Day 12 - The Kremlin

Patty:

We had a free morning so could lie in a bit this morning - YAY!!

I got up dying for a wee but Syl was in the bathroom so I sat on the edge of the bed waiting for her to come out. I waited and waited and started getting desperate. I started to sweat and got up with crossed legs to knock on the door and asked her to please hurry up but she didn’t answer. I opened the door and there was nobody there! Phsew – I nearly didn’t make it. As soon as I sat down she came into the cabin – she’d been up and dressed and was back from breakfast! She brought me some fruit and yoghurt and tea for breakfast.
We saw Richard in the reception and told him we were going out for a walk in the park. He joined us and took us on a wild goose chase looking for an obelisk which wasn’t there! He was convinced that the bus driver had told them yesterday to look left at an obelisk in the park when they returned from their excursion. We walked up one path and down the other, all the way out the other side and back again but no obelisk. 

The word for 'ticket' in Russian is 'Kacca'.  We thought it was hysterical when we saw this sign for Kacca No.2 so Richard took a photograph of me straining in the chair and Syl pointing at the sign!  (OK - it seemed really funny at the time.  OK - you had to be there!)  After our walk we returned to our boat. 

After lunch we joined our bus and tour guide for a visit to the Kremlin. "There are many cobble stones" warned Mikhail.  "We will manage" said Syl, and we did.
My gosh, what a surprise behind those red brick walls! No razor wire, no dark dungeons (that we could see) no goose stepping soldiers. There were policemen with whistles and we were told that they blow a whistle once if you walk in a restricted area, twice if you didn't move right away and on the third whistle you would be sent to Siberia!
The Kremlin is open to tourists but as some of the buildings are still being used by the Mayor, the Police and security services, there are places that are off limits. One has to walk exactly inside the demarcated areas and if you stray, they police blow a whistle. We all jumped when we heard a whistle blow the first time even though we knew that we hadn’t strayed away from our group. There are cathedrals and churches inside the Kremlin walls. I went inside the church of the Archangel Michael.  Its hard to describe the inside of the orthodox churches, every inch of the walls are painted with bible stories and icons, even the ceilings. There were concrete tombs lining one of the walls and ancient iconostas hanging on the pillars. It’s JUST amazing. There are gardens and flowers and it seems so peaceful inside - nothing at all as I’d imagined it to be. We were taken back to the boat in time for cocktail hour at 6:30pm with a farewell dinner at 7:30pm.  Everyone was swapping business cards and email addresses.
I can't believe that this is our last day!  I have been thinking of this trip for so long and planned it for so long and now it is over. I'm just really grateful that I was fit enough and well enough to manage the trip - at last.
Sylvia

Yesterday was pay day - pay your money over the counter!  We found our bill in the cabin when we got back from breakfast and could settle it between 10h30 and 12h30.  This is a cashless boat so you sign for everything and pay at the end. They use Units - one unit being equal to one euro.  Our bill didn't come to very much but its amazing how it adds up.  Those extra drinks at cocktail hour, gifts bought from the gift shop, extra excursions.  I used my travel card to pay so that we could keep our rubbles for the airport duty free shop.  R1 = 4 Rubbles so we just divided everything by 4.
Patty told you about our morning in the park. The old bus and marine terminal building is a wonderful example of Soviet architecture with round tiles showing pictures of workers on railways,  ships, iron and steel workers, railroads, etc. 
At lunch more people gave us their cards or contact details.  If we took them all up on the invitations to visit them we could travel for 5 years and have free accommodation from Shanghai to Canada! 
After lunch we joined bus number 21 for the last time for our tour of the Kremlin.  This is actually a fortified, walled city containing gardens, museums, churches, cathedrals and the seat of the government.  You hear the expression "OY!" a lot in Russia and I must say that "OY!" doesn't come close to describing our surprise at the Kremlin.  I'm not going to try to add to Patty's description.  Instead I'll just add a few more photos that ususal.

Day 6 - A wooden church with no nails!

Sylvia:

Last night we sat with a different couple from Germany. Richard joined our table and there was a bit of banter about the England team losing 4-1 to Germany.

Once again we had an excellent meal and didn’t get to bed until after 10:45pm. Patty decided that she wouldn’t go to breakfast in the morning.

We were woken by a 6h30 wake-up call and I made Patty a cup of tea before going to breakfast. We had to be ready early for our excursion on the island of Kizhi.
Dieter, the boat manager, offered to send a sailor with us on Kizhi as there were cobble stones and gravel paths.
 At breakfast I sat with a lovely Southern Lady from the USA.  We have been sailing about 150km northward on the second largest lake in Europe and at 8h30 our boat berthed on Kizhi island, one of the most ancient inhabited sites in Russia.

This small island – 6km by 1km - is now an open air architectural museum and UNESCO heritage site.  The magnificent wooden church of the Transfiguration and the nearby wooden church of Intercession were built in the early 18thc completely of wood with no nails.  The Transfiguration Church has 22 timbered onion domes. We were allowed into the Intercession Church and whilst there, three black robed monks sang a special chant. The walls are lined with magnificent Iconostas. I asked one of the monks to point out the Apostle Jacob and he showed me the Apostle Iakhov (fourth from left) and another Icon of Jacob, the father of the people.

The whole structure of the Transfiguration Church is under repair and the inside is held up by scaffolding. Our guide told us that without appropriate treatment the entire structure could be lost within ten to fifteen years. Other typically Russian wooden structures like windmills, bathhouse, chapel, bell towers etc have been brought here from other parts of the Onega Lake.  People living there wear peasant clothing aand demonstrate traditional farming, sculpting, carving etc. Patty and I managed fine on the boadwalks and Richard helped us when the path turned to gravel.
We went back to the boat for lunch and set sail again down the Neva. From 2pm to 3:30pm we could visit the Captain’s bridge and at 4:45pm attend a lecture on the Romanovs in the Sky Bar. This was a fascinating talk and many of the slides she used, showing the various Romanov’s, were taken in the palaces we have already seen.

What sad, tumuluous and in the end, violent lives they led.

I fetched Patty from the room at about 5:45pm and we sat with two Australian couples in the Panorama Bar until supper time. It was a Russian evening and the male staff members were dressed in red tunics with floral trim and the females in Russian folk dresses – rather odd for people from the Philippines!

Today we left Lake Onega and joined the waters of the Vytegra Canal via a lock, rising about 13m into the Vytegra reservoir. The 2nd lock, at the Belousovskiy Hydroplant took us up another 13m into the Belousovskiy reservoir. After dinner, at around 9pm we went through the 3rd lock at Novinkinskiy into the Novinkinskiy reservoir. We will rise from sea level at\St Petersburg to over 150m at Moscow. It is interesting that these rivers and canals are frozen during the winter months and are used by vehicular traffic. It’s hard to imagine trucks and cars zooming down the rivers!

Patricia

 I didn’t go to breakfast because I needed to wash my hair and showering, drying, dressing and doing the hair takes forever. We had to leave the boat at 8h30 to visit Kizhi Island. Last night at dinner, our new best friend Richard offered to push me around the island to give Sylvia a rest. (We didn't need the sailor Dieter offered us).
He was there at 8h30 and so I had a new driver today. We saw the most incredible wooden Churches - but nothing like you have ever seen in South Africa or anywhere else for that matter. It was interesting that the larger church was the summer church and the winter churches are small. They can’t heat the large church in summer and the winter church – easier to heat - doesn't

have so many attending in winter. It get to -30oC in winter.
Syl has been taking photographs of all sorts of things that I can use for my painting - strange fences that I’ve never seen before, roofs on houses with very different styles, scenery as we cruise along the waterways – all very exciting! There were farm workers using scythes to cut the grass today – it looked like a medieval scene!
Back at the boat I sat in the library for while and chatted about art with the restaurant manager. Then Syl came to fetch me and I had a Bloody Mary in the Panorama Bar before going to dinner. Tonight I had a tomato and Basel salad, then a delicious Butterfish and a typical Russian soft cheese desert with strawberry sauce. We have

both put on weight because all we do here is eat!