Just returned from a wonderful river cruise and experienced amazing sights and sounds of Russia.
I didn't really know what to expect as there are very few reviews regarding Russia so thought I would leave a contribution.
I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience. We had a very good group and I'm sure there will be emails toing and froing in the future.
The MS Repin is a 40+ year old river cruiser and has been refurbished, the cabins were on the small side but sufficient and I found mine comfortable. The walls are quite thin so noise is obvious at the beginning but once people realise most do become more considerate.
St Petersburgh is beautiful so much to see, it's hard to choose where to go during free time. My choice was The church of The spilled blood, sad history but so beautiful. Outside was a street artist with pastel chalk drawings of several locations in St Petersburg, so hard to resist and reasonably priced considering the work that had gone into them.
The Hermitage was huge and so full of history also St Catherines so ornate. The optional excursions are well worth doing if its your first trip to Russia.
The destinations along the route were lovely, plenty to do and see (and buy). I really enjoyed Mondrogi , this stop had a very well stocked vodka museum where your entrance fee gets you several tastes of the vodkas or is redeemable against a bottle to buy. One of the ladies really enjoyed the samples and was very jolly for the rest of the day (Elizabeth) it all added to the fun :)
There are so many crafts to see, I particularly liked the art work done by local Russian artists and brought a beautiful watercolour of a ballerina. There is also wooden crafts and open houses to go inside, Mr Putin's summer house and the biggest slippersock which is in the Guinness book of records. We had our tasty shishka picnic in a large wooden pavilion accompanied by the ship's entertainments team adding to the experience. It would have been nice to have had a little longer here.
Kizhi had wooden churches transported there and is an open or museum, the church of transfiguration 22 onion domes is unreal.
Goritsy has the Monastery at which we were given a mini concert and chance to buy a cd, which is superb also beautiful traditional houses.
Yaroslavl has wonderful churches and markets, this small town was very attractive, I found all places were very clean, no litter.
Uglich is a lovely little town, lots of traders to sell their wares, you can see them painting and making things to sell. Street musicians and singers add to the ambience.
Finally on to Moscow .....Just wow, superb. The Kremlin, St Basils , so much to see. I was fortunate enough to go to the Bolshoi ballet on the Saturday evening . Highly recommended, expensive but to good a chance to miss.
The food on board got better as the cruise progressed, it was nice to try the local cuisine although some of the combinations were a little strange. The breakfast catered for all tastes.
The crew were all very nice, very presentable and approachable - they were quite happy to correct the mispronounciations of the Russian language which helps following our lessons by our tour manager Lidia. She is a lovely lady, so very kind and supportive also a very good teacher of the Russian language.
The guests were invited to singing lessons, yes, singing the national song Kalinka and another song Moscow nights to perform at a concert at the end of the cruise. Several took part and quite happy to perform. Painting dolls, dancing, daily competition were also part of the experience.
Well I hope you don't get bored reading all this but as you can see it was a wonderful trip. A good insight to Russia which I recommend and I'm sure I will return.
