Sunday in Murmansk

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We arrived early as planned in Murmansk before they closed off the harbour area for their Naval parade as today is a special day for the Navy. Murmansk is a city and seaport in the extreme north west part of Russia, on the Kola Bay, 12 miles from the Barents Sea not far from the borders with Norway and Finland. The port remains free of ice all year round due to the warm North Atlantic Drift ocean current. It is the largest city north of the Arctic Circle and was the last town founded in the Russian Empire being founded October 4 1916.

Once again there was no rush to be anywhere. We had lost an hour overnight as we had changed time zones. We were being pushed in position by tugs when I looked out my porthole and it was already after 8:00am by that time. Then it was around 9:15am by time I made it up to the Terrace Cafe for breakfast. I sat outside on the deck of the cafe in the sunshine, which I might add is a change from what we have been having weather wise. I sat with a German couple from Hamburg. We are supposed to have a high of 19°C today.

Although we arrived in Murmansk early morning, none of our tours started until after mid day as the Russians went throughly through, and stamped our passports.

Immediately breakfast I sat on level 5 by the Boutiques as our stamped passports were due to be handed back to us with our shore passes. It took until 11:45am for the ship to be cleared by Russian customs. They made an announcements that the passports were now available to be collected and kept saying there was no rush as it was still two hours before the first tour was due to leave but just the same heaps of passengers rushed to collect theirs. Because I was just sitting there I was probably one of the first to get my mine.

I had a light lunch, then went to my cabin to get things ready for my afternoon tour. It was really hot by this time but knowing how things can change quickly I changed my cardigan to my sweatshirt which I was later to regret that as it was 19°C.

My tour was "Murmansk Highlights & Oceanarium Visit" and I had to meet in The Nautica Lounge by 2:00pm and was allocated Coach no 5. It was a very regimented exit to the ship and we all had to go one way in a single file as we needed to individually go to the immigration officer who checked that our passport had been stamped, them compared our passport photo to us in person, then he took the green ticket from our passport and then we were swiped out from the ship, disembarked and boarded our bus. All the tours were doing the highlights but there were different main reason. mine was yo the Oceanarium, another was to have Russian pancakes, another a Museum visit, another to MSCO Shipping Museum and the last one went to the Museum of the Northern Fleet.

We kept banging into some of the other buses even though we were supposed to be visiting the highlights in different sequences. Our first stop was to see the Palace of Culture, the first cultural institution on Kola Peninsula, where there was a small statue which depicted where the city of Murmansk started. From there we headed to the Oceanarium. As it was a Sunday and a Public Holiday because it was Russian Naval Day there were so many people out and about and parked, or should I say having abandoned their cars any old place so that the buses could not drive to the Oceanarium. It wasn't that far by distance but with all the people with walking difficulties, two men had their mobility scooters, and the rest were dead slow at walking. We finally arrived there, two buses plus some locals in there I'm sure. The two guys on the mobility scooters were out of luck as there was no provision for disabled people. We had to climb some quite steep stairs to the second floor where the show with the arctic seals was to be held. It took ages to get everybody seated. Eventually the show got under way with every person given a coloured plastic ball with a number written on it. We had to remember the number, then when instructed we had to throw them all in the pool and one arctic seal selected one and that was the winner. The winner got to meet up close and personal the seal as it jumps up out if the pool to where they had called down the winner to sit. I couldn't see properly whether the seal "kissed" him or not.

There were four or five seals in the pool but never all at the same time and each one did different tricks. It was quite funny, the pool water was a little dirty and we were warned those that sat in the front row may well get wet. I was in the front row so took the risk. However the only ones to get wet were the best over dressed couple and they were not happy and left their seats and went back downstairs. There were no more splashes after that. The show was not intended to be anything other then humorous. Definitely not meant to be a scientific or for us to gain knowledge about arctic seals. I though the funniest one was the seal who pretended to play the ukulele to taped music.

We then continued on to see The Memorial of The Defenders of Kola Land. The central figure of the memorial, great in size and importance, and stands on a 23-foot pedestal with a gun over his shoulder. It's known as. Alyosha and his eyes are fixed on the west, where enemies invaded during World War II. From that hill we also got a good panorama views of the city and Kola Bay. There was an eternal flame with some helmets lying on the ground beside the flame and as it was Russian Naval day there were a large number of wreaths at the foot of the pedestal of the soldier.

We continued on to our next stop to see the bright-white, gold-domed Russian Orthodox Church, which together with the nearby Lighthouse Monument, and the Memorial to the Kursk submarine disaster forms the Memorial Complex dedicated to soldiers and sailors, who lost their lives during peacetime. I went into the Orthodox Church but there was a service of sort going on so I wasn't able to enter properly. I took a couple of sneaky photos while the service was in progress. I had also walked down all the sloping stairs to the Lighthouse and the Kursk memorial.

We then headed back towards the ship going through the city where the local guide pointed out all the buildings and talked about the apartment buildings and other facts that she thought were interesting.

There were varied comments about Murmansk. Some asking why they bothered to come here. Others loved it. I thought it was worth the time it takes to cruise here and was interested in the memorials which were well worth looking at. We could not have got a more gorgeous day weather wise especially after what we have been having the entire cruise to date.

We departed from Murmansk at 9:00pm and I went up on the top deck to watch. We had a couple of tugs which didn't have too much but followed us for a wee while. It was really cold on deck by that time hence I did not stay too long.

It was Sunday Night at the Movies in the Nautica Lounge at 9:15pm. I went to see what the movie was like and if I could stay awake and did end up watching the entire movie which was "St. Vincent" starring Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy and Naomi Watts. We even were supplied with pop corn.

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