July 28, 2013

July 28, 2013
This is going to be a travel day so we have the morning free. We get up late and for exercise walk to a nearby onion-domed church down the street. Since it is Sunday a service is underway. I found it fascinating to watch. I knew historically that the Catholic and Orthodox Churches were originally branches of the same faith. Looking at the interior of the church and watching the Mass, you wouldn't immediately think so. The church itself is covered totally with pictures of saints and the altar is hidden behind a golden fence (called an Iconostasis). There are no pews. During the Mass, the people (women with heads covered) stand and seem to come and go. There is a lot of chanting style singing, with lots of bowing and signs of the cross. The priest can usually be seen through an opened door in the Iconostasis. The longer I watch the more the Mass looks like the ones I remember growing up. Head coverings, no guitars, and a priest facing an altar in the rear. I just wish I knew Russian to be sure.

Back outside we notice lots of action going on along the river. There are several Navy ships with sailors at attention.  It looks like the Russians are throwing a party for our departure.  I like the Russian sailor uniforms; they are a throwback to yesteryear.

At noon, we rejoin our tour for a transfer to one of the local train stations.  Our destination is Moscow and we are on one of their new high speed trains.  While not as fast as the French bullet, it goes a respectable 120 mph.  Despite the speed it still takes four and a half hours to arrive.  The Russian countryside was a surprise.  It was virtually all forested.  Farm fields were few and far between.  The towns also seemed to be mostly small run-down shacks.  I wonder what people in the country do to survive?

After arrival in Moscow and checking into the hotel, we hop on the nearest Metro line for the short ride closer to the town center.  We pop in a few restaurants to find dinner but so far everything is in Russian with no pictures.  We get off and walk down one of the main drags in Moscow.  There we suddenly find an American diner and I order a burger and fries.  Delicious!  Afterwards we continue on to Red Square.  It looks just like the movies.  We hang around for a couple hours till it gets dark and then head back.  We don't hit the bed until midnight.

July 27, 2013

July 27, 2013

Our tour has a late start this morning; it is a good thing because we woke way later than normal.  It was still bright at midnight last night and we stayed up way too long.  These long days are tough on the body.

Our tour took us to the Hermitage today.  The Hermitage was the winter palace of Czar Catherine the Great.  It is now one of the world's greatest art museums.  Wow.  It is hard to describe this place.  It is a serious two-fer.  You could walk around and just admire the rooms of this winter palace of the absolute monarchs of the Russian empire, the largest on the earth.  Each room is spectacular and decorated in some slightly different over the top fashion.  The Russians first of all were into gold, I guess because Russia has gold in abundance.  Russia is also rich in minerals.  Many of the rooms are decorated by color of precious stones;  There is a green room with malachite, a blue room with lapis lazuli, and a purple room with rhodonite.  The rooms are mostly empty.  I can’t imagine what they would look like furnished.

The museum can be visited a second time ignoring the rooms but just looking at the artwork.  The Hermitage has the largest art collection in the world.  Even the Louvre is smaller although it has more famous pieces. Our guide said it would be 22 miles to walk the museum one time. To think this was the private collection of the czars.  What a drain on the economy the czars must have been.  And this is not to mention all the other lesser royals and nobles.  No wonder the people revolted.  Too bad Lenin and Socialism hijacked the revolution overthrowing the monarchy.

We got a guided tour of the Hermitage highlights which mainly focused on the most fabulous palace rooms and the best of the Renaissance paintings.  Aimee and I walked the other floors and I was astounded to see how many of the other art periods were also represented.  The Hermitage has dozens of Henri Matisses from the early 20th century. Clearly even the last czar, Nicholas II, was an avid art buyer till the bitter end. The czars really believed they were chosen by God to rule. In the end we did this museum little justice.  You really need to spend a couple hours per section. Unfortunately we don't have weeks to spare.  

  

After the Hermitage we boarded the bus for a trip fifteen miles south of St. Petersburg to the little town of Pushkin.  Its former name was Tsarskoye Selo or Tsar's village. This town was the location of the Czar's summer home. The "little" cottage is known as Catherine's Palace. It is a grand, over the top, palace like the rest we have seen. Most of it has been extensively reconstructed. It suffered mightily during WWII. St Petersburg was besieged for three long years by the German army. The front line ran near this palace. Hitler thought he could starve St. Petersburg into surrender, but he underestimated the ability of the Russians to endure suffering.

July 26, 2013

July 26, 2013

This morning we start with our usual driving tour of the city.  Our local guide is almost my age so she lived the first half of her life under Socialism.  She told us many stories of her life.  Everybody lived in apartments. The basics were usually provided but with a planned economy there were no extras and shortages were common. What a different (and stunted) life it was under Socialism.  It is amazing that so many Westerners think they would prefer Socialism to Capitalism.

Finally the sun decided to pop out today.  It is a beautiful day in an absolutely gorgeous city.  What a treat it must be to live here in summer.  Unfortunately winter is tough with 24 hours of darkness and every body of water freezing solid.

One of the tour stops is a nice souvenir store.  I usually don't like stops like this but it was very interesting to see the crafts of Russia. Popular are the nesting wooden Matryoshka dolls, decorated eggs (Faberge-like), and finely painted lacquered boxes.  They are beautiful but quite expensive.  My favorite part is the free vodka samples.  I am not a big fan of hard alcohol but this went down very smoothly.

Our next stop was the Peter and Paul Fortress. On a small island in the center of the Neva River is a sprawling fortress that was the start of St. Petersburg.  It was never attacked and was used instead as a political prison.  In the center is a small Cathedral where we spent most of our time.  The church is filled with the sarcophagi of all the Czars from Peter the Great onward.  Our guide gave us a chronological history of Czarist Russia.

From the fortress, we returned to St Isaac's Square for lunch. We found a local restaurant that served Borscht. This is a classic Russian soup made of beetroot.  It was quite red and surprisingly both Aimee and I thought it was delicious.  Since we have fifteen minutes before our next tour, we dash inside St Isaac's Cathedral.  It is the fourth tallest church in the world and is quite magnificent inside.  During Soviet times, it was turned into a Museum of Atheism. What an irony!

After lunch we are taken to the Neva River where we board a speedy Hydrofoil ferry that takes us downriver towards the Baltic Sea.  Near the mouth we disembark at Peterhof, the summer palace of Peter the Great.  The fountains on the grounds were built to rival and outdo the gardens of Versailles. The Grand Cascade is the most magnificent. Unfortunately the sun is right in our face making photography poor.  Overall the grounds are very nice but our expectations were so high that we both feel kind of disappointed.


After returning to the hotel, Aimee and I make a beeline on foot back to the city center to see the inside of the Church of the Spilt Blood. From the outside it easily is the most beautiful church I have ever seen with its brightly painted onion domes.  The inside does not disappoint either.  The entire interior is one giant mosaic of religious art. Simply Magnificent.  During Soviet times, it was used for storage and hidden from view. What a shame for the local residents.

We then walked to nearby Kazan Cathedral which like St Isaac's looks more like our Capitol building.  Unlike the other churches, this one is still active and had a service going on.  

Having seen the major sights, we now relax and return to the main avenue of the city, Nevsky Prospect.  There we stop at the beautiful old Singer Sewing building which is now a bookstore and cute cafe.  We get a table with a magnificent view of Kazan Cathedral.  Our dinner was great too.

July 25, 2013

July 25, 2013

Today is a another travel day.  From Tallinn, Estonia we follow the Baltic Sea coast east.  After a couple hours we reach the Narva River and the Russian border.  Everyone filled out a lengthy application and paid a stiff fee to receive a Russian visa a month ago.  Despite this, it takes almost two hours to clear the border.

On both sides of the Narva River are imposing fortresses from medieval times when this was the frontier between the Swedish and Russian empires.  Just across the border in Ivangorod, Russia, we stop at a service station for fuel and restroom breaks.  Looking at the signs I also realize this is the frontier between English letters and Cyrillic.  I need to restudy my Russian alphabet if we are going to have any success on our own.  Looking at a food sign I slowly make out the hot dog to be Grill Dog in Cyrillic.  Success!  Maybe we will survive after all.

Another two hours of driving and we arrive in St Petersburg, Russia.  We were expecting to find sunshine and warmer weather, but it is still cool and overcast.  But I have no complaints.  It is 40 degrees hotter back in Tucson.

After checking into the hotel, Aimee and I set out to explore the city.  Even though it is late evening, we have lots of time.  St Petersburg is very far north, the same latitude as Anchorage, so the sun will set late, if at all. In fact St Petersburg is the farthest north of any big city.  St Petersburg, formerly known also as Petrograd and Leningrad, lies at the mouth of the Neva River on land that was formerly swampland. As the city was built the water was channeled into a series of canals.

We decide to take a canal cruise as an introduction to the city.  From Vasilevsky Island, we walk across the wide Neva River bridge toward the center of town, passing the Czar's Winter Palace and the massive St Isaac's Cathedral.  On one of the side canals we start our cruise.  The canals are lined with palaces and churches.  No wonder St Petersburg is often called the Venice of the North.  The sheer number and grandeur of the buildings reflects the wealth that St Petersburg once had.  The Neva River through a series of canals connects with the Volga River and the heart of Russia making the city the most important port for Russia.

After the cruise we looked for a restaurant to eat dinner.  We had a hard time finding one that served Russian food.  St Petersburg has obviously shaken off Socialism and has become rich and cosmopolitan again.  Pizza and Sushi now predominate.

July 24, 2013

July 24, 2013

Like previous days, we start with a bus tour around Tallinn, Estonia followed by a long walking tour of the Old City.  The local guide is pretty irreverent and bashes the Soviet economy at every opportunity.  It is amazing how long bad systems can last on pure inertia.

Tallinn is a little different than Riga and Vilnius in that it has two walled Old Towns right next to each other, with the smaller ruling city looming above the larger merchant city.  Also a very large portion of the old walls are still intact, although in some areas the city wall is hidden inside houses because it saved frugal home builders from having to build one of their four walls.  Inside the Old City is a maze of narrow alleys full of churches and restaurants.  It caters big time to tourists.  Unlike last night, today the city is mobbed, probably because there are several large cruise ships anchored in port.

After the guided portion, we stop for lunch.  Aimee ordered porridge because she really liked the one I had in Riga. Unfortunately this one turned out to be a big pile of mashed potatoes topped with a side of bacon.  While Aimee was disappointed, I loved it.  I guess I was born to be medieval.  After lunch we walk around mostly checking out the surrounding wall. The Old City is way more crowded than we like so we quit early and head back to the hotel to rest up before dinner.

July 23, 2013

July 23, 2013

Our hotel in Riga, Latvia is a disappointment.  The breakfast buffet here doesn't have any chocolate croissants. The first time since our arrival!

This morning we are back in the bus for a short bus tour of Riga followed by a longer walking tour of the Old Town.  Our local guide was excellent.  He was very knowledgeable about the local history and architecture.  The fancy facades on the buildings indicate Riga was once very wealthy.  It sometimes is called the Paris of the Baltics. Riga lies on the Daugava River which extends into Russia and connects by portage to the Dnieper River that runs to Kiev and the Black Sea.  Riga served as a major port for Russia.  No wonder Czar Peter the Great was determined to capture the city. There are many architecture styles represented in Riga from ancient to modern.  I can tell Sweden owned Riga prior to Russia based on the similarity of the church spires to Scandinavian countries.  Before Sweden, Riga was an outpost of German crusaders and a member of the Hanseatic League, a medieval trading guild.  More recently Riga is famous for its many buildings in the Art Nouveau style.

For lunch we had some kind of local sausage soup called Solanka. To drink I had a glass of the Latvian National Drink called Balzam. It consists of some herbal liqueur watered down with black currant juice. It is an acquired taste.

After lunch, we boarded the bus to continue our journey north. Our drive follows the Baltic Sea coast. It is a heavily forested area. In two hours we hit the border with Estonia. And in another two hours we reach the capitol, Tallinn.

After checking in we set out for the Old Town for dinner. I try to use the couple Estonian words I learned but don't have much success. It could be that I didn't meet many Estonians. There are many Russians living in Tallinn. Russians were brought here by Stalin in an attempt to Russify the area. Also many Finns take a ferry here to party and buy cheap alcohol.

July 22, 2013

July 22, 2013

Today is another travel day.  We are continuing our journey north investigating more of the former Soviet Baltic republics.  We spend the morning travelling across Lithuania past more open fields and thick forests and the occasional stork nest.  I am surprised with all the trees.  I always thought Europeans were short of agricultural land and would have chopped all the trees down to make more farmland by now.
 

At noon we arrive in Siauliai, Lithuania and make a stop at its famous Hill of Crosses.  I was expecting to see three crosses on a little hill and was shocked at how many we saw. Our guide estimated 200,000. In my mind there are at least a million crosses massed here, of all sizes, from tiny to giant. Crosses were first put here as a silent protest against the Czar in the time of Napoleon.  It gained its size and fame under Soviet repression.  Moscow tried bulldozing it but new crosses reappeared every night.  The site became an icon of Baltic independence and is now a major pilgrimage site. And apparently a tourist attraction too. While here numerous tour buses come and go. I didn't know the Baltics was such a hot place to visit.

On the road again, we soon crossed into Latvia.  Another country, another language, and new words to learn.   The languages we are encountering are not just different dialects of the same language but from totally different subgroups.  Polish and Russian are Slavic, Latvian and Lithuanian are Baltic, Estonian (along with Hungarian) is in a totally different Uralic family.  German was also common before WWII.  The diverse languages spoken here in such a tiny area is testament to the nationalities that fought so hard to conquer this territory.

In the evening we arrive in the capitol city of Riga.  After we checked into our hotel we set out to explore before dark. As we walked toward the city center, we passed a narrow park that encircles the center.  This is the location of the old city defensive walls.  In the medieval times every town had to have them to survive, but they became obsolete and were eventually torn down.  Riga saved theirs as parkland.

On Riga's east end is the Central Market housed in a bunch of old German Zeppelin Hangars.  It is supposed to the be the largest bazaar in Europe.  It definitely is huge.  They sell everything.  Most of the counters seem to be right out of the Communist Era. Nearby are the ruins of the Great Choral Synagogue which is rumored to have burned to the ground in 1941 with 300 Jews inside.

We then walked to the other end of Old Town admiring the old churches on the way.  We went in one. Although it is old, it is unimpressive reflecting the minimalist philosophy of the Lutheran faith. We finished at the very uninteresting Riga Castle where we then had dinner at a medieval restaurant next door.  I had a pint of the local ale and a bowl of rye porridge that was surprisingly tasty.  

Back at the hotel, we went to the SkyBar on the 26th floor.  Since our high-rise hotel towers over Riga, we enjoyed great views of the city.  Aimee had a grand time and reminded me we need to slow down more often and soak up the ambiance.

July 21, 2013

July 21, 2013

Our hotel, while not as nice as the Sheraton in Warsaw has a perfect location.  We are in the middle of the Old Town of Vilnius, Lithuania.  Our room overlooks St. Casimir Church. I can tell it is a royal church due to the crown on the dome.  Our day starts with a bus tour of the city with a local guide. The city is a mix of architectural styles. Outside the center, most are Soviet-style cement block apartment buildings with a few new ones thrown in.  The ugly crumbling condition of the Soviet Era buildings is the most glaring indicator of the failure of Socialism.  Afterwards our guide escorts us on a walk down the center of Old Town. The Old Town is small but has oodles of churches, both Catholic and Russian Orthodox.  Lithuania was the frontier where the two churches battled for the the Pagan souls of Lithuania.  Catholicism won out because a royal wedding united Poland and Lithuania.

Many years ago the Lithuanian empire was the largest in Europe.  That didn't last long.  Everybody wanted a piece of the Baltic coastline for trade. Lithuania suffered the same fate as Poland. It lost out to stronger neighbors.  Just before lunch we drove west of town to visit Trakai Castle, the first royal fortress.  It was built on an island in the middle of a lake to defend against the invasion of German Knights.  Trakai is one of the most impressive fortresses we have visited and has even been used by Hollywood.  For lunch we have a quick meal of Kibinai, the local version of a Cornish pastie. 

Back in Vilnius, the bus drops us off at the KGB Museum.  It is in the old headquarters of the local Soviet Political Police.  The upstairs historical exhibits are mostly about the efforts of some Lithuanians to resist occupation. The draw though is the detention and torture cells in the basement, and most unsettling, the execution room complete with hose and floor drain for easy cleanup.  I read several Russian history books prior to this trip.  For me the most interesting were the sections on the Bolshevik Revolution.  Lenin and Stalin started out altruistically as intellectuals determined to improve the lot of the average person with Socialism.  Unfortunately like most idealists, they were stymied at every turn by the reality of human nature.  They just couldn't understand why people stopped working hard.  They turned to coercion out of desperation, never accepting Socialism as a failure.  Our local guide characterized it as, "We pretended to work, and the government pretended to pay us".  I think Ronald Reagan summed it up better when he said, "It is not that my liberal friends are ignorant, it is that they know so many things that aren't true.

From KGB Headquarters, we walked down Vilnius' main drag to the town center.  Here we went in the neoclassical Vilnius Cathedral.  During Socialist times, the government tried to stamp out religion and converted this church to a concert hall. Ironically Poland and Lithuania are among the most religious areas of Europe today.  The harder the Socialists tried to eliminate religion, the stronger it grew.

Next door to Cathedral Square is a steep hill with the old Vilnius Castle atop its peak.  We take a short funicular train to the top for a great view of this many-spired city.  Foot weary we head back to the hotel passing another couple unique churches.  We stop in Town Hall Square for a beer break and end up having dinner there also.  The young waitress practicing her English on us, recounts the tale of her grandparents.  Their village was obliterated and the surviving residents sent to Siberia.  Her story was far more moving than the KGB Museum.

July 20, 2013

July 20, 2013

Today is a travel day.  We leave Warsaw bright and early heading northeast in our motor coach.  I did not say bus. Motor Coach is the first class of bus travel.  We sit in big comfy seats with enough legroom for the tallest of passengers and listen to Chopin concert music while we watch the Polish countryside roll by.  Poland is mostly flat farmland intermingled with thick forest.  It is  boring except for the many black and white Storks feeding in the fields, and nesting in enormous eagle-size nests atop utility poles.  We also see several roadside stands with locals selling berries and mushrooms they find in the forest.

  

In the late evening we cross the border into Lithuania and stop at our hotel in the capital, Vilnius. I always like to learn a few words of the local language when I travel.  It keeps the mind stimulated and makes the locals laugh at my feeble verbal skills. My resolve is being severely tested on this trip.  We are going to visit nine countries speaking nine very different languages. We finally got proficient with Polish, a Slavic language, and now we must switch to Lithuanian, a Baltic tongue.  This one may actually be easier for me.  I learned that Thank You is Aciu (pronounced Achoo, like you are going to sneeze). Now if I can only say it without laughing every time.

July 19, 2013

July 19, 2013

Last night we had a Welcome dinner to meet the Insight Tour we will be joining for the next two weeks.  We ate stuffed sausage and beets.  Every meal seems to be an adventure here in Eastern Europe.  As we suspected we are not the youngest participants but we are very close.  Well, at least I can say I am travelling with the cutest girl by far.

This morning we rejoin the group for our first organized tour of the trip.  We take a bus ride around Warsaw with a local guide.  Unfortunately we retrace a lot of the sites we saw yesterday.  I should have planned a little better.  At least we got a local's perspective on some of Warsaw history.  Just before lunch we leave the group in Old Town and walk next door to New Town (the town that grew outside the Old Town walls). We then stopped for a small lunch at an eatery known as a Milk Bar.  These were cafeterias typically supported by the communist Poland state to serve the masses inexpensive food.  That is right up my alley.  We both order a hearty bowl of soup.

From New Town we catch a bus to the Uprising Museum on the city's west side.  It is a disorganized but humbling remembrance of WWII in Warsaw.  As Americans we mostly get a sanitized, heroic John Wayne view of the Western front.  The Eastern Front was where 80% of the fighting took place and was six long years of unimaginable chaos, bloodshed, and sheer terror.  It makes you wonder how mankind could be so cruel to each other.  Warsaw was heavily damaged when Germany invaded at the start of the war.  In 1944, with the Soviet Union about to liberate the city, Warsovians saw their chance and rose up against their occupiers using the city sewers to move men and supplies about the city. Stalin sat on his hands while Germany smashed the uprising.  In an act of sheer vengeance, Hitler ordered any monument and historical building left standing dynamited.  A city of 1.3 million people was reduced to a mere 1000.  To make matters worse, when the Soviet "liberators" finally rolled in, they rounded up the Uprising combatants and shot them.  Stalin wanted a Soviet Poland.  All memory of the Uprising was suppressed until the Soviets left in 1989.

The climax of the museum is clearly the last three minutes when a film of a B-24 Bomber's flight over the city in 1945 is shown.  It has been digitally transformed into a 3-D production showing Warsaw to be one massive pile of rubble.

From the museum we walk back towards our hotel. On the way we search out the few remnants of the Jewish ghetto wall and buildings left standing. Warsaw is truly a Phoenix reborn.  There are few scars left in this huge bustling vibrant city.  As we were eating dinner, Aimee made the comment that the city is almost all young residents.  The reason didn't dawn on me till now.  Few older Poles survived the war.  A very sobering perspective!

July 18, 2013

July 18, 2013

Poland has had a difficult history.  I think Poland’s experience can best be explained by Risk, the board game I often played as a teen.  When countries and continents of the world are divvied up, the most coveted were those with few borders making them easier to defend.  The least desirable were territories like Eastern Europe. With enemies on all sides they were hard to hold and defend. And so it went with Poland.  At one time there was a large thriving Polish Empire.  But more often the Poles were defending themselves from attack in every direction.  If it wasn’t the Germans from the West, it was the Swedes from the North, or the Austrians from the South, or the Russians from the East.  On more than one occasion, Poland was carved into pieces and obliterated completely from the map.  Despite these setbacks, the Poles kept their Catholic Slav identity separate from their German Protestant and Orthodox Russian neighbors.

Our first morning in Poland, and not surprisingly, we are up early. We are going to start by exploring the bright side of Warsaw history. We catch a city bus that takes us to Wilanow Palace on the bank of the Vistula River. It was built in the late 1600’s by King Jan III Sobieski as his summer home away from the city center. It is considered the Polish Versailles. I recently read a book on Vienna history in preparation for this trip. Sobieski gained lasting fame as the Savior of Christendom when he arrived on the scene just as Vienna was about to be overrun by the Muslims of the Ottoman Empire.

The palace was modest as palaces go but highly decorated in the Baroque style. Unfortunately both of us thought the English audio tour was unexciting. Part of our problem may have been that with no air-conditioning and no air flow we were sweating. Finally back outside, we walked the gardens surrounding the palace. Even though it is much cooler than Tucson, we are no longer used to the humidity. In the sun we are roasting but in the shade it is comfortable.

 

Feeling a little jet lagged we stop at a nearby cafe and have a lunch of meat-filled pierogi and a coke to wake us up.  Refreshed we take the bus back to the center of town and stop at the Old Town of Warsaw.  As we approach both of us think it looks right out of a Hollywood set.  Probably with good reason.  It was destroyed during WWII.  This "Old Town" is brand new.  We stroll past Zygmunt's Column, the Royal Castle, through the main square and end up at the Barbican, a small section of the old town’s original fortified wall and gate that survived.We finish our day walking to a few nearby memorials, dedicated to the hell that Warsaw experienced in WWII.  That history will have to wait till tomorrow.  We are not used to all the walking and head back to our hotel to rest.

July 16-17, 2013

July 16-17, 2013

It is July and Tucson’s summer heat is getting old.  It is time for us to seek cooler climes.  After spinning the globe, we settled on the northern half of Eastern Europe.  This is new territory for us. For most of my adult life, it was behind the Iron Curtain and for the most part off-limits to Westerners.  Many years ago, I got a little peak behind the Wall on a day pass to East Berlin.  East Germany at the time was a strict authoritarian state with few personal freedoms.  It was a little scary back then passing through the barbed wire of Checkpoint Charlie into Communist territory all by myself.  The wall was torn down in 1989 and most of the Warsaw Pact countries have embraced capitalism wholeheartedly.

After many hours in the air and three plane changes we arrive in Warsaw, capital of Poland.  This is the country where the cracks in the Iron Curtain were first torn open.  

We get to the hotel in Warsaw very late in the evening.  It is morning back in Tucson so we are experiencing major jet lag. I know the only way to reset our body clocks is to stay up as long as we can.  So we get out and take a long walk before hitting the sack.  Warsaw is a nice city with wide boulevards and lots of monuments and statues.  We walk through a beautiful park with a memorial to Poland's favorite son composer, Frederick Chopin.  We finish our stroll with a pint of the local beer at an outdoor cafe.  And as a bonus the temperature is 30F cooler than home.  A great start to our vacation!