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July Photos 2 |
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August 18, 2002
If you want to go back to the first page, click on the "back" button at the top.
I still have lots more pictures and will try to get them scanned before we leave on Tuesday, but here's what I have so far. These are all from my cruise from Samara to Nizhny Novgorod. The trip was with and group of people from Toliatti, all members of TRACC, Toliatti Russian American Cultural Center. There was one Peace Corps Volunteer in that city, six adult women and four children all who wanted to practice their English and tried to create a sort of 'emersion' into English on the ship. They invited all the Western Russia PCVs but only three of us came (actually, three was plenty). The cities and towns we visited were:
*Uliuanouvsk (city of Lenin's birth and youth)
*Cheboksary (an independent republic within Russia - have their own language etc.)
*Kosmodemyansk (saw an open air museum of a village of people called something I forget now. I'll write someone and ask and update this information)
*Nizhny Novgorod - supposedly the third largest city in Russia
*Makariev Monastery (really a nunnery now with only 20 women living here in what looks like an Arabic Palace from the distance as you approach from the river)
*Kazan (populated by Tartar and Russian people - Muslim and Christian).
We had perfect weather (I love clouds and we had some almost every day, plus a tiny bit of rain, just like on the first cruise - with lightening and thunder off in the distance but nothing over us.
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Here is a common sight in Russia. A woman sweeping/cleaning the streets with a branch broom, wearing a dress and a small tank/trailer with the work KBAC which is pronounced Kvass and is a refreshing liquid made of water, dark bread, and sugar. Takes a couple of days to ferment and every homemaker knows how to make it, and has her own recipe for it. These tanks are all around the city, in every city, although the exact one here is sort of old fashioned and not seen as often in Rostov now. We have Kvass available at outdoor stands with the keg under the counter - sort of like a tap of beer. Everyone drinks this stuff and it's inexpensive. I bought some yesterday outside the library for 4 rubles (about 10 ounces for about a little more than a dime) |
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This picture doesn't do justice to the people; I scanned a glossy picture and it has all sorts of dark spots on the picture. But, I wanted to show you the little 10 year old by Dyoniece and his mother Lena. They were two of my compartment mates as I rode from Rostov to Samara (34 hours train ride). The little boy was wonderful and wanted me to come home with them. We played cards, danced to his music (I had one ear plug in and he wore the other ear plug and we danced sitting down) I taught him how to shuffle cards and we had lots more fun. His mom kept telling him to let me rest and that was good because he did wear me out. But, he was so fun - he gave me two gifts to take from the train with me - one was what looked like a package of doublemint gum. There was a stick of gum in it and when you pulled it out, a plastic cockroach flipped out onto your fingers! Was great fun to pull this trick on all the people on my cruise two days later. Then, I gave him my deck of cards and he decided to give me another gift. This time is was a crab (dead and had sort of a lacquer on it)which he evidently had bought when they were at the Black Sea (which was were they were returning from. They were heading to Novisibersk which was another day plus a little more of traveling time. He made the trip very enjoyable in spite of the horrid hot weather (over 100 degrees and whem we stopped, the breeze disappeared (no air conditioning). Luckily our window opened. At first, it appeared it didn't but with two of us pulling on it (my third compartment mate who was a grandmother of about 70 years old named Luba). |
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This is Luba. She was my third compartment mate on the train ride from Rostov to Samara. When she first got on, she seemed pretty cool, but by the time I got off, we'd become friends and she gave me a wonderful hug and kiss after helping me carry my bags off the train. None of the three people in my compartment spoke English so it was quite a challenge, but they all tried very hard to help me by using simplified sentences and different words to describe things, when I couldn't figure it out. |
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Here's the Makariev Monastery. It was gorgeous from the distance, but as you got closer you could see the place needs lots of work. During the Soviet era it was used as a storage facility, and later for a children's camp. Now, there are 20 nuns living and working here and giving tours. As with all the tours, we had our own English guide (Lana, one of the Russian women from Toliatti spoke fluent English and did a fabulous job of giving us complete information but eliminating the 'hems' and 'haws' so many people use as they're trying to figure out what to say. One of our Russian guides (in Kazan) kept saying "what else" and "what am I forgetting". I could understand that, so knew Lana was leaving that out - takes a good translator to not translate literally, too. She was able to listen, remember and then convert it into English for us - and stayed good natured, too. |
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Here's Marina, Lana, Sophia, Alex and Lilit. Sophia is Lana's daughter and Marina is Sophia's best friend. Alex's mother had wanted to come, but couldn't so he was traveling with a friend of his mother's. His English was pretty good and as the only 'man' in our group, handled it very well! He is 12. Lilit speaks English really well (she's 14, the other girls are 10) and wants to be a translator when she grows up. All the kids were WONDERFUL and well behaved. They were with us most of the time, yet running free on the ship and seemed to have a blast. |
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Here are Tatiana and Carol. Tatiana is the director of the American Center at Toliatti and volunteers all her time there. She is a very energetic woman with two adult children and the entire family go camping, boating and 'mountaineering'. She and her husband have won competitions for climbing and her son climbs all the time. I didn't get a chance to meet the daughter because she was on holiday in Turkey, but I met Tatiana's son, Alex and husband, Andre, and a number of their friends because they took me to a party the first night I arrived from Rostov. When we got out to the 'dacha' we walked to the lake/reservoir and found a number of their friends playing around with a new kayak. One of the young men was trying to teach another how to roll (and he finally got it) and after the two of them quit, Andre decided to try it. He practiced while Tanya (Tatiana's nickname) and I watched from the rocks above. At first it looked like he was going to drown but he managed to accomplish the feat and then did it a few more times, both right side and left side. Unfortunately I had good clothes on and didn't know we'd be near water, or I'd have brought my swimsuit. Two of the other people took me for a short kayak ride in a three person boat and we chased a fish that was running through the water with his head and top fin sticking out of the water. I think it was ill because I've never seen that before and when I asked Tanya, she said it probably was sick. Anyway, the people in my boat kept hitting it and finally killed it and took it into the boat. I enjoyed the ride and the chase but not the killing part. Also wondered if we would spill but we managed fine. Was a beautiful still evening and out on the water there seemed to be no bugs. But when we got back to the 'dacha' it was dark and there were lots of them. We had a nice tea of fresh fruit from the garden, several pies and cakes (one of the friend's daughters was celebrating her 20th birthday) and drank some vodka, and tea. I liked these people a lot. It turned out two of the young men had come out on bikes and had to leave just as we arrived for tea because it was getting dark. It's pretty rare to see people riding bikes here, unless they're old decrepit bikes and being used for lugging groceries, etc. But these young people reminded me of Americans who ride for fun. In fact, their interests and mine were very similar and we had fun talking about places to camp, climb and hike. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera here so didn't get pictures of these folks.
The second woman is Carol. She's a Peace Corps Volunteer in a city north of St. Petersburg and I had met her before when she came to Rostov for our conference in May. She's great and is one of the people who was able to get her visa renewed for her second year.
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Here's Natalia again and Yelena. Yelena was the friend that Alex was traveling with. She is single and actually had a ship board romance! Was fun to be the observer. She didn't speak English but sat in on our discussion meetings each night (we held a regular hour long class each night where we had a topic or discussion questions we talked about as a group.) |
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This is part of an unusual Russian Orthodox Church. Was lovely and is in Kazan |
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