since some of this is the history of my own ancestors, I found it particularly interesting and moving to hear of Catherine’s relative tolerance (she basically said the Jews could stay as long as they did not move to the big cit-ies but instead inhabited their own villages [schtetls]) to Nicholas I who was the anti-Semite who was responsible for my ancestors leaving, I believe, through the Com-munist era (many of Lenin’s top people were Jewish and Stalin, after Lenin’s death, purged them from the party…and their lives) through to Perestroika and the present day when they are tolerated a lot more. There are now five synagogues in Moscow and she told us of all of them and how they came to be.

Our first stop was the Memorial synagogue which is

located in Victory Park on the west side of the city. There was a very moving memorial/monument to those who died in the holocaust (almost as moving as the shoes by the side of Danube in Budapest which will, I think, always stand out to me as the most moving of all). We wandered through the memorial which gave a more inti-mate feel to it. We then walked to the synagogue which has a very modern feel (it was built in the 70s) and is both utilitarian and beautiful. This synagogue also house two museums and the cura-tor, Aleksander, of the museums was our guide. He gave us a good introduction to the history of Judaism in Russia, much like Elana did, and then walked us through the upper floor which is a nice, small museum on that history, and then to the basement which is a history of Russia’s part of the Holocaust. The tour concluded there with a film that was spliced together footage the Germans took of the concentration and death camps. I know I was in tears when it was over.

One of the things I found to be very interesting is that Elana pointed out that while there is a great deal of anti-Semitism still today in Russia there are no Holocaust-deniers. In fact, she seemed rather surprised that we had them in the US—thinking that sound-ed too much like Iran. They use the museum to help educate the Russian people as well as keeping the history available to all to help them to understand what really happened.

We then drove back to the center of the city, not far from Red Square, to go to the Choral Synagogue. It was built in 1904 and is the largest in the city. It not only houses and serves the Orthodox congregation but there is also a yeshiva there as well as a kosher market (and gift store.) It has a rounded (not onion-shaped) dome that is topped with a Star of David. There is a story that the gov-ernor of Moscow was riding through town in his carriage not long after its completion and crossed himself when he saw the dome. His servant pointed out that it was not a church but a synagogue and the governor ordered the dome removed. It was only replaced in 2005 for their 100th anniversary.

When this tour concluded, Ed and I decided to leave the group and head over to the National History Museum which is housed in an old palace on Red Square. It wasn’t really that far away but it was

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a good hike for me, mostly uphill. I was finally feeling hungry and we knew we should eat before we got to Red Square or the prices would most likely double. We figured this out, of course, after we had passed a couple of cafes and had crossed the road through the underground passage (these are all over the place, usually a way to/from the Metro stations, where there are many shops/kiosks sell-ing all manner of things. We had passed a kiosk selling fresh, filled pastry and decided to try to find it again. Turned out not to be too hard since there were four in the small stretch of underground that didn’t include a Metro stop. We purchased two at first—one was a piroshkia filled with mostly onion and the other was the mashed potato/mushroom filling that we’d had to fill pelimeni for our cook-ing lesson onboard. We took these, along with some cold water, above ground and ate our lunch sitting at the base of a memorial monument of some kind. We stopped a bit later for one more pas-try—puff pastry w/a nice tart apricot filling. In total, our lunch cost 130 rubles (about $4.15US).

We walked back through Red Square to the museum and what a wonderful museum it was, too. It was well-laid out—the ground floor was from the Stone Age to the 17th c. and the later period was upstairs. They had one of the best exhibits of Bronze Age stuff we had ever seen. We didn’t understand all of the placards (there was English translation only in one room) but we purchased the museum book afterwards.

It was a comedy of errors to get back to the ship. The busses were leaving at 1745 for the circus and we knew we need to be back by then so I was aiming for 1630. By the time we had walked up and down many staircases and checked out a couple of Metro stops, we finally found our route. After that it was easy and we made it back to the stop near the ship with 45 minutes to spare but it was a good 15 minute hike from the stop to the ship. I was pretty sore when we got to the cabin but a quick shower and some more vicodin found me ready to go.

The Moscow circus is world-famous and we could see why. They’re housed in a permanent building on the southwest side of the city. One ring had many exciting acts including dancing bears (three short videos of the bears can be found here, here, and here), jugglers and acrobats who could perform in the almost dark (light-ed clubs or white uniforms under a black light). The second act was mostly a horse, music and dance routine around the story of Zorro—it was what the Russians think of old Mexico that made it most amusing.

We were back to the ship by 2230 and there was a late dinner waiting for us (we had missed the light snack). The soup was a beef consume w/noodles and we both chose the chef ’s salad over the hamburger for our entrée. They had an ice cream station set up for dessert. I was pretty hungry by then and ate it all up and then came up to the cabin to write in this log. All in all it was a good, albeit long

and a bit sore, day.

June 28Moscow: Scenic tour and WWII veteransSaying paku-paku to Moscva

A reasonable start to the morning, 0900 and we were ready to go for a final guided tour of the city. I skipped breakfast again with no worries and made it to the bus with time to spare. Today we were going to finish off with a tour of the more scenic sights and it certainly was.

We started with t h e No v o d e v i c h y Cemetery which is on the grounds of the Novodevichy Con-vent. Many notable Russians are buried there and we had a walking tour that in-cluded the graves of

such luminaries as Anton Chekhov, Dmitry Shostakovich, Yuri Nikulin (the best known clown/comedian of Russia), scientists such as Lubelov, plus Reesa Gorbachav, Stalin’s 2nd wife, Boris Yeltsin, and Nikita Khrushchev. What re-ally was nice about this walk was that it was a beautiful day, a beautiful park, and many of the memorials/monu-ments were wonderful works of art. Many of my photos are of grave markers that I don’t know who they were but I liked what I saw.

From the cemetery, we went to a place called Sparrow’s Hill which is a high lookout near Moscow State University (most of which is housed in one of the “Seven Sisters”—enrollment is around 40,000 students) where you can see more than half of the city.

The next stop was the Poklonnaya Hill (Victory Park)that we were at yesterday to have a better look at the

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2monument for WWII, what the Russian’s call “The Great Patriotic War” (they call WWI the “Tsar’s War” so it is not as important to them.) The central column is magnificent with a statue to the Greek God Nike at the top. There is the Memorial Synagogue here as well as the Church of St. George and a memorial mosque (which we only saw in passing.)

Our final stop was the Church of Christ the Saviour (that we stopped to take pictures of on Tuesday) with an opportunity to get closer to the church and even go in if we wanted to.

Finally, we arrived back to the ship around 1330, to a lunch of pureed vegetable soup, pasta w/tomato sauce & carrots for me, and a Georgian rice pilaf for Ed, with ice cream or fruit salad for dessert. We’ve spent the afternoon packing, making sure we have enough money to tip the crew (they recommend $10-12/person/day) and the Pro-gram Director (recommended $4-6/person/day). We’re doing the last bit of shopping, paying for the few photos that the ship’s photographers took (this is the first GCT tour that I’ve been on where we had three photographers following us almost everywhere to take group and indi-vidual photos. They’re not cheap but if you only get a few it’s not that bad--$3/each for 4x6 size—and if you are the type, like me, you rarely have any photos of yourself after a vacation like this.)

We had been watching the submarine and plane across the river since we docked here in Moscow, wondering about it and whether we could go see it. Another of the passengers was also interested and he pursued the matter more than we did. He finally reported today that he found out that it cost 250 rubles for Russians and over 3000 for foreigners, that the tour was only given in Russian which would mean hiring a translator, plus the Metro doesn’t go under any of the river so we’d have to take a taxi. In other words, NYET! Definitely did not sound like it would be worth the trouble.

The discovery of the day was a chance to meet three veterans of the Great Patriotic War—two Valdimirs and a woman who had been a nurse when she was 16. Actually, all three had been very young when the war started and they survived it. The two men were real characters—Cindy dubbed one of them “General Casanova” because he was really trying to flirt w/the women. The second Vladimir

has the distinction of being one of two men who served in both the American and Soviet armies—and he’s the only alive. He was Ukra-nian and lived in an occupied territory so we might never know the real truth. He lived w/ his time in the war as a secret until 1988 when he went to the KGB and told his story. The woman was the most interesting of all and had to be encouraged to speak since it was still a difficult thing for her to do, even now. Their stories were interesting and they told them well, w/Igor, one of the Program Directors, translated. It was an hour worth spending in this kind of activity.

Well, the time has come to pay the piper—settle the ship’s ac-counts. Since we’ve been on over three trips with GCT we’re now in the “Inner Circle” and because of that we get some discounts aboard the ship. So, a 10% savings doesn’t hurt. Not that we bought much on board—a couple of souvenirs, a hair cut for Ed, a bit of internet time for him (still not me—I’m very proud of this fact and my friends will probably be shocked), a few sodas for me and a few vodkas for himself (though he bought a bottle in Uglich that didn’t cost much more than a shot did in the bar on board the ship.)

Our last supper (okay, the final dinner on board since someone didn’t like it when I called it the last supper) was quite good—not that anyone needed any more food. There was a beet and potato salad to start, followed by a cream of carrot soup (oddly enough it had orange slices in it), the entrée that we both opted for was stuffed cabbage rolls, and for dessert lemon pie w/lemon sherbet. It was all quite good and the final evening’s conversation over dinner was even better.

It is odd, though, as this trip comes to a close, to realize that we didn’t seriously connect w/any of the other passengers. We en-joyed the company of many but tonight I didn’t feel like I was leav-ing any new-found friendships behind. Not that we connected as much on our other trips but this one still felt different. I guess it’s a good thing we enjoy each other’s company so much. We’re really glad we made the trip. My sense of discovery was finding that the country felt “brighter” than I imagined it would be. The people are open and willing to extend the hand of friendship. There is a greater separation between the haves and have-nots than we have in the US but there is a sense of enterprise that I was feeling. To get things done still seems to have either endless red-tape or a bribe in the right hands, though. We saw lots of flowers and construction projects and people that seemed more at ease with the world than I thought I would see. It seems all four of us, Paul, Cindy, Ed and I, are all glad we made this trip. Cindy said tonight that she was glad I sent them the email and left with the musing question: “Where to next?”

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This travelogue was created by Sue Gilbert. Most photos are by me, used with my permission, A few of the photos were from the GCT photographers and the Russian show photos on page 25 are from the show’s homepage. Other documents are from informational handouts. Contact me via email if you want more information.

Group photo of the Russian Blue Sky group in June 2012

From May 1999, according to the Onion when the Society For Creative Anachro-nism Seizes Control Of Russia. See original article here.