Oct. 2

Land Ho!

I awoke around 4:00AM and noticed the ship wasn’t rocking! I peeked out my window and there in the darkness were lights twinkling and rising up the sides of hills – Petropavlovsk, Russia! First landfall in six days and part of the infamous Russian Siberia. I did not fall back asleep.

8:00 AM and my toilet is clogged for the 5^th time this week. I call with a formal complaint and the little Filipino man comes and unclogs it and tells me “too much paper” and I tell him “no, it won’t go down the first time because no ‘whoosh’ sound”. Great communications. How do you convince someone you’re not clogging the toilet when you can’t speak the same language? Then he says something about being on “the bottom” and points to all the floors above me and I picture something not so pretty going thru the system and realize why the price goes down with each level in the ship. The front desk promises to have a look at the whole system today.

Anyway, by 9:00 AM the day is as grey, overcast, drizzly and cold as every day you ever imagined in Communist Siberia, only now they are Free. We’ll see. We’ve heard on the ship that next year they will skip this port because the immigration protocols are so burdensome. As our tour is called down to the tender area, I see three military people in unsmiling and stern poses. We are told to have passports out and the one obviously in charge takes our passports, studies our faces, barks something in Russian to his peons and slaps the passport back in our hands. Where’s the Hammer and Sickle? Vive la change. We tender across the foggy bay and can barely discern what must be beautiful landscape. This peninsula is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, and has hundreds of volcanoes, 28 of which are still active. And contrary to what we believe about this being a frozen wasteland it also has some of the world’s largest birch and cedar forests, punctuated with lakes and mountains. Of course we saw none of this. First because it was cold, raining and foggy, second because we stayed in the city and third I couldn’t see beyond the bland and poor Soviet era architecture. Yuk. This was an important military port for Soviet Russia and also the back door to Russia and that presence is still felt here with a huge monument to Lenin that our tour guide couldn’t believe we wanted to take photos of. And I couldn’t help but wonder how free these people really felt especially if their own government was alienating a tourism trade that could help lift them out of poverty. But I’m just an ugly American. They also have no railroads thru the mountains and can only fly or go by water or poor roads to other parts of Russia. To fly to Moscow: 9 hours, to fly to Los Angles: 6 hours. Gives you an idea of where I am in the world right now and where these people would rather be according to our tour guide. Of course, she may be in prison tonight for saying that. The other funny thing, they drive on the right side of the road, but all the steering wheels are on the right side of the car. I don’t know if that happens anywhere else in the world. Our tour guide says she always gets in the wrong side of the car anywhere but here in Petropavlovsk.

But the great thing about today? Solid ground beneath our feet and trees with leaves turning gold and red, just like home. We walked one path above the city and I took some photos and it could have been anywhere in Wisconsin. No vodka though. We went to a fish and produce market, but people wanted souvenirs so we ran thru the good part and got dumped in a schlocky souvenir shop right out of Wally World. And then we went to the most boring, ancient museum ever. And the Russian docent could talk and talk and talk. The only interesting part I tuned into was when she told us the original natives rode deer and showed us the saddles made of wood and horn. Comfy.

After waiting on the pier in the freezing rain forever because Russian immigration would only let the ship have one gang plank, we tendered back and boarded the ship to be greeted by General Smiley, again with the passport slap and our names crossed off the Cyrillic list in case we wanted to stay. Right. Our last tender came back at 5:30 PM. And usually a ship can leave port within 20 minutes of that last tender. But here in Mother Russia zey haf ozzer plans. Even our Captain sounded exasperated when he came over the loudspeaker system saying it probably wouldn’t be until 8:30PM. I don’t know, maybe we have stow always because we sure didn’t leave anyone over there, fear alone would make them swim back to the ship.

Funny thing: We have been sailing for 6 days on open seas and for six days I have been leaving my curtains wide open because who can see in? Occasionally I would think I should close them, but then I would remember, no one’s there. Today after coming back I’m sitting in front of my window half dressed and happen to look up and there’s our tender/lifeboat with its’ attendants rising past the window. Well oiled cables – never heard a thing.

So, I made it in and out of Russia for the first time. I didn’t buy those stupid nesting dolls that everyone else bought. I didn’t get vodka which I wanted to get. But I saw a beautiful small Russian Orthodox Church where our tour guide was baptized and where a Russian Orthodox priest was all elaborately vested and chanting with incense during a small service – that was special and very cultural. And the Russians are free to worship now in Russia because we also saw a huge new church that is going to open in November. And maybe, with the grace of God, General Smiley will be there.  J

PS Just read that while we are in Japanese territorial waters we will not be allowed to use the satellite for Internet services. Therefore my posts may be spotty or non-existent for October 5-8.