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Moscow to Saint Petersburg -- follow up
I received some useful information from this newsgroup in
anticipation of my Viking River Cruise from Moscow to Saint Petersburg, so I am sending along my evaluation of the trip in the hope that it may be useful to someone else. My wife and I sailed on the Pakhomov from June 30th to July 11th. Overall the trip was a good one and I would recommend it to most people - with a few qualifications (see below). The professional staff: Cruise Manager, Birgitt; Hotel Manager, Dieter; and Restaurant Manager, André, were all excellent. The wait staff was very pleasant and the cleanliness of the ship was first rate. Our guide, Valera, was very knowledgeable and spoke excellent English. On a few occasions his burn-out surfaced, but that is understandable. Here are the negatives - but let me repeat that my overall experience was positive and I do recommend the trip. 1) The ship has a plumbing problem. On occasion there was an unpleasant odor of sewage in the cabins and hallways. 2) The food was undistinguished. 3) The airline reservations were made by Viking and were clearly made to minimize the cost to them rather than to maximize the convenience to us. On the way home we had a six hour layover in Frankfurt (for a flight to JFK). If you go with them, insist on better arrangements. 4) There was almost no discussion by the guides of the Soviet Period and its aftermath. There were four lectures by a young graduate student which briefly covered some of this material, but they were not of the highest quality. On tours the guides focused on Czarist times and had little to say about the Communists or their dramatic decline. Considering that the period from 1985 to the mid 90s was one of the most important periods in Russian history (and, consequently, world history) I found this a serious lack. If you are interested in this period I recommend a trip with more and better lectures. And prepare yourself by reading David Remnick's Pulitzer Prize winning book, "Lenin's Tomb". I hope that this is helpful. HS |
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Moscow to Saint Petersburg -- follow up
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