MY TRIP ON THE RIVER VOLGA


We are going to travel on the River Volga. We, my wife and I, were lucky. We had the same month for vacation, and we obtained a permit for a trip on the River Volga. In Russia that is difficult, even if you have money.

The Volga is named the Big Russian River. For Russians it is the same as the Mississippi is for Americans.

The Volga is partitioned by 5 dams. They were built in the 1950's. Those dams were named "Constructions of Communism." The whole country held its breath, and attentively followed the progress of construction.

The trip was very interesting. The water is all around us. It is calm. The beach passed slowly. The big reservoir is before the dams. A big area of earth is flooded. We saw a half flooded beautiful church. The ship in the lock is slowly lowered approximately 30 meters. This was done before each dam.

The reservoirs have turned into swamps. The water is covered with weeds. When spawning occurs, the elevators and nets lift the fish from the lower level of the dams to the upper. Many fish perished, and the dead fish were floating in the water.

We pass by old Russian towns, renamed in honor of the Communist figures: Uljanovsk (Simbirsk), Kuibishev (Samara), Kalinin (Tver), Stalingrad (Tzaritzin), Brejnev (Naberejni Chelni), etc. The old names follow the current names in parentheses.

We stopped in the towns. We saw the churches and cloisters of the 13th-16th centuries. They were very beautiful. We saw only one active church.

The shops in the town had no food; the salesmen only sat in the shops, but I didn't see any starving people. This is a mystery of the Soviet Union. It was good that we had eaten in the restaurant of the ship.

The return trip was the same as the outgoing one, but now the ship was raised from the lower level of the dams to the upper.

Russia had natural beauty so much of which would not have been lost, if the communists hadn't begun many of their building projects.

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