Cruising down the Volga, without so much as a paddle ....

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Actually, it is not only without a paddle, but I’ve got to say very comfortable thank you! We have travelled almost 2,000km over the last 5 days, in which time we have straddled 5 different rivers (incl the Volga, the longest river in Russia), 3 large lakes (incl Ladoga and Onega, the two largest lakes in Europe) and a reservoir, and dropped a total of 120 metres via a series of 14 different locks. While travelling on inland rivers is clearly different from travelling on the ocean, or even around the coast, it has still been remarkably smooth sailing throughout. And to add to the pleasure, the weather has been very kind, with clear skies and sunshine each day, and minimal wind, albeit starting the day around 8 degC and peaking at around 12-15 degC. Given that we are told that the last two cruises had almost constant rain, I guess we have been very fortunate.

The cruise has really met all our expectations, with the ship’s crew, the tour guides and the dining/bar staff all being exceeding friendly and efficient. Sleeping on a bed around 75cm wide and having the shower, toilet and hand-basin all in an area the size of a phone box may not work for everybody, but it’s a bit like business v economy class - you pay almost double the cruise cost just for a wider bed and room to swing your cat - same food, same destinations. And we have all eaten well (probably too well!) and slept well. We were a bit disappointed with the high cost of grog on board, so ended up purchasing beer, spirits and soft drink along the way, so have contained this cost to a certain degree.

One of the absolute highlights for all of us has been a series of lectures/ discussions from our tour guides on recent Russian history, touching briefly on, firstly the Romanov era, then the Lenin to Stalin to Khrushchev era, and finally, in greater detail, on Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin. The path in the USSR/Russia from Communism to Perestroika to the current regime (Socialism with a human face?) has caused considerable hardship for almost all soviet families (except the oil barons), and we have had very frank discussions with 3 different guides, each of whose whole families have suffered to varying degrees. To their credit, they have a great sense of humour and can even take the piss out of themselves occasionally, and at one stage when they did similar to the Americans, two of our fellow passengers (guess where from?) walked out of the session in disgust!

If I had to summarise their general views in a few words, I’d say they considered Stalin was a very good politician but a very evil individual; Khrushchev did many good things, but made some huge mistakes (Chernobyl, Cuba crisis); Brezhnev was half dead and did very little except wave to the crowds at parades; they are all very down on Gorbachev and Yeltsin, both of whom contributed to rampant inflation, unemployment and hunger, and therefore huge loss of living standards, with many families almost losing everything during that time; and while Putin has clearly lined his own pocket in the last 10 years or so, he has also brought in an era of openness, so that no one is looking over their shoulder any more, and a desire to transform Russia to a market economy and try to regain some prosperity.

So where did we visit? First stop was the little town of Uglich, just a short distance north of Moscow. The next day’s stopover was at the much larger city of Yaroslavl, which for a very brief period was the country’s capital city. The third day’s stop was at another small regional town called Goritsy, while the last stop was on one of the thousand or so islands on Lake Onega, at a little village called Kizhi (rhymes with Fiji!). The Church of the Transfiguration at the latter location is built entirely of wood, and without any nails, or so they say! While the general theme of each visit was similar, with heavy emphasis on visits to churches, cathedrals and monasteries, it also gave us a good chance to sample regional life in Russia, which clearly moves at a different pace to that in the two major cities which bookend our cruise. I won’t quote the name of all the institutions visited, because no churches in Russia have simple names, but a sample of the churches and their fascinating names is shown in the attached photos.

So its now on to St Petersburg, and the famed Hermitage and Winter Palace, which were the initial drawcard for this particular trip. I doubt we will be disappointed …..

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