Today we sailed out of Lake Ladoga and entered the Svir River.
Piles of lumber along the Svir River
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More lumber |
Birches along the shore
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River traffic |
Camping and fishing along the Svir River
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Channel marker |
At about 11 AM we entered the first of 17 locks. (There are 16 locks on the waterway from St. Petersburg to Moscow but one lock we go through twice to make a stop at Yaroslavl.) The lock was only long enough to fit one of our river cruise boats and took only 10 minutes to raise us 16 meters.
Locks along the Volga-Baltic Waterway
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Approaching the first lock on the Svir River
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This is NOT the Panama Canal! |
Waiting for the lock to fill - we will sail over the concrete shelf below the lock doors
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On our way |
Moving logs to the mill
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Town along the Svir River |
At 9 AM we attended our first cruise lecture about Russia as a country and giving us an overview of where we will be sailing with respect to this huge country. We have a real appreciation for the term “land of white nights” because the sun sets around 11:15 PM and rises about 4:30 AM and it is a bright twilight in between.
At 11 AM I attended a lecture on Russian souvenirs and learned what to look for in good quality items: Matryoshka dolls, lacquer boxes made of paper mache, birch bark birds-of-happiness and lunch containers, Khokhloma bowls and spoons, Russian enamel and amber jewelry, and silk or woolen painted scarves. Selecting a piece often means it “speaks to you” rather than “it cost a lot.”
At noon we docked at Mandrogy, a recreated village of craftsmen, rebuilt after it was burned down by the Finns during WWII . A hundred and fifty people now live here and most continue to practice the traditional folk crafts of woodworking, painting, weaving and lace tatting. Their shops/studios are in the old style buildings - stables connected to the houses. Several of the buildings are entered up a broad ramp that originally allowed horses and farm animals to enter and be sheltered in winter. We walked the grounds and looked at the gingerbread houses, the vodka museum, several saunas, the elk enclosure (but saw no Russian elk), and browsed the souvenir shops. The Russian people here take saunas by heating themselves to over 80° C and then beating themselves with twig branches to stimulate circulation. They then run out and jump in the river or lake, often having to chop a hole through the ice. It doesn’t sound like fun to me!
Lots of river boats - we usually had to dock next to another boat and then walk through that boat to get on and off
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Mandrogy |
Elaborately decorated wood buildings
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Vodka museum and store - a popular place |
Wood slide for use in winter - too many splinters for summer use!
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Gingerbread on building housing workshops for craftsmen |
More gingerbread
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Even the playground is decorated |
The hotel
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Decorations on the hotel |
Windmill |
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We sailed again at 4 PM and at 4:30 we attended a lesson on the Russian language. The teacher was good but we aren’t linguists. I think I learned how to spell my name in Cyrillic.
We went through our second lock at 6 PM. The up river gate on this one went down (retracted) to open. The counter weights in the gatehouse were huge, of course.
After our nightly briefing on the next day’s schedule we ate dinner with two sisters, one from southern France and the other from Green Valley, AZ. These were the third pair of sisters on this cruise that we have eaten with. Marge had lamb for dinner and I had eggplant. The herbs and sauces and veggie preparations are so different than American cuisine that we know we are in a foreign country. For instance, our hors d’oeuvre tonight was a crab and corn salad. There were two slices of imitation crab on top of a rice, pea and corn salad with ketchup garnish and some green leafy thing. So far I have not been interested in any of the recipes.
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