Bob and Ann in Russia 2007

Please visit August 28 slideshow.

We had an early breakfast this morning because we had to gather to board our city tour bus at 8:00 after we docked at Yaroslavl. This is a common tour boat stop, so we had seven boats of tourists competing for the attractions.

Cathedral of Elijah

In the prosperous industrial center containing seven universities, we visited several historic churches, a puppet theater and a monastery erected near the fortress walls. In the Cathedral of Elijah, we heard a superb choral sextet sing one of the cuts from its CD. Splendid acoustics make the sound like triple the number. Our local guide, Alexi, told the story of the song: The leader of a notorious gang of bandits is suddenly converted and becomes a monk. So much of this tour leads us to believe that religious freedom is flourishing in Russia. All of the Russian Orthodox churches that have not been converted to museums seem to have active congregations. The worshipers that we saw were mostly women. In the monastery, we both got peeks of the resident bear.

University Women

When we got back to the boat, we sat in a roundtable discussion with five delightful young women from the technical university. They were all studying languages, English being their primary foreign language. They were very poised and answered all of our questions about life in the university, in the town and in Russia. One of them had spent the last two summers in the US. She had a very good grasp of American English as opposed to British English.

We sailed again at 1:00 while we were eating lunch. After lunch we had another Russian language lesson where we learned Russian songs to sing in the talent show later on the cruise.

Mother Volga

As we went through the final lock on the Volga River, we saw a statue of Mother Volga greeting boats going the other way. We were now on the Kazva River and Rybinsk Reservoir. This occurred during the "Memorial Journeys Party". This was a cocktail party sponsored by Vantage partly as a thank us for being on this cruise and partly to thank us for being on this cruise and partly to sell us another cruise. Hence the free booze.

Dinner tonight was Ukrainian. We got to the dining a little late so we sat at a table for two by ourselves. Our starter was a beet salad. Soup was borscht. The main course was potato stuffed dumplings topped with a sour cream sauce and fried mushrooms. Desert was a baked apple stuffed with walnuts and covered with honey along with a scoop of ice cream. We had to take eight laps around the deck to let the meal settle. That proved to be unnecessary because Ann talked me into taking a folk dance class. We learned one dance that our instructor told us we would be performing at the talent show.

The map of our route from Uglich to Yaroslavl is below. To see it in Google Earth, follow this link.