NOT QUITE YOUR TRADITIONAL AFTERNOON TEA...

The best thing about travel is the often unexpected surprises encountered along the way. Bruce Piper from Travel & Cruise Weekly cruised Russia's mighty Volga River with Viking and discovered that out in the countryside, locals often prefer something a little stronger than just a cuppa

Moscow, Red Square, Th e Kremlin, St Petersburg, Th e Hermitage. Russia evokes so many preconceptions for us Westerners who grew up through the Cold War and then the collapse of the USSR — but one of my favourite memories of a trip to this mysterious nation was sitting around a dining table in a small town way off the beaten track, having afternoon tea (well, actually vodka) with an elderly couple who had seen it all.

Our group, which had arrived in Yaroslavl on Viking Akun as she journeyed her way between Moscow and St. Petersburg, sat with anticipation in the family home. Fortunately our guide, one of the enthusiastic Viking team, was on hand to translate as we were all given a shot glass with some of the local tipple - and then another, and another. To go with the bracing liquor, the table was covered in treats carefully curated by our hosts — pickled cucumbers from their lush garden, black bread, cakes and more. We were in the home of a husband and wife, both engineers, who were born in the Stalin era and raised their family through successive regimes, while working in the local state-owned watch factory.

Yaroslavl is about 250km from Moscow, where we started our odyssey with a three night stay aboard the ship, taking in all the sights and sounds — the Moskva River, stunning architecture, Lenin’s tomb, shopping, art, the Cosmonaut Museum, the fascinating subway system and of course plenty of culture. And then we set forth on our voyage which allowed us to discover the ‘real Russia’ as we cruised the massive Volga river system right across the country to St. Petersburg.

Along with the small group home encounters in Yaroslavl, our odyssey along the river included other fascinating local encounters in other remote towns. A school visit in Vologda saw us escorted by a very precocious student who clearly

Clockwise from

top left: wild horses cross the Volga River; afternoon tea with a home‑hosted visit in Yaroslavl; school visit in Vologda with local performances

enjoyed practising her excellent English. Th e (mostly) enthusiastic children showed us their work, and honour rolls on the wall highlighting top performers seemed to us to be indicative of the Russian selection system for future Olympians.

We cruised past fascinating ruins, surrounded by watery fortifi cations which must have provided good protection from marauders of a past age. A shore excursion in Kuzino showcased the Kirillo Belozersky Monastery, packed with artefacts from the White Russian era, and our ship docked on the island of Kizhi, famous for its wooden architecture and the Church of the Raising of Lazarus. Kizhi showcases traditional ways of life, but also provided a curious juxtaposition when we came across a hovercraft used by some of the few local residents to get to the shops!

Along the way there were regular onboard lectures from our tour guides, who managed to cleverly distil Russia’s complex ancient and more modern history for us, giving us their full and frank opinions of the fall of the Soviet system and their personal experiences as they lived under successive leaders over the turbulent years while the country moved to a market-based economy.

Our fi nal stop before arriving in St. Petersburg was the island of Mandrogi — a popular arts and crafts-focused tourist attraction on the Svir River, where passengers were able to get hands on in a variety of activities including painting our own Matryoshka dolls, watch a blacksmith creating metal artworks, taste some of what must be the world’s largest collection of vodka, or for something completely diff erent take in an authentic Russian sauna experience - complete with a bracing dip in the icy river water.

Th ree nights in St. Petersburg wrapped up our Viking experience, giving us the opportunity to explore this incredible destination including a behind-the-scenes visit to Th e Hermitage and its amazing array of artworks, not to mention the Faberge Museum with some of those famous bejewelled eggs.

Clockwise from

top left: Pogost, Kizhi; Faberge Museum, St. Petersburg; Ascension Church, Yaroslavl

All incredible, and I feel so fortunate to have seen so much of Russia in such a short space of time. But I still hark back to the simplicity of that home visit in Yaroslavl, and the generous hospitality of the couple who opened their arms to us. Like The Hermitage, their rooms were also adorned with plenty of artwork, but they weren’t masterpieces by greats like Leonardo da Vinci, Cezanne and Rembrandt. In contrast, the entire wall of the dining room had been curiously wallpapered with a cityscape, and as we left one of our group raised up enough courage to ask which skyline it depicted. “Chicago,” our host proudly proclaimed, adding that “it was a special gift from our children many years ago”. We asked why they had chosen, in a country town in the middle of Russia, to permanently live with a backdrop of a major American city? “Well when we were all communists, there wasn’t a lot of choice in the shops,” came the answer.

FINLAND

LAKE LADOGA

Kizhi SVIR RIVER LAKE ONEGA

RUSSIA

Helsinki St. Petersburg

NEVA RIVER Mandrogy

VOLGA–BALTIC WATERWAY

VOLGA RIVER Kuzino

RYBINSK RESERVOIR VOLGA RIVER

Yaroslavl Uglich

Cruise Overnight in Port MOSCOW CANAL Moscow

GETTING THERE: The 13‑day Waterways of the Tsars itinerary sails from St. Petersburg to Moscow, or in reverse. From $7,995pp in Deluxe stateroom