May 12, 2007

A felted boot factory in the town of Yaroslavia, a thousand-year-old trading center. The working conditions in this factory were not pleasant. It was hot, smelly, and dusty. The women work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week and earn about $350 a month.

May 11, 2007

The medieval town of Uglich on the Volga River. The town was used by Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century as a base for his attacks against the Tatars. This is the Church of St. Dmitry on the Blood was built and named to honor the spot where Dmitry, the youngest son of Ivan was murdered and dates from around 1690.

May 10, 2007

Our welcome to the river boat for the trip from Moscow to St Petersburg. Russian tradition is that when wanted guests arrive at a home, they are greeted outside with bread and salt. This shows hospitality and welcome as salt was very expensive. You broke off a piece of bread, dipped it in the salt and ate it.

May 9, 2007

Today we are remembering our people who have served in the Armed Forces. We happened upon this ceremony of placing a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow celebrating their Victory Day-their victory over the Germans in WW II on May 9. Ceremonies were held one after another for several days before the actual day of May 9.

May 8, 2007

A model of the Russian space station, Mir at Star City, the cosmonaut training facility. Our tour here was very interesting, seeing how the cosmonauts learn about weightlessness in a hydrotherapy pool and experience the force of leaving earth and re-entering in a centrifuge.

May 7, 2007

The Kremlin in Moscow. It was awesome!

May 6, 2007

A Moscow Subway. The subways in Moscow are the deepest I've ever been in. Many of the stations are very artistically decorated. They are very efficient means of transportation and are easy to use if you count stations-again reading the language is the difficulty. In spite of the efficient subways and other public transportation traffic is terrible in Moscow!

May 5, 2007

Shops on Arbat Street in Moscow. What kind they are, I have no idea. We usually had to look in the windows to see what was inside. I thought I could at least learn to recognize the word "restaurant" in Russian, but it wasn't that easy as they were named. One night we literally had to point at pictures on the menu to order because we could not read the menu and the waitress did not speak any English. Many places had at least one menu with English interpretations and/or someone who spoke English. I always feel so inferior traveling in other countries as I do not speak any other language and feel I shouldn't expect them to speak mine. (But that doesn't stop me from traveling-it adds to some of the fun.)

May 4, 2007

When people think of Moscow, St Basil's Cathedral is probably what they know. It was beautiful! The weather was not real conducive to this picture, but at least it wasn't raining and did clear up. We had a little rain in Kiev, but it seemed to come only when we were inside, so wasn't a bother. The rest of the trip was cloudy, partly cloudy, and sunny. The old saying, if you don't like the weather, wait a few minutes is really true in Russia.

May 3, 2007

St Sophia's Cathedral in Kiev, Ukraine.

May 2, 2007

St Michael's Cathedral, Kiev Ukraine. The beauty of the cathedrals is more spectacular than I realized from pictures.

May 1, 2007

I am home after a wonderful trip to places I've heard about all my life, but never imagined I would be! This is a panoramic view of the city of Kiev, Ukraine, where we spent 3 nights as a pre-trip before the Russian Waterways.