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
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oscow, Red Square, The Kremlin, St Petersburg, The 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 62
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 VIKING
