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A Visit to Russia, Sweden, and Scotland--August 2013
Jim and Andrea Siscel

Slide Show of Photos with captions at end of trip information

            On August 9, 2013 Andrea and I boarded a Delta Airlines flight to Amsterdam.  In Amsterdam we changed flights and headed for St. Petersburg, Russia to begin our 12 days cruise with Viking Tours.  We were headed for Moscow using rivers, lakes, and canals to get there.  We spent 2 ½ days in St. Petersburg visiting The Hermitage, Peterhof-the palace of Peter the Great, Catherine’s Palace (Catherine the Great), a bus tour of St. Petersburg, and an evening performance of Swan Lake.  The Russian Czars and Czarinas really knew how to use gold freely.  Leaving St. Petersburg we first transited Lake Ladoga, the largest lake in Europe before arriving at Mandrogy where we saw many Russian craftspeople painting Matrioshka dolls.  We tried our hands but were not as successful, but it was fun trying.  We cruised through the night across Lake Onega the second largest lake in Europe.  Our next stop was at the island of Kizhi to see the beautiful all wooden churches.  The area is on UNESCO’s list of World Heritage sites. The 14th century church is undergoing restoration so we were not able to go inside.  Note in the picture that the wooden shingles on the onion domes are carved into curved shapes.  No nails were used in the construction of the church.
            Back across Lake Onega and down the Volga Baltic Waterway, across White Lake to Kuzino where we visited the Kirillov-Belozersky Monastery and a school.  The school had over 700 students from kindergarten to high school.  It was one week until school started and work inside and outside the school was in progress.  We visited two primary classrooms.  Note the lack of storage in the classroom.  All students sit two to a desk.  The book shown is a 1st grade math book.  The playground across the street had minimal playground equipment as is shown in the photo.
            We traveled on to Yaroslavl where we visited a market area where a candy counter is shown with many kinds of candy, but not a lot of each kind.  Our next stop was in Uglich where we had the pleasure of visiting a home of a Russian woman.  She is a math teacher in the local school and followed the same group of students from 5th grade to 12th grade.  In Russia women can retire at 55 and men at 60.  But because their pension is so small most continue to work.  Our teacher had retired five years ago, but continues to work.  We sampled some food and homemade vodka “moonshine” that had been made by her sister.  The color was because of the ingredients used.  “Not bad”.  Behind her house was a large garden area where she grows many vegetables that she shares with her two adult daughters’ families.
            In a church in Uglich was a bell that had not rung at the right time for one of the Czars, so it was sent to Siberia.  At a later time it had been repatriated.  We visited another market and saw many beautiful hand made pieces of clothing and artwork in the adjacent stalls.
            As we traveled on to Moscow we went through one of the 19 locks on this voyage.  Ahead of us was another cruise vessel, the Lenin.  At any one time there must be 20+ vessels from different companies cruising this route.
            We arrived in Moscow in the early afternoon and immediately went on a bus tour of the city.  Before returning to the ship we attended at concert performed by an orchestra of Russian traditional folk music instruments.  The next day we took a tour that took us on the Russian underground Metro and a walking tour of Red Square.  The following day we visited the Kremlin.  Here we saw three cathedrals where the Russian Czars were married, worshiped, and were their funerals were held.  In the afternoon Jim visited the Cosmonaut Museum.
            The next day we flew to Stockholm, where we joined up with Andrea's brother and his wife, a cousin of theirs and his wife and their daughter and son-in-law. We spent three days finding Andrea’s distant Swedish relatives.  We met and had a great time with distant cousins--one branch from her great grandmother and two branches from her great grandfather  Then on to Scotland with Andrea's brother and his wife for nine days, Glasgow, Dunoon—Highland Games, and Edinburgh.  One highlight of this part of the trip was meeting up again with my third grade pen pal from my elementary school days who flew in to Edinburgh from Belfast, North Ireland.
             It was very hard sorting 2,600+ photos into the 44 we are sharing below.  Please enjoy the video at the bottom of the 13 & 14 year-old Highland dancing competition. Participants come from all over the world for the Highland Games competitions.