Kay and I have just finished a tour with a cruise in Russia. It was called The Volga Dream Tour. Because we spent some time on the Volga River or because the boat was called The Volga Dream. It wasn’t vulgar and it turned out not too bad for that sort of thing. I was more than a little concerned when the other couple that were part of our pickup from the Moscow airport included an older male from the west side of the Tasman Sea who entertained us all the way into the city by mentioning the make of nearly every car we saw. He was particularly excited about Toyota Camrys because according to him they were made in his country. I said nothing but mentality resolved to keep well away over the next 12 days. Which I did successfully.
We are nearly unexperienced in the complications of being part of a tour group and I really didn’t want to end up being “friends” with people who annoyed me. So in the first couple of days I kept away from the group of large people from Virginia and a few others who were obviously problematic. One of the latter was an English lady with very firm opinions about everything, but she also had a good bloke for a husband so tolerance was required there. I am still not really sure what is wrong with an “egg-bound” omelette which was the first thing I heard her moan about. The largest of the Virginians managed to fall over twice and ended up with his shoulder broken and a sling device similar to what one gets for a rotator cuff operation. Luckily our English Speaking “Pink” group of 13 for the guided stuff included enough interesting and good people to make the socialising bits fun. There were only 58 on the tour and the boat had a capacity of 102 so we weren’t crowded and getting at the excellent food was only a problem when one of the Virginians was busy spooning on one slice of each of the four cheesecakes, or something similar. There was a delightful couple from South Carolina we sat with once at lunch and he reckoned they were a good team because he didn’t remember anything and she couldn’t hear ( possibly due to her face lifts getting a bit tight around the ears). Another oncer for lunch was with a guy from the same state who wore only jandals no matter how formal the rest of his gear. He had a white moustache with curly ends and when not eating sported a toothpick in the corner of his mouth. I was a bit dubious about him, but after hearing his story about the heartache of recently having to organise the arrest of his opiate-addicted thieving daughter-in-law, I changed my mind. Speaking of inappropriate footwear there was also a very Germanic Swiss chap who would have clicked his heels upon greeting everyone, but couldn’t because he usually wore sandals with socks. I particularly enjoyed the company of an ex merchant banker from Oz who had less tolerance than me, and a CFO from New Jersey who had a likeable 16 years younger wife who could only have come from New York. And there was a recently widowed lady from Vienna who had been a Cultural Attache for Austria and Portugal in Beijing, as well as other interesting things. When she was back home she had an exhibition of her art to organise before leaving for Xmas in NZ, which was as far away from Vienna she could get.
The tour consisted of 4 days in Moscow, 6 days floating on various sorts of water and 3 days in St Petersburg. There can’t be many sights we didn’t see and I can now say that if I never see another icon I won’t be upset. Also, having seen the astonishing excesses of the Russian royal family’s properties and possessions I think they probably got their just dues with the revolution. But it was fun to have a look, although things like Faberge Eggs and 5000 piece porcelain dinner sets didn’t get me cheering from the stands. Some of the sights had crowds of tourists that would make Florence in summer seem average and that was mainly due to big parties of Chinese, who showed their usual disregard of the niceties of queuing and an ability to push one aside that indicates they could well be a rugby force. The Oz person and I went on quiet firm shoulder offensive at times, although after being nearly cleaned out by a large Chinese woman I did retaliate with a very firm forearm push that was also very effective. Our guide in Moscow was particularly annoyed by the Chinese guides who she said were illegal, and twice she stopped guiding us to have a serious sounding chat to these people. The guide in St Petersburg told us that she had heard that some Chinese guides were telling their clients they could organise them to attend the shooting of an artillery gun at midday, for an extra fee, even though it is done every day no matter what.
On the boat we went along several rivers, including the Volga, through lots of slave labour constructed canals and locks, and across the two biggest fresh water lakes in Europe. Each day we stopped somewhere for a look including a city called Yaroslavl where I went for a solo walk and couldn’t find my way back to the bus. About 10 minutes before the bus was due to leave I realised there was a problem when the choice of three possible ways at an intersection all looked the same. Mobile phones are very handy at times but I was still late which was regularly remembered by some. Kay’s moment of fame came in St Petersburg when her shoulder bag was unzipped and a money purse (tied to the inside) was extracted by a pickpocket group. They would not have been pleased with the loot which was 100 rubles which is about$2.50.
We did a few things on our own which included a long walk to Gorky Park, because of the book; a visit to the Gulag Museum in Moscow which was rather sobering; and in St Petersburg the State Museum of the Defence and Blockade which would make you extremely pleased you weren’t living there in the early 1940s. Well, if you were there you would probably have been killed or slowly starved.
We had a lecturer on the boat who did his version of the history of Russia and I only lasted one and a half of the four sessions. However his comments about the very high support of Putin seemed pretty much on the mark. His approval ratings are in the 70-80% and nobody we asked was negative about him. They seem happy to have a new Tsar, partly because when you look at their last 100 years of history the avoidance of chaos and violence is paramount, and partly because there is no real alternative. Throw in the manipulation of nationalism by military incursions overseas and an unholy alliance with the local orthodox church, as well as an acceptance of political corruption and you have a very firmly ensconced leader. One guide we had commented that there many unknown things about the monastery he was showing us but one thing he did know for sure was who would win the next election.
We really only saw the central areas of the two main cities of Russia so it’s not really possible to make meaningful comments about the nation based on that. Being specific, they’re both sophisticated cities to visit and we had some very interesting meals although Kay thought the baked potato ice cream she got one night was a step too far. Today we had a seven-hour bus ride to Tallinn in Estonia and it was my first good look at the countryside. I suspect that in this area agriculture has diminished a lot since the end of the USSR, with lots of new scrubby growth areas and abandoned cottages as well as the usual wrecked Soviet facilities for big collective farms. Once across the border to Estonia there were nice tidy cropping farms and even a few cows which would have pleased the Agricultural Correspondent.
The heading to this said “Stage 1” and for me there are seven more countries to come and hopefully there will be more than cobbled streets, big churches and quaintness to comment about.
And remember that vodka cures everything.
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