Russia
Eastern Europe and Russsia – People We Met
When we travel, it’s not only the places and things that we see that make an impact on us. It’s the people and the characters that we encounter that often make our trips interesting. Here are some of the hundreds of people that we saw during our five weeks away in Eastern Europe and Russia […]
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Not Quite the Bolshoi Ballet
On our second last evening in St Petersburg, we had a night at the ballet. It was a private show for those in our Scenic Tour group. It lasted for just under an hour and included about ten short pieces ranging from excerpts from Swan Lake to Don Quixote. One number was focused on ‘The […]
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Why Russians Don’t Smile
I have now found it interesting on both of my trips to Russia to see that people rarely smile. On one occasion on this recent trip, I came across a mother and a toddler and even though I made a point of playing up to the little boy, the mother just looked at me blankly. […]
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Cats in Russia
Two old Russian gentlemen had a friendship that went back to the time of the revolution. The first asked the second man ” Do you like cats?” The second man replied “No, I don’t like cats”. The first man said “That’s probably because you don’t know how to cook them properly!” – Tour guide in […]
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St Petersburg – Palaces & Cruises
We are leaving our ship this morning after two weeks of river cruising and sight seeing. We are glad that we had so much time in Moscow & St Petersburg as these cities are very interesting. Now we are heading to Vilnius in Lithuania for a few days. Our time in St Petersburg continued with […]
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Saint Petersburg
We have now been in this beautiful city for two days and have been busy seeing many of the stand-out sights. Saint Petersburg is situated on the delta of the Neva Riva in an area that was originally marshland. Its streets are intersected by many canals and it often carries the name ‘Venice of the […]
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Mandrogi Island
Today is our last day of river cruising as tomorrow we reach St Petersburg and spend four days looking at its grandeur. Our port of call for today was at Mandrogi Island. On the island is restored settlement in the form of a craft village. It’s very much the tourist island but it does have […]
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Kizhi Island
We began today with a late breakfast and a slow start. We were mostly filling in time as we crossed Lake Bodega and the crew had a number of activities organised that one typically does on a ship when there is no opportunity to go on an excursion. Most of the women got involved in […]
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Goritsy
We woke up to a crisp morning, quite cool, with mist rising from the river. We passed a number of little villages that while all different, had a similarity of appearance. Every one had wooden houses, a number of boat sheds along the water line and gardens in which vegetables (predominately potatoes) were grown. By […]
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Yaroslavl
Last night we had a magnificent sunset as we crossed the southern waters of the Rybinsk Reservoir. This was on our way to Yaraslavl, an industrial centre of 750,000 people on the Volga River. Yaroslavl is noted for its large number of historic old buildings. Legend has it that Prince Yaroslavl killed a bear (the […]
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Uglich
Uglich is an historic town in Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, which stands on the Volga River. It has a population: of 34,500 people and probably another 1,000,000 tourists who arrive in hordes by river boat every day. We arrived here at 2.00 pm today after leaving Moscow around 24 hours earlier. It is a very historic […]
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More of Moscow
Our time in Moscow over the last two and a half days has been full of activity with us seeing more interesting sights and learning more about Russian culture. Our visit to the Kremlin was quite remarkable. First, we stood in a large cluster of people as a tour group and waited for our turn […]
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