Bob and Ann in Russia 2007

Please visit August 29 slideshow.

After a fairly windy crossing on the huge Rybinsk Reservoir, we awoke in a narrow channel under cloudy skies. Marina gave us a lecture on the complicated history of Russia before the Bolshevik revolution in an amazing 1 hour and twenty minutes. I also heard Eugene the bartender talk about Russian vodka. I found out that there are several grades of vodka - the clearer, the better. There are also several flavored vodka, cranberry being the most popular with women. Traditionally, all vodka is 80 proof (40%) and it is made with rye grain, not potatoes.

After lunch, we docked at Goritsy where a bus and local guide met us for our tour of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery. The mile-square complex includes seven churches, a museum and living quarters for monks inside a fortress wall. The museum contains many more icons. On a walk to see the lake that borders the wall, the sky opened up with a downpour. We took shelter under an archway until the rain stopped. Our local guide, Nadya, was an articulate English speaker. We were both "iconed" out by the end of this event.

On the way back to the boat, we bought some Russian OJ to drink with our Russian vodka, although the traditional way to drink vodka in Russia is with straight shots. We passed several kiosks selling fur hats, fur coats and many other things made out of fur. Being from the PC Bay Area, we couldn't possibly bring any of these home. We also passed vendors selling local food such as dried fish and pickled relish.

Flipping Blini

Back on board we began sailing again. We immediately set out for a blini-making demonstration. The batter is very thin and similar to Swedish pancakes. The chef used a grill that had six small indentations for the batter. The chef called for cooking volunteers and I spoke up. He showed me how much batter to add to each indentation and how to determine when to flip the pancakes. I messed up the first one but was able to flip the rest of them correctly. I'm not used to using molds for my pancakes and it was awkward to get the spatula under them.

Next we headed for the dining room to sample blini and vodka. This was a festive event complete with waitpersons in costume and our onboard Russian musicians providing party music. We sampled three types of vodka. For the first was plain, unflavored vodka, the traditional toast is "To The Meeting" and the food is rye bread. For the second vodka, which was pepper flavored, the toast is "To Your Health" and one eats pickles and herring. The third vodka was cranberry flavored and the toast was "To The Women". We didn't need any food at this point. Finally we tasted blini with red caviar and butter. Nobody missed this event. It was a lot of fun as we shared a table with the Garret brothers and their wives from Pennsylvania.

This was costume day as it was demonstrated again at the "Pirates Dinner". The staff was dressed in jeans and striped sailor shirts. They carried pirate pistols and greeted us with lots of pirate noises. We had a seafood cocktail, fish or pirate lamb soup, fish kabobs and chocolate mousse.

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