The Last Entry

This will be my last entry from this cruise, and it's going to be pretty boring. Sorry.

My cold hit hard last night, finally taking that inevitable plunge into my chest, which I'd hoped to avoid until I got home. After all these days, I finally found a way to sleep comfortably, cradling a long pillow in my arms like a baby, which somehow must align all the vertebrae in my spine in such a way that I could actually sleep. Except I couldn't because of the hacking cough. I got more sleep than I had on other nights, but by morning, feeling like death warmed over, I decided to skip the tour of the Kremlin this afternoon.

I'm already the slowest in any group and gasp for breath trying to keep up. With diminished lung capacity and feeling like crap anyway, it would only make matters worse. Walt would enjoy the trip more if he weren't worrying about me. The only thing I feel bad about is missing the Faberge eggs, which had been removed from the Catherine Palace, and are stored in the Armory at the Kremlin (which we took as an optional additional tour), but Char promised to take pictures.

So that's my day today. Sitting on the ship again, coughing, sleeping, eating, and packing. We leave for the airport at 7:30 a.m. tomorrow and have a plane change at JFK and should be back in SF around 9 p.m. We are driving Mike and Char home and then spending the night at their house to avoid having to drive all the way back to Davis so late. I am looking forward to getting into my recliner and being covered with dogs. I will probably actually skip a journal entry because of being in transit for so long.

So. It's over. Just about. Just a few more meals to stuff in and then we are on our own again. In all the time leading up to this cruise, I was concerned about my ability to handle everything. Still thinking about France/Italy and Ian, I was afraid this would be a repeat. But in actuality there was only one day that was like that, the day at the Catherine Palace where we lost Marina. Basically, I've lagged behind, but not embarrassingly so.

What am I taking away from this trip? Victoria read a hilarious supposedly real blog about someone's experiences on another cruise which essentially said, for each day, that they had seen a 14th century cathedral, a Kremlin that had been attacked by Tartars, and a huge statue of Lenin. We all laughed a lot because it does kind of feel like that. Ho hum...another golden dome, another huge statue of Lenin. Maybe if you live in one of the original 13 US colonies that have a Revolutionary heritage or in states that fought in the Civil War you can relate to all the emphasis on battles and war heroes and monuments better than if you live out west, where our heroes found gold or founded industrial empires or lead scandalous lives (or all three).

The statue on the right is of Peter the Great, the Navigator. Victoria said the story goes that the sculptor intended it to be of Christopher Columbus but then Portugal didn't want it, so they put on a new head on the body and gave it to Russia as a statue of Peter the great (Moscovites call it "Peter Columbus"). It is at the same time impressive (Peter was apparently 6'8" and the figure here is far taller than that), and silly. It looks like something from the warehouse at Universal Studios and stands in the middle of the river, near Gorky Park, surrounded by fountains.

The Russians we have encountered seem fiercely proud of their heritage and, depending on their age, somewhat conflicted about Soviet times vs. modern times. There were things they had under Soviet rule that they miss (free health care, for example) and things today that they are glad to have (tourism, for one!) and things about Soviet times that they don't miss at all...living conditions for one!

I also think that Americans could adopt a Russian way of raising a bit of money to keep some of our arts institutes going. Though I don't like having to pay to take photos in a church or a museum, what a wonderful way to get a bit of income. It's not a lot--something like about $1.50--and a lot of people are willing to pay that in order to use cameras in the place. Of course you then have to hire retirees to watch to make sure that people aren't taking pictures illegally, but in smaller places this might be a good idea (they don't charge in the larger museums, just the smaller ones...I'm still kicking myself for not buying permission at the church in Yaroslavl, which was spectacular).

It has also been interesting to listen to lectures on recent Russian history and realize that we are probably more alike than we like to admit. According to the people we have spoken with, Gorbachev accomplished great things for the Russian people, but not without a lot of pain in the process, very similar to what Obama is going through right now.

Viking has a videographer, Anatoly, who comes along and films your cruise. We saw part of the video on talent show night the other night and I saw the rest of it on the in-room cable TV channel. We have purchased the video as a good memory of our trip, but I'm disappointed by several things. People in our group do not appear in the video at all. The four of us do because we went to the vodka tasting, but if we had not, we would not be in the video. He seemed to concentrate on two or three buses, and never got around to us, which doesn't seem fair.

Also, the part I was most looking forward to seeing, my favorite part of the trip, Kihzi Island wasn't videoed at all. I don't know what happened. You see all the historic things on the island, but it's all stock footage. Even the shots of the sky are wrong because it shows the sun shining through grey clouds and we had a sunny, clear, cloudless day. You don't see ANY passengers, except at a distance,

But these are minor points. What we bought the video for was to remember the places we visited and the things we saw and it does that beautifully.

I'm sure there will be another cruise, possibly even with Viking, in our future. There is talk of China. But that is not for this year, or next year. However, overall the experience of traveling with Viking has been pleasant enough that I would do it again, if we can afford it.

But I want to see my dogs now, please. And start watching all the TV shows that were recorded in our absence!

Such a Rough Life

Yesterday was a long day and in addition to walking so much, I have also caught the cold Walt just got rid of. My throat is red and scratchy and I've been sneezing and sneezing, and my perennial cough is worse. I am also not sleeping well. So I took today off.

Walt, Mike and Char went off to a tour of a military museum (here is stored Gary Powers' U-2 plane, for example). I just wanted to sit around the ship and relax. And I did.

I started relaxing in one of the deck chairs, with my book ("The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"--excellent book)

After awhile, I went downstairs and found our room had not been cleaned yet, so I sat in the library and chatted with Lynn, from St. Louis, who is on this trip with her 30-something daughter (Lynn's husband of forty-something years died three years ago). She was delightful and I enjoyed getting to know her.

When the room was clean, I took a nap, then had a shower, and was getting dressed when Walt and Char returned (Mike had stayed downtown). We went up to lunch. We are getting so stuffed that we have started just getting stuff from the salad bar and passing on the soup and main course, but heading straight for dessert. I was sorry I forgot to take a picture of my "Hot Love Sundae," which was ice cream with hot cherry sauce and whipped cream.

Then it was time for another nap for both Walt and me.

I woke up in time to get upstairs to the Panorama Bar's afternoon Tea Time, while Walt took a walk in the park nearby to see if he could find the metro station.

(fortunately I did not discover this cornucopia of pastry
delights was served every day until yesterday)

I sat there at the back of the ship, reading my book, eating pound cake, and looking out over the pier where we were docked.

Unfortunately I missed a shot of a party boat that passed by with a whole bunch of people doing a conga-line led by a guy wearing a gold and red jester's hat. I did get a picture of the boat decorated with balloons, though. Party boats seem to be a big thing on the Volga.

I also had a nice chat with these people from England when I saw that one of them was reading a Michael Connelly book. It was their first experience with his books and I went on to tell them what a glorious trip they had ahead of them if they continued reading.

Oh....in case anybody was wondering, they have Starbucks in Moscow too (pic from yesterday)

After resting up from the strenuous tea and cakes, it was time to join Mike and Char in the Sky Bar to finally open our bottle of champagne from Viking and toast our 45th anniversary.

By the time the champagne (and a Black Russian) were gone, it was time to go to dinner. Seeing that Elk was on the menu, Walt had to try it (and decided he likes "cow" better).

(Though he did like the large tater tots!) Char, on seeing that Elk was on the menu got a fit of the giggles as we decided the name of the Elk must be "Lena," (which our children will understand). Then she decided she needed to explain the giggles by telling our waiter, who is from the Philippines and for whom English is not his first language, the plot of The Fatal Glass of Beer. Anybody who doesn't understand why this is all hysterical needs to get to Netflix (or YouTube) right away and rent the movie.

Over the course of the day, my throat has gotten worse, my cough is slowly creeping down into my chest, and I've added a constantly dripping nose. The status of our tickets for the Bolshoi tomorrow is still iffy and I decided that I really wouldn't enjoy it--especially not at 144 Euros per ticket, so we have backed out and will let someone else take any tickets that become available.

I really considered if I wanted to do the Lights of Moscow tonight, but since it was going to be a bus tour, with no walking, I decided that I really did want to see the city's lights, and if I hadn't gone, I would have missed sights like this.

And now my cough and I are going to bed. One other things I learned on the Moscow by Night tour is that half of the bus was also coughing, so I guess it's time for all of us to get the heck outta Moscow and home to our beds and medicines!

Painting the Town Red

I've been in a lot of big cities in my life -- San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, Dublin, Florence. But Moscow is the first one that feels "overwhelming" to me. Everything is so big, so busy, so old, so colorful, so historic. Maybe it was that our tour guide, Luba, tried to do too much, but it seemed that every block had two or three VERY important historic buildings or big colorful onion domes. My head began to spin. Add to that the fact that traffic is impossible. The main drag has EIGHT lanes going in each direction, and both directions were bumper to bumper.

(this wasn't the 8 lane main drag)

Then there is "parking," if you want to call it that. Apparently people just leave their cars wherever they want--on the sidewalk, double parked on the street, parallel parked, diagonally parked. At one spot we found half a block of cars with people standing by them all trapped by cars that were blocking them, all with people straining their heads to try to find the owners of the cars that were blocking them.

Eventually the police will take notice and action will be taken.

Our bucolic time on the river has come to an end and that, combined with lack of sleep and the sore throat Walt gave me has made me testy tonight. Just too much togetherness. We both agreed we'd like to take a trip like this again...just not right away, and not for so long!

We didn't actually pull into Moscow until around noon-1 p.m. and our all day (8 hr) city tour didn't start until 1:30. None of us had slept well the night before and we were all nodding off on the bus. But we saw amazing things including this nunnery

This salute to the children's book, "Make Way for Ducklings," which was Barbara Bush's state gift to Russia when GHWB was in office

and more metrushka dolls than you can shake a stick at...and this is only a tiny fraction.

We rode the metro and got to see all that famous art work you hear about.

And of course, this...

(I figure with what's going on in DC right now with Russian spies, I had better not try taking this photo except from the safety of the bus!)

We went to a city overlook to get a feel for the whole of the city.

But the best was saved till last: Red Square. It's just too much to take in, other than saying to yourself "My god...I'm really in Red Square!"

The crowning glory, of course, is St. Basil's Cathedral.

(That's actually use reading the Davis Enterprise...it will need a little work before I submit it to the Enterprise!)

Walt went into the GUM, Moscow's big mall (pronounced GOOM) to use an ATM machine, but I never did go inside, though I hear it's gorgeous...and the most expensive shop in the world.

But we had to get back to the bus because we were going to a concert by a Russian Folk Orchestra (all graduates from music colleges--kind of the Berklee of Moscow) called Moskva, doing Russian classical and folk music and it was absolutely wonderful. We bought a CD. The orchestra was balalaika, domra, flute, percussion, accordion, and something like a small sidewise harp in a box. There was also a female singer and a character performer who was amazing. We all just loved it.

They played everything from "Lara's Theme" from Dr. Zhivago to some Puccini opera, to the Saber Dance to lots of folk songs we didn't know, including the one everyone did know, which our shipboard choir had performed at the talent show last night.

It was 9:30 before we got back to the ship. Walt and Mike had the full 4-course dinner. Char and I had salad and dessert. Now I'm going to try to sleep, but it's hot, even with the window open. But I so desperately need sleep. The others are going off on a couple of excursions tomorrow, but I'm staying here until our "Moscow after dark" trip at 10 p.m. That should give me the chance to rest up and feel ready to go again.

Yaroslavl

Last night's vodka tasting was a lot of fun. I think we were the only four from our bus group (#25) there, as I didn't recognize anybody, but this morning we have a nodding acquaintance with new people, especially this woman, who had more fun than anybody. I don't know her name or where she's from but I'm betting Texas!

We were there to taste six different vodkas...

Gunter a member of the crew from Austria graciously showed us how to drink each type.

I don't drink much and took tiny sips of each kind, but threw most of it away. I wanted to go to the tasting mainly for the ambience and to take photos! We all agreed that the Diplomat was our favorite kind. Nobody but me liked the Absolut Currant, but since I'm used to flavored vodkas from Cousins Days, I did kind of like it. (I also liked the Ukrainian vodka, which was a brown color and flavored with chili pepper.)

Today was scheduled to be a restful day, with only one stop, in Yaroslavl, in the mid-afternoon. We would take on fuel and water there, flush the tanks, and have a city tour, but most of the day was spent hanging around the ship, relaxing. In the morning, Katherin led her daily exercises up on the Sunshine deck. We watched.

After the exercise period, we had a fascinating lecture, by tour guide Victoria, on Gorbatchev and Perestroika. She gives an excellent lecture and made me sad that I had not attended her previous lectures on Russian history and one special one on the Romanoffs. Certainly got a look at Gorbatchev that I'd never had before, and learned what a tremendous change there was in the way of life of the Russian people at the end of the cold war. It made a big difference hearing about it from someone old enough to remember it.

While the talk was going on, we were passing by a very picturesque area of the Volga, with tiny villages and lots of beautiful churches visible along the shore.

The afternoon's excursion was into the town of Yavaslavl, founded by a modest guy named Yavaslavl, in 1010. Our tour guide was Olga and she was excellent. Another of those who knew Russia before and after Gorbatchev, she had many good things to say about the changes he brought about with the end of the Cold War. The town is about to celebrate its 1000th birthday and so things have been spruced up or are being spruced up for the occasion. There is supposed to be a huge celebration, though Olga sounds skeptical about how much that was promised is actually going to take place.

We visited the beautiful church of Elijah the Prophet...

This is another place where you must pay to take pictures, and we didn't, but the frescoes which cover every wall and ceiling were so spectacular, I had to sneak a photo from the camera, hidden inside my bum bag.

We had half an hour to stroll around the city center. Walt went off to find an ATM and I stuck close to the town square and took pictures of people enjoying the big fountain, and also wandered around looking at the special displays that have been put up in preparation for the anniversary celebration. These were two of my favorites...

While I was taking these pictures I got approached by a young guy who was tryijng to interview people about their thoughts of the display and Yaraslovl's 1000th anniversary. We limped along in his not very good English and my non-existent Russian and I think we completed the interview. Then I told him he had to let me take his photo.

We took a stroll along the promenade overlooking the river and found some guys practicing...something. I'm not sure what!

And then we stopped at a museum to see (and for some people buy) some lacquer boxes. This is "the" souvenir to bring home from Russia and the price is astronomical. I found a box I liked that was "only" $338 (American)!!!

It was good to get back on the bus again and head for the ship. I told Walt I was going to skip tomorrow's excursion to Uglich, but then I attended the day's briefing and it sounds like a fairly easy day and Uglich has "the biggest souvenir shop on the river." Now how can I pass that up, even though I'm buying next to nothing.

So we are ending today's adventures and we'll see what tomorrow brings. Right now I'm just happy that I seem to have a decent internet connection!

Get Thee to a Nunnery

Lemme tell you, I have a whole new perspective on nunneries and monasteries after our stop, supposedly at Goritzy, but actually the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery. It seems that the aunt of Ivan the Terrible, Efrosinia Staritska established a nunnery here and was eventually imprisoned in her own nunnery. Other women were banished to nunneries (like Peter the Great's first wife), and died here. Men were exiled to monasteries and died here. I lost track of how many. But Katerin had told us that this place was "in the middle of nowhere" and she certainly didn't exaggerate. This is where we got off the ship.

There are actually a couple of buildings here, one a souvenir stand and one an almost-completed snack bar, both are new within the past month, Marina told us. We stood there on the gravel waiting for buses to appear, which they finally did, in a huge cloud of dust--five buses from five different bus companies!

With guest guide, Tatiana, we drove about 10 km over a VERY bumpy road to the town of (I think it's spelled) Karolia. I could be wrong about the spelling. But anyway there is the largest monastery in Russia there, umpteen hundred hectares, consisting of lots of churches. Now see, I always thought that "monastery" and "church" were kind of synonymous, but apparently not Here, the monastery is the grounds and the church is a building inside. There is an active nunnery here with 11 nuns (presumably none have been banished here in the 21st century) and an active church with, I think, 5 priests. Apparently women are more holy than men, or at least more dedicated.

Tatiana explained all the churches in infinite detail, but I didn't get much out of it, because I was trying to walk on the cobblestones without breaking an ankle. I do know that St. Cyril was here and that St. Dyonisus was here. One painted the other. I think it was Dyonisus who painted icons of Cyril. See what a great student I am? I do remember (I think) that the buildings date from the 15th to 17th century...

With the one on the right below perhaps a bit newer.

We stopped inside one small church and heard a quartet sing a song. Walt and I bought their CD. It seemed the proper thing to do. They also have another interesting way of raising money. You can take pictures inside the icon museum, but you must pay a fee to do so. Needless to say, my camera remained in my bag! I've never been a big icon fan, though our Ukranian friend Andrij and our Ukranian wannabe friend Bill loved icons. However, some of the embroidered icons done by Aunt Efrosinia were lovely. In Russian winters when you have been banished, you have lots of time to embroider! I did learn more about iconostasises, though (like there is rhyme to their reason, or vice versa, which I never knew before.

When we returned to the ship we were in time for a Russian tea with an obscene assortment of pastries to sample and a lecture on how a samovar works, though I don't think that you're supposed to pour tea made in the kitchen into it!

I think I had enough goodies to hold me over until dinner in 2 hours and the vodka sampling after that!

Last night, before dinner, there was a Q&A with (L to R) Dieter, the Captain, and Vadim the interpreter, led by Katerin, our Program director.

We learned, for example, that women aren't captains because they have to communicate with other captains and sometimes the language gets too rough for women to hear (lots of scoffing at that!), that it takes 350 bottles of red wine per cruise and something like 3,000 eggs and other such trivia that was really kind of interesting (and which I have now forgotten, of course).

Then Katerin did her nightly briefing, talking about the next day's itinerary. At the end she invited us to taste something called Kbac (pronounced something like "kvass"). She said it is a typical soft drink of Russia and that it is made out of brown bread. She said she would describe the taste, for her, as something between "not my favorite drink" and "awful."

She then invited the staff to pass out cups of Kbac for us all to taste and I would say that she described it perfectly. It tasted like drinking thin, weak, carbonated brown bread. It wasn't the best thing I had tasted. It also wasn't awful, but definitely not something I'd be bringing home to share with the family!

We went down to Mike & Char's cabin after the briefing and helped ourselves to some of Mike's vodka, over ice, and one of the chocolates he brought back to the ship after his solitary excursion into St. Petersburg. There was just enough time to finish all of this when it was time to go up to the next floor for our "Russian dinner." I think the thing that made it a "Russian dinner" was that the wait staff all dressed in typical Russian costumes. It seems to me that the menu each night is usually something Russian already!

But everything was wonderful from the salad to the borscht to the "meat loaf" (still not sure what that meat was...perhaps pork, but definitely nothing like any meatloaf I have had in the past) to the blini for dessert. We ate with Bill and Barbara from Philadelphia, who were delightful people and who have lots of travel experience, though this is their first with Viking.

After dinner there was a George Gershwin concert up in the Sky Bar, which Walt and I went to. Vladim Vinogradov, the ship's pianist, did jazz stylings of 9 familiar Gershwin tunes, but he "accompanied himself" on something that sounded like a harmonica. This is what he looked like...

It was fascinating, and at times haunting (especially for "Summertime"). I took video, which I will post, along with other videos, when I get home, assuming I don't lose them between here and home!

Kizhi

Today was the stop I have been most looking forard to, and it did not disappoint. Kizhi is a state historical open-air museum (a UNESCO World Heritage site) on an island in the middle of Lake Onega, and is the farthest north that our travels will take us.

"The collection of the Open-Air “Kizhi” Museum includes 89 monuments of wooden architecture: old chapels and houses, windmills and granaries, threshing barns and racks for drying crops…The gem of this collection is the 22 domed Church of the Transfiguration of Our Savior, 37 meters height. The Church of the Intercession of Holy Mary and the Bell-Tower located nearby emphasize the harmony and magnificence of the main Church."

The prize of the collection, however, is the Church of the Transfiguration. I stood on the deck of the ship this morning, watching the island come into view, my eyes fixed on the spires of the church.

We got off the ship and gathered in our usual groups, prepared to make the 3 km walk around the island.

As we got to the entrance to the museum, the ever-present, always pleasant Dieter, who is the restaurant manager, was there to see us off.

The church is spectacular. One of those edifices which is photographable from every angle.

It was completed in 1714, during the reign of Peter the Great and supposedly built by one man, using no nails (wooden nails were not "invented" until later), who is said to have tossed his axe into the lake when it was finished, saying that there was never a church like this and never would be again. Whether the story is apocryphal or not, I think it's fairly safe to say the statement was true!

There are 22 domes, the most of any church in Russia, all created out of hundreds of aspen shingles.

Beyond the church is a collection of wooden buildings, all brought there to preserve the culture of the native people. Like Mandrogy, there are craftsmen engaged in the traditional activities of the Karelia people, but unlike Mandrogy (a) they are pleasant!, and (b) it seems more "scholarly" than touristy. Yes, there are shops, but only by the boat dock and those are tiny and don't take plastic. It seems that the people here, perhaps like I imagine colonial Williamsburg to be, are here to preserve a culture primarily.

We went inside a small church

and heard a brief hymn sung by three singers, one of whom reminded me of our old friend Ed Andrews (Now Father Alexander, O.P.)

I was glad I had brought the Flash Video so I was able to record it.

We visited a typical home and heard how the people lived.

I liked the part about how the youngest and the old people slept on top of the oven shown above, to keep them warm in the winter. Always take good care of your old people!

We watched this woman crocheting the most intricate "snake-like" designs using teeny, teeny little glass beads. Char bought one of her necklaces at one of the shops, but I didn't have time to check them out.

We continued on around the island to other wooden structures. I liked the way the fence was laid out.

Out in the field we watched a mother seagull with her babies, and some in our group were dive bombed by angry terns, who were obviously trying to protect their own nests, hidden somewhere out in the field.

The wild flowers were beautiful.

Mike and Char have really lost their touch, I'm happy to say. Our tour guide said that it poured rain all day yesterday, but today is was clear and sunny, with only a pleasant breeze. We could not have asked for a more perfect day, weather-wise.

We made the trip back to the dock, completing our 360 circle around the Church of the Transfiguration, and back onto the ship just in time.

I was happy that I was NOT one of the last back.

But despite our schedule, we didn't leave right away. It was announced that there was an "emergency medical disembarkation." One older woman had to be taken off, with her daughter-in-law, for some sort of medical emergency. They rushed a stretcher to the ship.

I didn't find out until later who the patient was. I was too busy trying to get a picture of this great dog. I am very much missing our dogs right now.

Tonight we are apparently having a Russian dinner. Not sure what that means, but I will find out soon and will report tomorrow. I missed most of the afternoon activities (a couple of lectures and a tour of the captain's bridge) because I hadn't slept well the night before and took a long nap--and then took advantage of having internet connection to write this entry.

Today has been a GREAT day. If I never leave the ship again on this trip, it would have been worth it to come to Kihzi.