Sojourn: Ukraine & Russia

As regular readers will recall I injured my neck and broke my R-clavicle in January. Although that did not keep me from hiking too long, and I subsequently did some rather arduous hikes (e.g., N on Jenkins Ridge, Lead Cove to Clingmans Dome, Newfound Gap to Cosby), my neck was giving me some problems even on relatively easy hikes. For this reason I decided to take a break from hiking that that also included a trip to the Ukraine and Russia with Grand Circle Travel (GCT), and my second cataract surgery. In this blog I have included six pictures from Russia.

Slide1496--Krasnaya Plolshchad is known in English as Red Square; however, in Russian it in essence means beauty of the city square. Nevertheless, to our right in this picture was a platform from which bigwigs could view military parades. (Also toured the Kremlin; it is in essence a walled city that contains at least one cathedral.)



Slide1512--I have not been on that many subways, but the subway stations that we saw in Moscow (each had different art) were the prettiest that I have ever seen; GCT materials that we received indicate that Moscow's subway system is one of the best subway systems in the world.



Slide1524--Moscow State University--not sure which departments, but several are located in this beautiful building.



Slide1591--In a relatively large auditorium of this beautiful hotel (with Charles de Gaule statue in the foreground), we saw a thrilling show by a professional dance ensemble. (Frankly I was surprised to see such a beautiful hotel in Moscow; my perception of Russia totally changed on this trip.)



Boat1667--On the way to St. Petersburg our GCT river boat (218 passengers aboard--bigger river boat than we traveled on in prior trips in both Eastern and Western Europe) stopped at Kizhi Island in the middle of Lake Onega (one of the two largest lakes in Europe). Here we visited one of the most ancient inhabited sites in Russia. Although we saw many extremely large and pictorial cathedrals (Russian Orthodox--saw one Lutheran church in downtown Moscow), the Church of the Transfiguration with its 22 timbered onion domes was something else--this picture does not do it justice. No nails were used in its construction; we could not go in it for it is being jacked up and they are putting a new foundation under it.



Slide1920: This picture was taken in Catherine's Palace (named for Peter the Great's wife Catherine the First). The original palace was heavily damaged in WW II; the restored building stretches 978 feet; besides many beautiful rooms, the gardens may be as least as nice as those in Versailles.