Trip Report: Russian River Cruise -- Part I

I promised to write up a report about our 2004 Russian River Cruise,
and, later than promised, here it is. I ended up going into far more
detail than I anticipated, but I had fun remembering the trip so I kept
adding information. Travelers whose only contact with Russia will be a
visit to St. Petersburg as part of Baltic cruise may want to skip
reading this installent. It's quite long and it focuses on our
independent land trip to Moscow and our river cruise. I will post the
second installment focusing St. Petersburg ASAP.

I've written a balanced report; I include the good along with not-so-good.

Karen Selwyn

Our trip to Russia included 3 1/2 days of independent travel in Moscow
and a two-week river cruise from Moscow to St. Petersburg. The river
cruise was with a university group on board the M.S. Litvinov, a boat
built for navigating the combination of rivers and canals that connect
these two cities. We stopped at several small towns along the way that
are primarily famous for their monasteries and churches including
Uglich, Yaroslavl, and Goritsy. Our favorite stop en route was Kizhi, an
island community which was originally home to two great provincial
wooden churches. These churches have become the focus for an assembly of
residential wooden structures -- houses and barns.

Our trip was absolutely fascinating. Traditional tourist destinations
like castles or art museums are over the top in Russia. For example, we
believe the Hermitage beats the Prado, the Metropolitan, and the Louvre
for quality along with quantity, as well as the sheer opulence of the
galleries. Catherine’s Palace makes Versailles pale in comparison. While
the Amber Room is probably the most famous room within Catherine’s
palace, room after room has an equivalent level of opulence with a
different decorating scheme. In Versailles, the Hall of Mirrors is
justifiably famous, but that level of opulence is not sustained
throughout the palace.

However, a word like “enjoy” doesn’t to apply to a trip to Russia.
Putting aside the inevitable glitches that occur with any long,
complicated, and physically demanding trip, there was an over-riding
contemporary issue that colored all our sightseeing. The people of
Russia are truly unhappy with democracy, and I worry about what that
means for the future. There is more poverty in Russia today than in the
Communist era. During our time in Russia, we read many newspaper
articles indicating the majority of citizens look longingly back at the
time when the state took care of them. There is more crime in today’s
Russia, and, again, the people long for a nation where personal safety
is guaranteed at the expense of values we cherish in America. Concepts
like “choice” and “freedom” are not important compared to stability and
predictability. This was a complete contrast to the attitudes we sensed
during our time spent in China in 2002.

During our independent time in Moscow, we stayed at the Marriott Royal
Aurora, a hotel located approximately 2 blocks from the Bolshoi Theater,
four blocks from the main commercial street in Moscow, and a fifteen
minute walk from Red Square. The location was great, most of the
employees spoke English reasonably well, and the room was spacious,
modern, and clean. One disquieting note: At our hotel -- as at all
tourist hotels and better restaurants -- a group of burly black-suited
guards patrol the entrances day and night. I estimate that no place we
visited had fewer than four guards at any time, and the hotels had more
with guards patrolling the interior, including the lobby and guarding
the elevator to the guest rooms. We chose to view these guards as
deterrence that nothing would happen rather than first-responders when
something would happen. As a result, we were never frightened.

Our arrival day, we never can do more than stroll around and this trip
was no exception. Our strolling was complicated by the fact that the
hotel supplied a map with the names of streets written in
transliterated English, or Latin as the Russians would say. However,
none of the signage in Moscow was in English, only in Cyrillic. (When we
got to St. Petersburg did we see our first dual language street signs,
and, then, only the main streets were so marked.) Our only specific
destination was Yeliseevsky, the amazingly elegant grocery store on
Tverskaya, the main commercial street. One of my travel magazines had
included this as one of the ten great markets of the world, and after
seeing it I can’t argue. Crystal chandeliers and baroque plaster
carvings coupled with every imaginable delicacy make this a destination
grocery store!

That night, we dined at CDL; the initials stand for the Cyrillic words
“House of Writers.” This restaurant occupies an elegant 19th century
mansion. The heavy carved wood paneling, tapestries, and a musicians
balcony – complete with a string quartet serenading diners – made our
visit a special experience. The menu was vast including a sub-menu of
Italian specialties from a period when the restaurant had a visiting
chef. The menu was written in both Cyrillic and French. I cannot read or
speak Russian, but my French is quite good so my husband and I had no
trouble arriving at our choices. Ordering was a bit more problematic as
our waiter’s English was very, very, very limited. (In fact, I was
brought the wrong appetizer because the waiter the word “Russian”
appears in two different options and I was brought the other choice.)
Since I suspect English-speaking tourists account for a large percentage
of the restaurant’s clientele, I was surprised that the maitre d’ whose
English was quite good didn’t make himself available at crucial times
when English would have been appreciated by both parties. The food was
delicious. On the ride back to the hotel, we saw Red Square for the
first time. Awesome. The brilliantly illuminated onion domes of St.
Basil’s cathedral is a sight I’ll never forget.

The next day, we met Ludmilla, the guide who had been hired through the
hotel’s concierge service. We drove outside the city to the house where
Lenin lived in the last years of his life. In addition, the contents of
Lenin’s office in the Kremlin have been transferred to another building
on the grounds of the estate, and we visited there, too. Fascinating
experience on many levels. Although the house/museum used to be one of
the major pilgrimage destinations in the Communist era, few people visit
there now. My husband and I were the only two people visiting. As a
result, the curator took us behind the ropes, and we were able to handle
some things like Lenin’s personal photo album. Equally fascinating
because pre-revolution, the house belonged to the wealthiest
industrialist in Russia, and the size of the house was eloquent
testimony to his wealth. In each room, the furniture was covered with
simple striped cotton slipcovers. Ludmilla persuaded the curator to lift
a corner of many of the slipcovers in each room. The furniture was
mahogany with bronze decoration and the fabric was opulent brocade.
Apparently, Lenin had an interesting threshold; he felt completely
comfortable occupying room after room after room, but he drew the line
at looking at furnishings that were anything but proletariat.

That night, we ate at Beloye Solntse Pustyni (White Sun of the Desert),
a restaurant serving food from Uzbekistan. Having eaten Turkish food, we
found the Uzecki food to be quite familiar and delicious. The big glitch
that night was that the connection between Russian banks and the bank
issuing our charge card was down. The restaurant would not accept our
charge card. We had enough cash to cover the cost of the meal and the
taxi back to the hotel. However, we had cash flow problems for two more
days since the US was celebrating the Fourth of July holiday and we had
reached our limit from the cash machine until a new business day. We
began to use some of our US money even though the exchange rate was
pretty bad. We just chalked this up to the mixed joys of travel. (I’m
sure that people who travel almost exclusively by cruise ship, are
congratulating themselves on the wisdom of their choice after reading
some of our struggles after only two days in Russia. We’re willing to
accept a certain degree of effort when we travel for benefits we perceive.)

The third day, we took a tour of the Moscow subways. If you’ve ridden
the subways in NY, Boston, or even Washington DC you have a wholly
inadequate vision of the Moscow subways. At least among the older
stations, think chandeliers – a different design for each station. Think
stained glass. Think bronze reliefs. Think decorative ceramic tiles.
Think frescoes.

After riding for about an hour, we headed to the Kremlin, via the
beautiful Alexander Gardens, to visit the Diamond Fund. This is not the
display of crown jewels and state treasures. Those items are on display
at the Armory, and that would be a destination with our group tour. The
Diamond Fund is a display of Russian diamonds, both loose stones of all
carat weights and jewelry. One amazing necklace was made up of modular
components. Fully assembled, the diamonds covered most of the wearer’s
chest in an ornate and dazzling display. This same necklace – there was
a copy made to demonstrate the process – could be disassembled to
produce a discreet pendant that an ordinary person could wear with jeans
to head to the grocery store. I recognized bracelets, pins, earrings,
necklaces, and tiaras, but I couldn’t identify something that looked
like 2" wide strips of diamond lace. Ludmilla, told me to look at the
minute hooks along the edges of the strips. It really was diamond lace.
The hooks were used to sew the diamond lace to clothes. If we ever
needed a reminder about the disparity between the pre-revolutionary
aristocrats and the serfs, the Diamond Fund was ample evidence. We
wondered if the state jewels could top this display. In a word, “yes.”

In the afternoon, we took a backstage tour of the Bolshoi Theater. The
season had ended the week before. Normally, these backstage tours are
offered only during the performance season, but somehow, Ludmilla had
persuaded the Bolshoi powers-that-be to run a tour. She is one of few
Russian guides who is certified to bring guests into the Bolshoi, and,
even then, she is not permitted to give the tour. She simply translates
the Bolshoi employee’s talk. (In fact, this two-person approach is
typical of many Russian tourist sites. Although the English-speaking
guide is licensed and qualified to explain specific destinations,
Russian guides provide the commentary at each destination with the
personal guides doing the translating.)

While we visited the main stage of the Bolshoi, I whipped through a
couple of ballet steps, and I can say in all honesty that I have
performed ballet on the stage of the Bolshoi! Since the building is
quite old, there are lots of places that are a bit risky to access and
the number of people in a tour group is quite limited. I doubt a
mainstream cruise line would be able to offer a Bolshoi tour as an
excursion. In addition, last summer the Bolshoi closed for renovation, a
process that is expected to take years.

Our last half-day of independent travel, we went to Old Arbat, the
pedestrian shopping street and to GUM near Red Square. We bought a
Palekh laquer box and an amber bracelet at a state-sponsored store which
gave us confidence that both items are legit. (Amber is amazingly easy
to fake, or, more likely, to heat to meld small chunks of amber together
to produce large, pricier pieces of amber.) We were able to use our
charge card at the state-sponsored store, although this was not always
the case in all stores on this street. For those old enough to remember
the Cold War-era descriptions of shoddy merchandise and empty shelves at
GUM, the present version is a revelation. Name every designer label, and
you will find it somewhere in Moscow, most often at GUM. (In St.
Petersburg, we bought an amber necklace in the main gift shop of the
Hermitage. As for the bracelet we bought in Svir'stroy, a tiny town on
our cruise... Suffice it to say that we are calling that amber
"theoretical amber." Still, I love the design of the bracelet, and I get
compliments when I wear the bracelet. The amber jewelry at the gift shop
of Catherine’s Palace had the most sophisticated designs, along with the
most expensive possibilities. We were with our group and did not have
the time needed to make an intelligent choice at any price.)

Then, we drove to the northern river port where we boarded the M.S.
Litvinov and met our tour group. If you’ve sailed the Yangtze River, you
would recognize the our ship. The Litvinov is one of hundreds of
seemingly identical river ships working the river and canal route
between Moscow and St. Petersburg. At any port, the ships are tied up
alongside of one another, sometimes stacked four deep. Passengers on the
outside ships walk through the other ships to get to the pier.

The Litvinov provides a spartan, but serviceable, cruise experience.
The ship has familiar cruise elements: bars on many decks, a theater, a
gift shop, a spa whose only service was massages, a beauty parlor, and a
medical office.

Breakfasts were buffet-style, but lunches and dinners were served by the
wait staff. Dinner times were fixed. The food is acceptable. At each
meal, one dish rose to the really wonderful level, and I don’t recall
anything truly awful. However, eating is not the raison d’etre to be on
a river cruise in Russia. There is some effort to accommodate genuine
health issues with food, but, at sign-up time, it was made very, very
clear that mere preference was not enough to request foods other than
the daily choices. Lunch consisted of a salad, a choice of entree, and a
dessert. Dinner consisted of a choice of appetizer, a soup or salad, a
choice of entree, and a dessert.

The worst part of our river cruise was the fact that the ship was our
hotel while in port in Moscow for three days and in St. Petersburg for
two days. The location of these two ports necessitated an hour-long
drive through painfully congested traffic to get to the sites. After the
first day of getting more and more frustrated with the appalling traffic
and waste of time, some people found large and small ways to cope. For
example, lunch was offered on board ship all but one day in Moscow. That
meant adding an extra drive back to the ship and, again, into the city
for the afternoon tours. Many of us stayed in town on our own, paid for
lunch in restaurants, and met the group at the afternoon destination.
Others used the subway to go to and from the ship at mid-day, to take
advantage of the already-paid-for lunch. One afternoon the tour group
ate lunch in Moscow at the Café Pushkin. The traffic between the
Tchaikovsky Conservatory and the restaurant turned a fifteen minute ride
into an ordeal with no end in sight. Everyone in our bus simply got out
and walked.

My husband and I would much rather have stayed in a hotel in Moscow –
obviously, we would have stayed in the same hotel during our independent
travel portion – and transferred to the ship only when we set sail. The
convenience of unpacking only once was outweighed by big city travel
frustrations.

(The following anecdote should help readers calibrate their tolerance
for independent travel. One day in Moscow, my husband and I managed to
shoehorn a visit to the Impressionist collection to the Pushkin museum
during the time period when the group was officially eating lunch back
on the boat. We prepared by having our guide write out the name of the
Pushkin Museum in Cyrillic on a pamphlet for the All-Russian Museum of
Decorative and Folk Arts, our post-lunch destination. When the group got
on the bus after our morning tour of Red Square, we broke away, and
walked up the main commercial street until we found a clean- and
appealing-looking casual restaurant. After eating, we walked to a taxi
rank. Using the European number system for the hours of the day and a
schematic to suggest we wanted to go one place and, then, another at
specific times, we negotiated a taxi fare. We weren’t entirely sure we
had been understood, but our desire to go to the Pushkin was
sufficiently great that we were willing to take the chance. Everything
worked beautifully. The taxi was waiting for us outside the Pushkin at
the appointed time and we met the group as planned. We also felt the
collection of Impressionist art at the Pushkin was worth the effort and
expense.)

Comments about some of the tourist attractions in Moscow:

Kremlin: There are a limited number of entry points with metal detectors
into the Kremlin. Russian policy allows Russian citizens to cut in line
ahead of tourists. This made for a very irritating situation since the
day we visited the Kremlin, only one entry point was operating. We were
on line over an hour. While waiting we fumed that nothing was worth this
wait, but seeing the collection of state jewels, carriages, and clothing
in the Armory proved us wrong. We’ve been to Versailles and Windsor, and
their collections seem positively low-budget compared to the contents of
Armory. In particular, we were overwhelmed by the carriages some of
which had inlaid patterns of diamond and pearls. One of the rulers --
possibly Czarina Elizabeth –- wore a different dress every day of her
life. When she died, there were only 3 rubles in the nation’s treasury.
We did not go into Lenin’s tomb. We did stop at the Tomb of the Unknown
Soldier which honors not only an unidentified soldier, but also the
defenders of six “heroic cities” who fought the Nazis.

We went to only one of the churches within the Kremlin proper because of
the lines to enter each church. These churches are in addition to St.
Basil’s Cathedral, the familiar onion-domed church located in Red Square
outside the walls of the Kremlin. The Kremlin church's wall of icons was
amazingly ornate as befitted a church patronized by the czars. We were
intrigued by the fact that these churches still remained since so many
churches were torn down during the Communist era. We were told that the
Communist leaders loved having the opulent left-over places from the
centuries of the czars as their private playgrounds, and that they loved
to visit the Armory, in particular.

Moscow Circus: A pleasant enough way to spend an evening. With Cirque du
Soleil shows performing all over the world, the Moscow Circus is no
longer the unique attraction it once was. Certainly, the production
values of a Cirque du Soleil performance outshine those of the Moscow
Circus. Happily, the quality of each act was excellent.

While in Moscow, we also toured the Novodevichy and Donskoy Monasteries,
along with the Novodevichy cemetery. This is the Russian equivalent of
Pere Lachaise cemetery. The biggest tourist draws are Krushchev’s and
Raisa Gorbachev’s graves. We were fascinated by the markers of graves
from the non-religious Communist era. We visited the Tchaikovsky
Conservatory where we heard a wonderful piano recital, and the Tretyakov
Gallery, a museum of Russian art ranging from 11th century icons to
Social Realism and contemporary art. Our tour focused on the Russian
Symbolist art which is a collection of importance in art histoyr but is
virtually unknown outside of Russian. Interesting. However, I would have
preferred spending time seeing the contemporary art; I like Chagall,
Malevich, and Kandinsky, and the Tretyakov has major collections of all
these artists.

Comments about our ports during the river cruise:

We stopped at Uglich, Yaroslavl, Goritsky, Svirstroy, and Kizhi Island.
Each of the stops was enjoyable, but visitors should be prepared for a
certain amount of repetition. Of course the Transfiguration Monastery in
Yaroslavl is different from the Kirillow-Belozersk Monastery in
Goritsky, but by the fourth stop at a provincial monastery the
experience became somewhat predictable. This reaction may be an issue of
prior knowledge. When my husband and make our annual visits to Italy,
we understand that there is a lot of repetition among the hill towns of
Tuscany, for example, or among Romanesque churches. However, we know
enough about Italian art and architecture that minor variations are a
source of interest and pleasure to us. Our knowledge of Russian
iconography is minuscule so we were not at the stage where minor
variations were always apparent or fascinating. The commentary of the
guides became paramount to make our experiences enjoyable.

The notable exception to this was in Kizhi where we could see the
difference between the naturalistic way the religious figures were
depicted and the stylized depictions at most of the other churches. The
most enjoyable element of these small towns was the brief concert we
heard in each church. The acoustics were routinely phenomenal which made
the concert of folk or religious music absolutely goose-bump producing.

Part II featuring St. Petersburg to follow – eventually.

Karen,

Wow! It's trite, but it's all I can say. What an informative and delightful
report. Thanks for taking the time to go back, prepare this and share it.

We just booked our trip, which includes a Baltic cruise, so I will join
others looking forward to your St. Petersburg installment. No pressure, but
I selfishly hope "eventually" means before July, LOL!

Thank you,

Diana Ball
near Houston, TX

"Karen Selwyn" wrote in message
news:WTZle.4847$%Z2.1172@lakeread08...
I promised to write up a report about our 2004 Russian River Cruise,

D Ball wrote:

Wow! It's trite, but it's all I can say. What an informative and delightful
report. Thanks for taking the time to go back, prepare this and share it.

You're welcome.

We just booked our trip, which includes a Baltic cruise, so I will join
others looking forward to your St. Petersburg installment. No pressure, but
I selfishly hope "eventually" means before July, LOL!

I can share what follows immmediately. It's not complete, but it will
"nourish" you until I can write up more, and it does contain useful
information for cruisers.

I wrote some of this in response to others asking about St. Petersburg
previously:

If you can find a tour that includes admission to the Hermitage earlier
than the general public's opening time, choose that NO MATTER WHAT THE
COST. We spent seven hours in the museum -- essentially one full day out
of our three days in St. Petersburg -- and considered it a day well spent.

Our tour group had a head start with a 9:30 a.m. admission to the
museum, and our comfort level was much higher the first three or four
hours of the visit because the crowds were much smaller. Our guided tour
began with the Dutch masters and continued chronologically up to the
Impressionist collection. If we had any wait to view a picture, it was
so fleeting that it doesn't register a year later. We even felt the
benefit of our head start for an additional hour or two. When we began
viewing the post-Impressionist and modern art, were already deeper into
the museum, and the crowds weren't bad. Since my husband has a vision
problem, he didn't get a good enough look at some of the pictures on our
guided tour, so we looped back for a second look. By now, we were in the
crush of the crowds, and we had to wait for tour groups to step away
from paintings to get a good view. During this time, we encountered
groups from Oceania, Celebrity, and HAL in the Hermitage; I don't
believe I saw any of these groups during our early admission period.

I can only repeat what I've already said about The Hermitage: It is an
amazing place. The quality of art is extra-ordinarily high; there are so
many of the works of art that you have seen reproduced in art books. The
building itself is gorgeous, including the two sections which are
historically the museum rather than the Winter Palace which you would
have expected to be opulent. And the viewing conditions are phenomenal!
At the Hermitage, the combination of natural light and artificial light
and the spacing of the art makes for excellent viewing and enjoyment.

If you have to choose between a single trip to one palace outside St.
Petersburg, you'll have a hard choice. Catherine's Palace includes the
recently restored amber room and that room alone is on the UNESCO list
as one of the cultural wonders of the world. The tour of Catherine's
Palace focuses more on the state rooms while the tour of Peter's Palace
focuses equally on the state and private rooms. If I were forced to
choose one destination, the grounds of Peter's Palace with the amazing
fountains would tip the balance towards Peterhof.

If you are going to Catherine's Palace with a personal guide, consider
stopping at the WW II war memorial. The one I have in mind is en route
to Tsarkoye Selo (The Tsar's Village) where Catherine's Palace is
located. Although there are sculptures at ground level, the majority of
the memorial is sub-terranean. This memorial honors the role of the
women and children of St. Petersburg in defying Hitler's siege of their
city. There is another memorial with mounds of earth to represent the
900 days of the siege endured by the St. Petersburg population that is
also supposed to be very moving, but I don't know it's location with
respect to other destinations.

If you are offered an excursion to attend the ballet in St. Petersburg,
find out more about the company you'll be seeing before plunking down
your money. A ballet performance was a standard part of our tour. Had we
paid extra, I would have been somewhat disappointed. We wrongly had
assumed that we would be seeing the Kirov Ballet dance in its home
theater, Mariinsky. Nope.

There are many ballet companies of varying talent that get created for
the sole purpose of entertaining tourists who visit in the summer. We
saw "Russian Ballet" (Yup! That's the name of the company!) dance SWAN
LAKE at the Alexandrevsky Theater. The theater was as gilded and
spectacular as you would hope, but the quality of the ballet was
surprisingly weak.

If you have some choice about which ballet to attend, I would recommend
the company which performs in the theater at the Hermitage. At least
that summer company includes some of the stars from the Kirov ballet.

Special ballet note: Seeing a Russian company do SWAN LAKE is
fascinating because of the ending. During the Soviet era, the original
ending with the death of the swan queen and the suicide of the prince
was deemed too depressing so a happy ending was created. We've now seen
both the Bolshoi and the Kirov dance SWAN LAKE, retaining the Soviet-era
ending even though so much of Soviet days is disappearing. The hammer
and sickle emblem has all but vanished, but images of Lenin are still found.

I "need" to mention the Red October chocolates. I don't know whether our
group consisted of candy eaters before arriving in Russia, but they
inhaled bars and bars of Red October chocolate on the trip. We liked the
dark chocolate version identified by the black wrapper.

Finally, I would recommend AGAINST using one day of a a brief cruise
stay in St. Petersburg to take an excursion to Moscow. St. Petersburg
captures the monarchical history of Russian while Moscow captures the
medieval and Soviet history of Russian so there is a distinct difference
in the two places. However, there is more than enough glorious stuff to
see in St. Petersburg that I wouldn't waste time commuting to Moscow.

I would be happy to answer questions. I'll write up more impressions of
St. Petersburg if I can make time.

Karen Selwyn

D Ball wrote:

Wow! It's trite, but it's all I can say. What an informative and delightful
report. Thanks for taking the time to go back, prepare this and share it.

You're welcome.

We just booked our trip, which includes a Baltic cruise, so I will join
others looking forward to your St. Petersburg installment. No pressure, but
I selfishly hope "eventually" means before July, LOL!

I can share what follows immmediately. It's not complete, but it will
"nourish" you until I can write up more, and it does contain useful
information for cruisers.

I wrote some of this in response to others asking about St. Petersburg
previously:

If you can find a tour that includes admission to the Hermitage earlier
than the general public's opening time, choose that NO MATTER WHAT THE
COST. We spent seven hours in the museum -- essentially one full day out
of our three days in St. Petersburg -- and considered it a day well spent.

Our tour group had a head start with a 9:30 a.m. admission to the
museum, and our comfort level was much higher the first three or four
hours of the visit because the crowds were much smaller. Our guided tour
began with the Dutch masters and continued chronologically up to the
Impressionist collection. If we had any wait to view a picture, it was
so fleeting that it doesn't register a year later. We even felt the
benefit of our head start for an additional hour or two. When we began
viewing the post-Impressionist and modern art, were already deeper into
the museum, and the crowds weren't bad. Since my husband has a vision
problem, he didn't get a good enough look at some of the pictures on our
guided tour, so we looped back for a second look. By now, we were in the
crush of the crowds, and we had to wait for tour groups to step away
from paintings to get a good view. During this time, we encountered
groups from Oceania, Celebrity, and HAL in the Hermitage; I don't
believe I saw any of these groups during our early admission period.

I can only repeat what I've already said about The Hermitage: It is an
amazing place. The quality of art is extra-ordinarily high; there are so
many of the works of art that you have seen reproduced in art books. The
building itself is gorgeous, including the two sections which are
historically the museum rather than the Winter Palace which you would
have expected to be opulent. And the viewing conditions are phenomenal!
At the Hermitage, the combination of natural light and artificial light
and the spacing of the art makes for excellent viewing and enjoyment.

If you have to choose between a single trip to one palace outside St.
Petersburg, you'll have a hard choice. Catherine's Palace includes the
recently restored amber room and that room alone is on the UNESCO list
as one of the cultural wonders of the world. The tour of Catherine's
Palace focuses more on the state rooms while the tour of Peter's Palace
focuses equally on the state and private rooms. If I were forced to
choose one destination, the grounds of Peter's Palace with the amazing
fountains would tip the balance towards Peterhof.

If you are going to Catherine's Palace with a personal guide, consider
stopping at the WW II war memorial. The one I have in mind is en route
to Tsarkoye Selo (The Tsar's Village) where Catherine's Palace is
located. Although there are sculptures at ground level, the majority of
the memorial is sub-terranean. This memorial honors the role of the
women and children of St. Petersburg in defying Hitler's siege of their
city. There is another memorial with mounds of earth to represent the
900 days of the siege endured by the St. Petersburg population that is
also supposed to be very moving, but I don't know it's location with
respect to other destinations.

If you are offered an excursion to attend the ballet in St. Petersburg,
find out more about the company you'll be seeing before plunking down
your money. A ballet performance was a standard part of our tour. Had we
paid extra, I would have been somewhat disappointed. We wrongly had
assumed that we would be seeing the Kirov Ballet dance in its home
theater, Mariinsky. Nope.

There are many ballet companies of varying talent that get created for
the sole purpose of entertaining tourists who visit in the summer. We
saw "Russian Ballet" (Yup! That's the name of the company!) dance SWAN
LAKE at the Alexandrevsky Theater. The theater was as gilded and
spectacular as you would hope, but the quality of the ballet was
surprisingly weak.

If you have some choice about which ballet to attend, I would recommend
the company which performs in the theater at the Hermitage. At least
that summer company includes some of the stars from the Kirov ballet.

Special ballet note: Seeing a Russian company do SWAN LAKE is
fascinating because of the ending. During the Soviet era, the original
ending with the death of the swan queen and the suicide of the prince
was deemed too depressing so a happy ending was created. We've now seen
both the Bolshoi and the Kirov dance SWAN LAKE, retaining the Soviet-era
ending even though so much of Soviet days is disappearing. The hammer
and sickle emblem has all but vanished, but images of Lenin are still found.

I "need" to mention the Red October chocolates. I don't know whether our
group consisted of candy eaters before arriving in Russia, but they
inhaled bars and bars of Red October chocolate on the trip. We liked the
dark chocolate version identified by the black wrapper.

Finally, I would recommend AGAINST using one day of a a brief cruise
stay in St. Petersburg to take an excursion to Moscow. St. Petersburg
captures the monarchical history of Russian while Moscow captures the
medieval and Soviet history of Russian so there is a distinct difference
in the two places. However, there is more than enough glorious stuff to
see in St. Petersburg that I wouldn't waste time commuting to Moscow.

I would be happy to answer questions. I'll write up more impressions of
St. Petersburg if I can make time.

Karen Selwyn

Karen,

Many thanks for the prompt posting of your very helpful notes, especially
for the compare/contrast on the two palaces and the info about choosing a
ballet performance. We will have only the one night, unfortunately, and at
the moment, I am thinking the folkloric music & dance evening, even if
somewhat "cheesey touristy," is something that would have broader appeal
among our group vs. the ballet.

Diana

Karen Selwyn wrote:
I promised to write up a report about our 2004 Russian River Cruise,
and, later than promised, here it is. I ended up going into far more
detail than I anticipated, but I had fun remembering the trip so I kept
adding information. Travelers whose only contact with Russia will be a
visit to St. Petersburg as part of Baltic cruise may want to skip
reading this installent. It's quite long and it focuses on our
independent land trip to Moscow and our river cruise. I will post the
second installment focusing St. Petersburg ASAP.

I've written a balanced report; I include the good along with not-so-good.



You sure did. One of the most interesting reports I've read on rtc. I
think it would benefit many to skip one or two Caribbean cruises and
cruise to Russia, China, or another very rich cultural area of the world
with alternative philosophies to the U.S.

Thanks many times over for this report.

Ben S.


Karen Selwyn

Our trip to Russia included 3 1/2 days of independent travel in Moscow
and a two-week river cruise from Moscow to St. Petersburg. The river
cruise was with a university group on board the M.S. Litvinov, a boat
built for navigating the combination of rivers and canals that connect
these two cities. We stopped at several small towns along the way that
are primarily famous for their monasteries and churches including
Uglich, Yaroslavl, and Goritsy. Our favorite stop en route was Kizhi, an
island community which was originally home to two great provincial
wooden churches. These churches have become the focus for an assembly of
residential wooden structures -- houses and barns.

Our trip was absolutely fascinating.

"Karen Selwyn" wrote in message
news:WTZle.4847$%Z2.1172@lakeread08...

Our trip was absolutely fascinating. Traditional tourist destinations
like castles or art museums are over the top in Russia. For example, we
believe the Hermitage beats the Prado, the Metropolitan, and the Louvre
for quality along with quantity, as well as the sheer opulence of the
galleries. Catherine’s Palace makes Versailles pale in comparison. While
the Amber Room is probably the most famous room within Catherine’s palace,
room after room has an equivalent level of opulence with a different
decorating scheme. In Versailles, the Hall of Mirrors is justifiably
famous, but that level of opulence is not sustained throughout the palace.

Thanks for the wonderful review.

An interesting thought... the sheer opulence of BOTH Versailles and
Catherine's Palace vs. the poverty and starvation of the peasantry resulted
in an "off with the head" type of retaliation... while the more subdued
monarchies in places like Britain still survive today.

Something else to consider (from my art history class in college).
Catherine had an even larger collection of Rembrandt's and other great
pieces in her collection. I think she had the largest collection of
Rembrandt's in the world. Stalin later sold many of them to help fund his
military. So the collection was even greater prior to Stalin.

--Tom

Karen, thanks for sharing your cruise report, it is one of the best ones
I have read. I felt like I was there.

Becca



Karen Selwyn wrote:

I promised to write up a report about our 2004 Russian River Cruise,
and, later than promised, here it is. I ended up going into far more
detail than I anticipated, but I had fun remembering the trip so I kept
adding information. Travelers whose only contact with Russia will be a
visit to St. Petersburg as part of Baltic cruise may want to skip
reading this installent. It's quite long and it focuses on our
independent land trip to Moscow and our river cruise. I will post the
second installment focusing St. Petersburg ASAP.

I've written a balanced report; I include the good along with not-so-good.

Karen Selwyn

Our trip to Russia included 3 1/2 days of independent travel in Moscow
and a two-week river cruise from Moscow to St. Petersburg. The river
cruise was with a university group on board the M.S. Litvinov, a boat
built for navigating the combination of rivers and canals that connect
these two cities. We stopped at several small towns along the way that
are primarily famous for their monasteries and churches including
Uglich, Yaroslavl, and Goritsy. Our favorite stop en route was Kizhi, an
island community which was originally home to two great provincial
wooden churches. These churches have become the focus for an assembly of
residential wooden structures -- houses and barns.

Our trip was absolutely fascinating. Traditional tourist destinations
like castles or art museums are over the top in Russia. For example, we
believe the Hermitage beats the Prado, the Metropolitan, and the Louvre
for quality along with quantity, as well as the sheer opulence of the
galleries. Catherine’s Palace makes Versailles pale in comparison. While
the Amber Room is probably the most famous room within Catherine’s
palace, room after room has an equivalent level of opulence with a
different decorating scheme. In Versailles, the Hall of Mirrors is
justifiably famous, but that level of opulence is not sustained
throughout the palace.

However, a word like “enjoy” doesn’t to apply to a trip to Russia.
Putting aside the inevitable glitches that occur with any long,
complicated, and physically demanding trip, there was an over-riding
contemporary issue that colored all our sightseeing. The people of
Russia are truly unhappy with democracy, and I worry about what that
means for the future. There is more poverty in Russia today than in the
Communist era. During our time in Russia, we read many newspaper
articles indicating the majority of citizens look longingly back at the
time when the state took care of them. There is more crime in today’s
Russia, and, again, the people long for a nation where personal safety
is guaranteed at the expense of values we cherish in America. Concepts
like “choice” and “freedom” are not important compared to stability and
predictability. This was a complete contrast to the attitudes we sensed
during our time spent in China in 2002.

During our independent time in Moscow, we stayed at the Marriott Royal
Aurora, a hotel located approximately 2 blocks from the Bolshoi Theater,
four blocks from the main commercial street in Moscow, and a fifteen
minute walk from Red Square. The location was great, most of the
employees spoke English reasonably well, and the room was spacious,
modern, and clean. One disquieting note: At our hotel -- as at all
tourist hotels and better restaurants -- a group of burly black-suited
guards patrol the entrances day and night. I estimate that no place we
visited had fewer than four guards at any time, and the hotels had more
with guards patrolling the interior, including the lobby and guarding
the elevator to the guest rooms. We chose to view these guards as
deterrence that nothing would happen rather than first-responders when
something would happen. As a result, we were never frightened.

Our arrival day, we never can do more than stroll around and this trip
was no exception. Our strolling was complicated by the fact that the
hotel supplied a map with the names of streets written in
transliterated English, or Latin as the Russians would say. However,
none of the signage in Moscow was in English, only in Cyrillic. (When we
got to St. Petersburg did we see our first dual language street signs,
and, then, only the main streets were so marked.) Our only specific
destination was Yeliseevsky, the amazingly elegant grocery store on
Tverskaya, the main commercial street. One of my travel magazines had
included this as one of the ten great markets of the world, and after
seeing it I can’t argue. Crystal chandeliers and baroque plaster
carvings coupled with every imaginable delicacy make this a destination
grocery store!

That night, we dined at CDL; the initials stand for the Cyrillic words
“House of Writers.” This restaurant occupies an elegant 19th century
mansion. The heavy carved wood paneling, tapestries, and a musicians
balcony – complete with a string quartet serenading diners – made our
visit a special experience. The menu was vast including a sub-menu of
Italian specialties from a period when the restaurant had a visiting
chef. The menu was written in both Cyrillic and French. I cannot read or
speak Russian, but my French is quite good so my husband and I had no
trouble arriving at our choices. Ordering was a bit more problematic as
our waiter’s English was very, very, very limited. (In fact, I was
brought the wrong appetizer because the waiter the word “Russian”
appears in two different options and I was brought the other choice.)
Since I suspect English-speaking tourists account for a large percentage
of the restaurant’s clientele, I was surprised that the maitre d’ whose
English was quite good didn’t make himself available at crucial times
when English would have been appreciated by both parties. The food was
delicious. On the ride back to the hotel, we saw Red Square for the
first time. Awesome. The brilliantly illuminated onion domes of St.
Basil’s cathedral is a sight I’ll never forget.

The next day, we met Ludmilla, the guide who had been hired through the
hotel’s concierge service. We drove outside the city to the house where
Lenin lived in the last years of his life. In addition, the contents of
Lenin’s office in the Kremlin have been transferred to another building
on the grounds of the estate, and we visited there, too. Fascinating
experience on many levels. Although the house/museum used to be one of
the major pilgrimage destinations in the Communist era, few people visit
there now. My husband and I were the only two people visiting. As a
result, the curator took us behind the ropes, and we were able to handle
some things like Lenin’s personal photo album. Equally fascinating
because pre-revolution, the house belonged to the wealthiest
industrialist in Russia, and the size of the house was eloquent
testimony to his wealth. In each room, the furniture was covered with
simple striped cotton slipcovers. Ludmilla persuaded the curator to lift
a corner of many of the slipcovers in each room. The furniture was
mahogany with bronze decoration and the fabric was opulent brocade.
Apparently, Lenin had an interesting threshold; he felt completely
comfortable occupying room after room after room, but he drew the line
at looking at furnishings that were anything but proletariat.

That night, we ate at Beloye Solntse Pustyni (White Sun of the Desert),
a restaurant serving food from Uzbekistan. Having eaten Turkish food, we
found the Uzecki food to be quite familiar and delicious. The big glitch
that night was that the connection between Russian banks and the bank
issuing our charge card was down. The restaurant would not accept our
charge card. We had enough cash to cover the cost of the meal and the
taxi back to the hotel. However, we had cash flow problems for two more
days since the US was celebrating the Fourth of July holiday and we had
reached our limit from the cash machine until a new business day. We
began to use some of our US money even though the exchange rate was
pretty bad. We just chalked this up to the mixed joys of travel. (I’m
sure that people who travel almost exclusively by cruise ship, are
congratulating themselves on the wisdom of their choice after reading
some of our struggles after only two days in Russia. We’re willing to
accept a certain degree of effort when we travel for benefits we perceive.)

The third day, we took a tour of the Moscow subways. If you’ve ridden
the subways in NY, Boston, or even Washington DC you have a wholly
inadequate vision of the Moscow subways. At least among the older
stations, think chandeliers – a different design for each station. Think
stained glass. Think bronze reliefs. Think decorative ceramic tiles.
Think frescoes.

After riding for about an hour, we headed to the Kremlin, via the
beautiful Alexander Gardens, to visit the Diamond Fund. This is not the
display of crown jewels and state treasures. Those items are on display
at the Armory, and that would be a destination with our group tour. The
Diamond Fund is a display of Russian diamonds, both loose stones of all
carat weights and jewelry. One amazing necklace was made up of modular
components. Fully assembled, the diamonds covered most of the wearer’s
chest in an ornate and dazzling display. This same necklace – there was
a copy made to demonstrate the process – could be disassembled to
produce a discreet pendant that an ordinary person could wear with jeans
to head to the grocery store. I recognized bracelets, pins, earrings,
necklaces, and tiaras, but I couldn’t identify something that looked
like 2" wide strips of diamond lace. Ludmilla, told me to look at the
minute hooks along the edges of the strips. It really was diamond lace.
The hooks were used to sew the diamond lace to clothes. If we ever
needed a reminder about the disparity between the pre-revolutionary
aristocrats and the serfs, the Diamond Fund was ample evidence. We
wondered if the state jewels could top this display. In a word, “yes.”

In the afternoon, we took a backstage tour of the Bolshoi Theater. The
season had ended the week before. Normally, these backstage tours are
offered only during the performance season, but somehow, Ludmilla had
persuaded the Bolshoi powers-that-be to run a tour. She is one of few
Russian guides who is certified to bring guests into the Bolshoi, and,
even then, she is not permitted to give the tour. She simply translates
the Bolshoi employee’s talk. (In fact, this two-person approach is
typical of many Russian tourist sites. Although the English-speaking
guide is licensed and qualified to explain specific destinations,
Russian guides provide the commentary at each destination with the
personal guides doing the translating.)

While we visited the main stage of the Bolshoi, I whipped through a
couple of ballet steps, and I can say in all honesty that I have
performed ballet on the stage of the Bolshoi! Since the building is
quite old, there are lots of places that are a bit risky to access and
the number of people in a tour group is quite limited. I doubt a
mainstream cruise line would be able to offer a Bolshoi tour as an
excursion. In addition, last summer the Bolshoi closed for renovation, a
process that is expected to take years.

Our last half-day of independent travel, we went to Old Arbat, the
pedestrian shopping street and to GUM near Red Square. We bought a
Palekh laquer box and an amber bracelet at a state-sponsored store which
gave us confidence that both items are legit. (Amber is amazingly easy
to fake, or, more likely, to heat to meld small chunks of amber together
to produce large, pricier pieces of amber.) We were able to use our
charge card at the state-sponsored store, although this was not always
the case in all stores on this street. For those old enough to remember
the Cold War-era descriptions of shoddy merchandise and empty shelves at
GUM, the present version is a revelation. Name every designer label, and
you will find it somewhere in Moscow, most often at GUM. (In St.
Petersburg, we bought an amber necklace in the main gift shop of the
Hermitage. As for the bracelet we bought in Svir'stroy, a tiny town on
our cruise... Suffice it to say that we are calling that amber
"theoretical amber." Still, I love the design of the bracelet, and I get
compliments when I wear the bracelet. The amber jewelry at the gift shop
of Catherine’s Palace had the most sophisticated designs, along with the
most expensive possibilities. We were with our group and did not have
the time needed to make an intelligent choice at any price.)

Then, we drove to the northern river port where we boarded the M.S.
Litvinov and met our tour group. If you’ve sailed the Yangtze River, you
would recognize the our ship. The Litvinov is one of hundreds of
seemingly identical river ships working the river and canal route
between Moscow and St. Petersburg. At any port, the ships are tied up
alongside of one another, sometimes stacked four deep. Passengers on the
outside ships walk through the other ships to get to the pier.

The Litvinov provides a spartan, but serviceable, cruise experience.
The ship has familiar cruise elements: bars on many decks, a theater, a
gift shop, a spa whose only service was massages, a beauty parlor, and a
medical office.

Breakfasts were buffet-style, but lunches and dinners were served by the
wait staff. Dinner times were fixed. The food is acceptable. At each
meal, one dish rose to the really wonderful level, and I don’t recall
anything truly awful. However, eating is not the raison d’etre to be on
a river cruise in Russia. There is some effort to accommodate genuine
health issues with food, but, at sign-up time, it was made very, very
clear that mere preference was not enough to request foods other than
the daily choices. Lunch consisted of a salad, a choice of entree, and a
dessert. Dinner consisted of a choice of appetizer, a soup or salad, a
choice of entree, and a dessert.

The worst part of our river cruise was the fact that the ship was our
hotel while in port in Moscow for three days and in St. Petersburg for
two days. The location of these two ports necessitated an hour-long
drive through painfully congested traffic to get to the sites. After the
first day of getting more and more frustrated with the appalling traffic
and waste of time, some people found large and small ways to cope. For
example, lunch was offered on board ship all but one day in Moscow. That
meant adding an extra drive back to the ship and, again, into the city
for the afternoon tours. Many of us stayed in town on our own, paid for
lunch in restaurants, and met the group at the afternoon destination.
Others used the subway to go to and from the ship at mid-day, to take
advantage of the already-paid-for lunch. One afternoon the tour group
ate lunch in Moscow at the Café Pushkin. The traffic between the
Tchaikovsky Conservatory and the restaurant turned a fifteen minute ride
into an ordeal with no end in sight. Everyone in our bus simply got out
and walked.

My husband and I would much rather have stayed in a hotel in Moscow –
obviously, we would have stayed in the same hotel during our independent
travel portion – and transferred to the ship only when we set sail. The
convenience of unpacking only once was outweighed by big city travel
frustrations.

(The following anecdote should help readers calibrate their tolerance
for independent travel. One day in Moscow, my husband and I managed to
shoehorn a visit to the Impressionist collection to the Pushkin museum
during the time period when the group was officially eating lunch back
on the boat. We prepared by having our guide write out the name of the
Pushkin Museum in Cyrillic on a pamphlet for the All-Russian Museum of
Decorative and Folk Arts, our post-lunch destination. When the group got
on the bus after our morning tour of Red Square, we broke away, and
walked up the main commercial street until we found a clean- and
appealing-looking casual restaurant. After eating, we walked to a taxi
rank. Using the European number system for the hours of the day and a
schematic to suggest we wanted to go one place and, then, another at
specific times, we negotiated a taxi fare. We weren’t entirely sure we
had been understood, but our desire to go to the Pushkin was
sufficiently great that we were willing to take the chance. Everything
worked beautifully. The taxi was waiting for us outside the Pushkin at
the appointed time and we met the group as planned. We also felt the
collection of Impressionist art at the Pushkin was worth the effort and
expense.)

Comments about some of the tourist attractions in Moscow:

Kremlin: There are a limited number of entry points with metal detectors
into the Kremlin. Russian policy allows Russian citizens to cut in line
ahead of tourists. This made for a very irritating situation since the
day we visited the Kremlin, only one entry point was operating. We were
on line over an hour. While waiting we fumed that nothing was worth this
wait, but seeing the collection of state jewels, carriages, and clothing
in the Armory proved us wrong. We’ve been to Versailles and Windsor, and
their collections seem positively low-budget compared to the contents of
Armory. In particular, we were overwhelmed by the carriages some of
which had inlaid patterns of diamond and pearls. One of the rulers --
possibly Czarina Elizabeth –- wore a different dress every day of her
life. When she died, there were only 3 rubles in the nation’s treasury.
We did not go into Lenin’s tomb. We did stop at the Tomb of the Unknown
Soldier which honors not only an unidentified soldier, but also the
defenders of six “heroic cities” who fought the Nazis.

We went to only one of the churches within the Kremlin proper because of
the lines to enter each church. These churches are in addition to St.
Basil’s Cathedral, the familiar onion-domed church located in Red Square
outside the walls of the Kremlin. The Kremlin church's wall of icons was
amazingly ornate as befitted a church patronized by the czars. We were
intrigued by the fact that these churches still remained since so many
churches were torn down during the Communist era. We were told that the
Communist leaders loved having the opulent left-over places from the
centuries of the czars as their private playgrounds, and that they loved
to visit the Armory, in particular.

Moscow Circus: A pleasant enough way to spend an evening. With Cirque du
Soleil shows performing all over the world, the Moscow Circus is no
longer the unique attraction it once was. Certainly, the production
values of a Cirque du Soleil performance outshine those of the Moscow
Circus. Happily, the quality of each act was excellent.

While in Moscow, we also toured the Novodevichy and Donskoy Monasteries,
along with the Novodevichy cemetery. This is the Russian equivalent of
Pere Lachaise cemetery. The biggest tourist draws are Krushchev’s and
Raisa Gorbachev’s graves. We were fascinated by the markers of graves
from the non-religious Communist era. We visited the Tchaikovsky
Conservatory where we heard a wonderful piano recital, and the Tretyakov
Gallery, a museum of Russian art ranging from 11th century icons to
Social Realism and contemporary art. Our tour focused on the Russian
Symbolist art which is a collection of importance in art histoyr but is
virtually unknown outside of Russian. Interesting. However, I would have
preferred spending time seeing the contemporary art; I like Chagall,
Malevich, and Kandinsky, and the Tretyakov has major collections of all
these artists.

Comments about our ports during the river cruise:

We stopped at Uglich, Yaroslavl, Goritsky, Svirstroy, and Kizhi Island.
Each of the stops was enjoyable, but visitors should be prepared for a
certain amount of repetition. Of course the Transfiguration Monastery in
Yaroslavl is different from the Kirillow-Belozersk Monastery in
Goritsky, but by the fourth stop at a provincial monastery the
experience became somewhat predictable. This reaction may be an issue of
prior knowledge. When my husband and make our annual visits to Italy,
we understand that there is a lot of repetition among the hill towns of
Tuscany, for example, or among Romanesque churches. However, we know
enough about Italian art and architecture that minor variations are a
source of interest and pleasure to us. Our knowledge of Russian
iconography is minuscule so we were not at the stage where minor
variations were always apparent or fascinating. The commentary of the
guides became paramount to make our experiences enjoyable.

The notable exception to this was in Kizhi where we could see the
difference between the naturalistic way the religious figures were
depicted and the stylized depictions at most of the other churches. The
most enjoyable element of these small towns was the brief concert we
heard in each church. The acoustics were routinely phenomenal which made
the concert of folk or religious music absolutely goose-bump producing.

Part II featuring St. Petersburg to follow – eventually.

Karen,
I thoroughly enjoyed this trip report.
Thanks for both parts 1 & 2.
What fantastic reading.
Steve

Becca wrote:

Karen, thanks for sharing your cruise report, it is one of the best ones
I have read. I felt like I was there.

If I can't be traveling, I love thinking about, reading about, or
writing about traveling. Writing up my trip allowed me to do something I
love. I'm delighted people enjoyed my efforts.

Karen Selwyn