The Itinerary of MY 1997 European Trip - Part II

Day 8 (Saturday): We arrived Yaroslavl, the largest Golden ring town we visited in this trip. But the time we stayed there is not really long, it was from 7:00 am till' 1:00 pm.

Calling Yaroslavl own' is not really appropriate. It has more than 250,000 population (about the size of Hsin-Chu) and is one of the three most important Golden Ring Cities. We wouldn't visit the other two cities, Suzdal and Vladimir because they are not on the Volga River route and cannot be reached by our boat (sniff....).

Our local guide is a middle-aged woman with gray hair. She took us for a visit to a local puppet theater. Have a stroll in the park along Volga River. It happened that there is a citywide marathon held in Yaroslavl, so young people are everywhere in the streets. Besides walking and driving around the streets of Yaroslavl, we of course visited some of the most famous monasteries and churches in this famous Golden Ring city.

More onion-domed churches with green, red, or blue colors. I started to feel I won't know how to distinguish them after all my pictures are developed......

Our final stop is Transfiguration Monastery, the largest and most important one in Yaroslavl. It is in fact a remlin' itself, with several churches and a tall bell tower. One of its ourist attractions' is a Russian brown bear called "Marsha." This poor (but cute) animal is locked in a cage and had to perform some stupid tricks for us to get some food. I guess she might hope to emigrate to North America......

Our local guide told me to climb the bell tower while she took other people in our group for some souvenir shopping. "You are the youngest one here, why not spending some time climbing the bell tower? You will get the best paranoma of the city."

She's right, I'm the only person under 55 in our group and might be the only one able to climb it without having a heart attack or overexhausted....

Interestingly, I always like to climb up the tallest buildings of the cities I visited (except the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the World Trade Center in New York, which I can only take elevators to their tops...) and of course I won't give up this good chance. And she was right. Even Yaroslavl is never really a super gorgeous city, it's still very nice to view from the height. A lot of onion-domed churches stand around different corners of the city. I have taken some nice pictures too (look at my photo gallery)......

The stay in Yaroslavl is short but very memorable.

Back to our ship for lunch, we have more caviar today as appetizer....

After departing from Yaroslavl this afternoon, there were more on-board activities for us trapped on this small ship: "Lecture on Russian folk music" (I missed this one because of taking that long nap), "Russian language lesson No. 2" (?, 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, where are you from and I love you' this kind of content), and my favorite one..... "Learning to sing Russian songs!"

I'm glad they offer the English translation of some of the songs. Including the most famous one: "Kalin-ka kalin-ka maya, Kalin-ka kalin-ka maya, Kalin-ka kalin-ka maya, Kalin-ka kalin-ka maya..." I in fact built a separate page on my website for this song "Kalinka".....

Even on the sailing boat, we can still see a lot churches along the shore. All with onion-domed, of course.....

And then, there is another concert "Russian Folk Music" performed by our on-board musicians. It was a day really full of activities.

Guess what? The concert ended with the song "Kalinka." Kalin-ka kalin-ka maya, Kalin-ka kalin-ka maya, Kalin-ka kalin-ka maya, Kalin-ka kalin-ka maya......

Day 9 (Sunday): "Port of Irma, Shashlyk lunch (a kind of central Asian barbecue picnic) ashore." Sorry, this part was canceled due to the heavy (very, very heavy) fog causing the schedule delay. So we had the barbecue in the restaurant and watched the movie "Dr. Zhivago" as our compensate entertainment. This is in fact the first time I watch this movie: Something about a great adultery story in a turbulent era. This turbulent era of course is the post-revolution Russia.

Conclusion from this movie: Communism is bad, communism destroys families, communism causes life tragedy.....and adultery is.....romantic and exciting!!

Sort of a boring day today. It was all foggy outside and not much activity inside. The only other activity is "Modern Russian Society and Politics #2". Fortunately, "Dr. Zhivago" is so long (3 and ?hours) that we don't feel there is that much spare time.

Day 10 (Monday): We sailed into Northern Russia region and got closer to St. Petersburg. Today's stop- Vytegra, a small town halfway on the Moscow- St. Petersburg waterway. It is a small town, sort of miserable looking. We tour a local museum with the exhibition about how Russians built canals and locks to connect Moscow to the Baltic Sea. None of the instruction is in English. And this museum is housed in a former church, with onion-domes, of course. The tour lasted only about an hour or so.

Our ship stayed in this port for about 9 hours, twice the time as in Yaroslavl. Some of the passengers in our ship took half an hour's walk to the local market. I and my mom took a very long nap again. I heard that market looked so miserable and there are so few fresh stuff sold there. I don't know if I were lucky or not to miss seeing these.....

Another on-board concert was held tonight. They played mainly classic music this time. Works of several famous Russian composers, including Tchaikovsky, was performed.

Tchaikovsky, one of my favorite artists of all time, will be visited by me in St. Petersburg. No, I mean, his tomb will be visited by me.......

Day 11 (Tuesday): It is said to be one of mankind's most magnificent and unique building, and always goes underrated and unnoticed. After the iron curtain fell, it receives more attention and became one of UNESCO's "World Heritage Site." Today we will visit this remote and pristine place - Kizhi Island Open Air Museum.

You can see several of my favorite pictures taken on Kizhi Island in the photo gallery.

Only the word emote' can describe Kizhi's location. It lies in the middle of Lake Onega, Europe's second largest lake and several hundred kilometers from St.Petersburg. Getting there usually people have to take train to Petrozavodsk from St. Petersburg (overnight train), then taking ferry from Petrozavodsk to Kizhi. The ferry takes more than 1 and ?hours each way and there is only one ferry per day.

Sounds horrible to make your own way there, isn't it? Fortunately, we were on a cruise boat, so we just head directly to Kizhi after the ship entered Lake Onega the night before. Though the ship really swang a lot the night before on this "second largest lake in Europe", it was relatively peaceful this morning when we approached beautiful Kizhi.

There are not too many buildings on this "open air museum." Three peasant houses with some exhibition, a windmill, sauna, barn and the most unique - two wooden churches: Cathedral of Transfiguration and the Church of the Resurrection of Lazans. Both are completed made of wood and the Cathedral itself have 22 unpainted onion domes.

I have to confess that I was really mesmerized by this cathedral. It's not colorful but some magic just came out of it in this cool autumn morning. In case you didn't notice, the picture of me in the homepage is me in front of the Cathedral.....

We only have three hours on that small island (there is nothing else to see, in fact). I just make sure I'm the last one to leave this isolated island.

After lunch, all the passengers were treated a tour of the captain's bridge. This is not a big ship (I've been tour the bridge on an ocean liner plying Baltic Sea) but it's always interesting to see something different.

What!? This boat was made in communist East Germany! I was told it is a erman-made' ship. Why wasn't I told it is from he other Germany'?

The weather was really bad that day on Lake Onega. It was rainy, damp, and cold when we arrived the port of Petrozavodsk. Petrozavodsk is the capital of the autonomous Republic of Karelia (which means that it is still a part of Russia). This city is not attractive or interesting at all. Adding to the bad weather, this stop is really an anti-climax to this morning's tour. We did watch a nice folklore performance in the local theater.

Which they sang the song Kalinka again....

Back to the boat, they showed the movie "Hunting Red October" to conclude this busy day. I didn't finish this movie since I've seen it about 7 years ago.

Another American movie made in the cold war era. Anyway, at that time, Russia is a big evil empire. Some Russians are bad, and the good Russians want to become Americans......whatever.

Day 12 (Wednesday): We almost arrived at St. Petersburg, the final stop of our cruise trip. But before that, entering the east end of the largest lake in Europe, Lake Ladoga. We had a short stop at the lakeside small village, Svir Stroy.

It is so small that I even forget if I spell it correctly......

It's a short stay before our lunch. We took a stroll around the village, had a our' of their supermarket and street-side market (In fact, there is only one selling stand with two or three rolls of ham). It doesn't look fabulous or attractive but has a feeling of a quaint New England town. An old lady told me she had a chance to visit local elementary school and it looks just MISERABLE- small , dark, and very run-down. She said there is no school in the U.S. looks so horribly managed (even in Baltimore?). Oh, I guess I'm lucky because I missed the bad part of the place we visited again....

It's the last day before we reached St. Petersburg, so there were a lot of activities going on on-board. We had the last lesson of "Modern Russian Politics." We can know how much modern Russians dislike those people from other republics of former Soviet Union (Ukrainian, Estonian) than, let's say, Chinese, American, or German. Then it's captain's farewell party and farewell dinner (you bet! We had caviar and vodka again for dinner). The captain Yuri gave every lady a nice red rose and my mom got one too. I was glad that I wasn't offered one or my mother will threat to have my hair cut again (too beautiful to be a man!). After the dinner, it's the FAREWELL SHOW! What the interesting part is, most of the programs were performed by our fellow passengers, sort of like what we did in summer camp back in high school and college.

What surprised me is that these passengers in their 60's and 70's were willing to act like clowns to please us. I guess they had a lot of summer camp experience back to their youth too.....

But I wasn't invited to perform.

Day 13 (Thursday): It had been shaky all night when we sailed across Lake Ladoga. But in the morning, we were in St. Petersburg, the second largest, but considered the most beautiful city in Russia. We would have 3 and a ?days in this city (and we still sleep in this same boat).

St. Petersburg was built from scratch by Peter the Great in 1703 (which means it's YOUNGER than Boston) and became the new capital of Russian empire in 1712. After the communist revolution, the capital moved back to Moscow and St. Petersburg was renamed Leningrad in 1924 in memory of Lenin. Even being attacked by Nazi German in the World War II for 1000 days, this city was never taken by German. It is called "hero city" in memory of millions of Russians dead in the War. 1991, the last days of Russian communist, people vote to change the name of their city back to St. Petersburg (finally they have right to vote!). Now Russia becomes a capitalist country and looks for money from the West. And St. Petersburg is "Russia's window to the west" (as Peter the Great wanted it to be) again.

Hope you don't mind this short history lesson I just gave....What!? It's too long?

The port authority building still has the sign "Leningrad." Some changes just come slower than others.

As usual, we had a city tour this morning, driving around the congested St. Petersburg streets. We had seen more churches and cathedrals today. Interestingly, not many of them are with onion-domes, most of them are with one single huge dome, which is more of Italian neo-classic style; The Baroque and neoclassic styles are more embedded in St. Petersburg than any other Russian cities. The only exception is the Cathedral of Spilled Blood, which have several colorful onion domes. There are even mosaic painting on the outside walls of the cathedral. I think together with the Cathedral of St. Basilica at Red Square in Moscow, they are the most colorful onion-domed churches in Russia. We also assed by' several other famous building, which I cannot remember their names.

There are of course, still many street vendors in St. Petersburg, just like other tourist cities in Russia. What surprised me is that they have the best prices here. Most of things they sell, such as fur hat, matrishka dolls (nesting dolls), or lacquer boxes all have more reasonable prices. I was glad that I hadn't bought too much souvenir at the earlier stops.

I also found out that people in St. Petersburg look more elegant.

Afternoon, the bus just went all the way to Pushkin, the small town outside of St. Petersburg. It is one of the "three towns of summer palaces." In Pushkin, the famous summer palace is "the Catherine Palace", named after the famous Catherine the Great. We took a tour inside the Palace. It is fabulously decorated by all kinds of delicate artworks from all over the world. Before we can see more of its garden, it was time to leave again!

Talked about the advantage of traveling with a package tour group....

Tonight there is another optional tour (which cost us extra 35 dollars) to see the Cossack dancing and singing shows. The show is okay, the dancers are cute, but they had free champaign.....

So guess what song they sang to end the show? "Kalin-ka kalin-ka maya, Kalin-ka kalin-ka maya, Kalin-ka kalin-ka maya, Kalin-ka kalin-ka maya..."

Day 14 (Friday): Today the weather turned very bad again. It was rainy, rainy, and rainy.

Which made it a good day for seeing a museum. Especially a great museum like the Hermitage. Hermitage is said to be at the same level of Le Louvre in Paris and the British Museum in London. It exhibits the treasure of generations of Russian czars and the works range from ancient Egyptian, Roman to the early 20th century impressionists. Even I've been to both Le Louvre and British Museum (or even Metropolitan M. In New York), I was still stunned by the richness of Hermitage collection. It has 3 rooms for Picasso and 2 and ?for Renoir, one huge room for Rembrandt. Besides the collection it has, the interior decoration of Hermitage is even more impressive. Too bad I didn't bring my camera or video camera inside.

They charge 12 US dollars extra for using a camcorder, can you believe that? Again, welcome to Russia.....

After our tour group left, I and Mom even spent more time inside to try to see enough of the impressionist work. After we walked out of Winter Palace (the largest building in the Hermitage), it was all wet and damp at the palace square. We even tried to walk down the Nevsky Prospekt (it is said to be the Champs Elysee, or Fifth Avenue of St. Petersburg) in the rain. I just got all soaking wet. I did find one interesting book store called Dom Knigi on the Prospekt. Selling nice postcards at really cheap prices.......

My mother complained about the weather condition and didn't want to walk more. Oh, we hate the rainy days.....

We had to rushed back to our ship also because UniWorld arranged us to see a ballet performance (fortunately it's included and not optional! No extra cost!). It's weird that it was composed of several different works and pieces, instead of a whole program (such as Swan Lake). I guess it's specially designed for the tourists. I DO hope to see a complete piece of work. These dancers performed gracefully and lovingly, though.

Hopefully tomorrow the weather will be better. Tomorrow is another day..........

Day 15 (Saturday): The Russian trip was almost drawn to the conclusion. It should be a whole day free today, but we decided to pay extra money (35 US dollars per person!) for an optional tour to Peterhof - where the largest and most beautiful summer palace is located.

The interior of Peter's Palace in Peterhof is not as marvelous as that in Catherine Palace (Pushikin). The most interesting part of this summer palace is its garden. Modeling on the Versailles Palace outside of Paris, its garden is full with fountains, gilded and marble sculptures, and beautiful paths, all in delicate symmetry. We had to pay an extra fee for taking pictures or video inside the Palace, but not so in the garden. I did use this FREE opportunity to take a lot of pictures of this garden!

I'm always a frugal person when traveling. This "extra fee" sometimes just doesn't make much sense. Who cares to pay that since the exterior view is better than the interior? And the lighting outside of course is better for photographing . . .

Our trip to Peterhof ended around 3:00 p.m. when we returned to our boat back in St. Petersburg. The weather turned bad again. From mildly cloudy, it started to rain again. I and Mom decided to follow our plan: our own city walking tour of this nice city.

It's late afternoon already and the weather was as miserable as the day before. We tried to manage to walk from "Gostiny Dvor" Metro station (comparing to the Metro of Moscow, taking metro in St. Petersburg is only the sophomore level of difficulties) to St. Isaac Cathedral. It has the hugest dome (sorry, not onion-shaped) in Russia and the scale is almost as grand as the St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome. We would try to get in to have a peek at the icons (oh! More icons!) inside but the "foreigners' admission fee" is too expensive (about 8 dollars, 10 times the amount of "Russian admission fee") and we didn't have that much Russian Rubles. We had a short peek of the interior when I entered to inquire the admission price. It is magnificent! We also passed the famous Astoria Hotel and some canals. Back to Nevsky Prospekt, we shopped in "Don Knigi" aga'bookstore (not in American standard). I bought some nice postcards for reasonable price and Mom bought more amber necklaces and Russian souvenirs. We both were happy, hallelujah!

You might not know how complicated it is to make a purchase in Russian bookstores. You have to tell the clerks what you want (in Russian, or in sign language), then she will write down the price on a note, then you take the note to the cashier, pay the cashier, take the receipt and go back to get your purchase. More complicated if you don't even speak any Russian. I guess this paying system is retained from the communist era.

And next, we did something sort of laughable - Eating Chinese food in Russia. There is a new Chinese Restaurant called "Chopstick" in the Grand Hotel Europe (the most luxurious in St. Petersburg). I told mom it couldn't be good for a Chinese restaurant called "Chopstick" (just plain no imaginations at all), so we headed to the "Shanghai."

Oh, what can I say? It is nicely decorated, a little dark, the service is very slow and nobody speaks either Chinese or English there!! The nice Russian lady took our order (fortunately, the menu is in Chinese and Russian) and kept coming back to tell us: "Sorry, we run out of tofu; sorry, we ran out of pickled cabbage; sorry, we run out . . . " We ended up having "beef with onion" and "eggplant with garlic sauce" (Yu-Hsiang Che-Tz). At least they had eggplant. Most of the steamed rice is soggy though.

Now I know the Chinese food in the U.S. is good, very good . . .

It's our last night staying on this boat. I just wandered around to have the last look of it . . .

Day 16 (Sunday): It is our last day in Russia! Because our plane departed at the late afternoon, so we don't have to leave until around 2:30 p.m.. We have to vacate the room before room anyway. They need to clean up everything for a new group arriving today.

It was almost October at this time. I heard this next group was the last one they will serve in 1997. What would happen to this crew when the tourist season finally over? Will they have the same nicely paid job as this one? I started to wonder . . . The only sure thing I know is: the Russian winter is very harsh, much harsher than in most part of the U.S......

The last morning, by my request, we went into the town to visit the Monastery of Alexander Nevsky. Not for viewing more churches, cathedrals or chapels, I just want to see the tombs of some famous Russians. Among them, of course my favorite musician - Tchaikovsky. His tomb is nicely decorated, guarded by black angels. I know people still are puzzled by what caused Tschaikovsky's suicide. But that is history, may his soul rest in peace.

It finally turned sunny again when we arrived at St. Petersburg airport. Ironically it's time to leave. I used my final Rubles to purchase several classic music CDs. Then wave goodbye to Russia.

I think I will be back to this country. Maybe, crossing the Siberia to Vladivostok (海參崴 in Chinese) next time.

The sidetrip to switzerland. (Yes, it's not over yet!)

back to Russian 1997 Trip Homepage

Posted October, 22, 1997