Food......

oh my.....the food on this trip.  Wow! I thought I'd just give a few examples of our menus and food so everyone would understand that even walking over 7,000 steps every day can't compete with this!

And now we have to cook 😳😳😳

Oh and there was this statue in Goritzy....

Even though I can find no official confirmation online, I am convinced the guide told us this was Comrade Lenin.......

We arrive in Yaroslavl

Thursday, we arrived in Yaroslavl.  While I had not heard of Yaroslavl before, it is both an important and a beautiful town.  The town sits on the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosol Rivers and is also one of Russia's Golden Ring cities. Golden Ring cities are a number of ancient cities northeast of Moscow and have preserved unique features of Russian history and architecture, especially monasteries and onion-domed churches.

Coming into Yaroslavl, we get our first view.....

We've started noticing that the colors of the onion domes vary.....so, as all good Russian travelers do, I googled the question!  (And also learned, by the way, why did they use an onion shape anyway)
🤔🤔

The onion shape is thought to have been used to allow snow to slide off!😉

The gold color symbolizes celestial glory, so churches with golden domes were used on cathedrals consecrated to Jesus Christ and the Twelve Great Feasts.  Blue domes with gold stars are characteristic of Mother of God churches.  Churches in honor of saints were typically topped with green or silver domes.  Black domes, symbolic of monk hood, topped monasteries and convents.

Goritzy: Kirillo-Belozersky monastery and public school

On Wednesday (August 17th), we docked at Goritzy and traveled by bus to visit the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery.  This monastery was founded as an abbey originally in 1397 by two monks.  The monastery sits on the shores of Severskoye Lake.

The monastery grew to be quite a complex and included fortress-like walls and guard towers. Many tsars provided support, tax breaks and contributions. Even Ivan the Terrible!

After leaving the monastery, we were fortunate to be able to tour the local school.  Even though the students are still on summer break, two students were there to give us a tour and small performance of traditional songs.  It is a great honor to be selected as the student giving us the tour - she was amazing!

Her fellow student performed several songs in traditional Russian costume. 

The school is quite proud of both academic and sports achievements. There are two walls dedicated to displaying their honors and trophies.  

English is the most popular foreign language taught here (they are looking for more English teachers!)

We become famous artists!

The ship offered an optional Matryoshka doll painting class   Linda and I signed up and decided we were clearly gifted!

We had a few recalcitrant students in our class, but the instructor was a saint 😇

I think ours are just as good as these! 😉

Krokhino Church of the Nativity

This church was built on the banks of Lake Beloye, the origin of the the Sheksna River, in approximately 1790.  During the construction of the Volga-Baltic Waterway in the 1960's, a number of historic villages and churches were submerged. This is all that remains of this church and volunteers are working to try to keep it from completely disappearing.

Rough seas.....

As we retraced our path back on Lake Ladoga, we were not experiencing calm waters.....my fear was that Gordon Lightfoot was onboard composing a new song 😳😳😳

Let's just say, even some of our ship's personnel were not doing well.....

Kizhi Island

We arrived at Kizhi Island on Tuesday morning after passing across Lake Ladoga, Europe's second largest lake.  The island contains settlements and churches dating back to the 15th century.  The population is tiny, and, in fact, few even winter here.  According to our local guide, the only way to get here in winter is by helicopter.

 😳😳

There are two churches on the island.  Both churches were built without using a single nail. Carpenters of that period knew that metal would rust and destroy the wood. The larger one, the Transfiguration Church, is not heated, so it is considered the summer church. It was in the process of being restored, so we could only view the outside. This church has twenty-two domes.

According to legend, the builder of the Transfiguration Church destroyed the ax he used to build the church, as "There was not -- and will not be -- another one to match it."

The summer church, the Intercession Church, has only nine domes.  We were allowed to enter the
Intercession Church and view its icons. We also were privileged to hear their male singers perform.

The island has a number of other sites, including a sauna, farm, dwelling, etc.  This is the baby swing that allowed the mom to keep the baby happy while she was working in the kitchen.

I found some of the crafts fascinating, especially the embroidery.  This young woman is doing a type of Russian embroidery that is the same on either side and there is no pattern! She makes it up -- having done counted cross-stitch, I am not only quite impressed, I'm in awe.

Not sure I'd do well growing my own food.....

We visit Mandrogy

On Monday (August 15, I'm still trying to catch up), we stopped in Mandrogy.  Mandrogy was once a small village on the banks of the Svir River; however, the original town was destroyed during WWII. It was rebuilt in 1996 as a sort of open air museum to showcase traditional Russian crafts and lifestyle.

Of course, there was interesting architecture, shopping and food......

 And Gordy posed next to the "lady" selling pies.....

Lots of updates

I'm really behind on updating the highlights of our cruise, but it has been busy, and the Internet has been S.L.O.W.

We've also had a few ocean-voyage-like days. Yesterday, in particular, was pretty bad as we crossed Lake Onega, Europe's second largest lake.  There were huge waves hitting the ship.  Even some of the staff were affected.  And I was really close to.....well, you know.....

So I will try to upload a few things, but may have to get caught up at our next stop.

Underway

We are underway.....we left St. Petersburg on the Neva River.  The Neva took us to Lake Ladoga, which is the largest lake in Europe. Lake Ladoga has a surface area of 6,800 square miles.  In contrast, Lake Superior has a surface area of 31,700 square miles. We crossed the lake during the night......(the blue dot is us)

We are now on the Svir River and just experienced the first lock of our journey...

It is still a bit disconcerting to look out the window and see a wall 😜

We will have a few more locks, as the map indicates (this just the first half)

We bid farewell to St Petersburg

After a toast to St. Petersburg, we set sail at 6 p.m.

                                               

And the moon came out......

I might add that all this time, we were docked across from a missile factory!!😳😳😳😳

Take a look closely at the first picture....the building in the middle directly below the cloud....um, it is a missile factory 🤔

Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood, the interior

After our boat tour, we were able to visit the inside of the Church on Spilled Blood.  First another picture of the exterior, this time on a sunny day.  I just love the cupola design - they look like jewelry!

The inside was amazing; the walls and ceilings are completely covered in mosaics.  It is incredible....

Please note these are unedited SOC (straight out of camera) shots....unlike some I've seen posted 😈

That being said, even without technical assistance, the church is beautiful!

Sadly, the church was used as a storage facility for food during WWII, but at least was not destroyed.