Day: July 17, 2026

Catherine’s Palace Our first stop was Catherine’s Palace, located about 30 minutes away in the town of Pushkin. Peter the Great won back the region between the Gulf of Finland and the Neva River from the Swedes and presented it to his wife Catherine I, who commissioned gardens and a…

On our way to Kizhi, we passed Rybinsk and saw the beautiful Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral (Transfiguration Cathedral) on the shore. Built in 1851, this cathedral is a priminent example of high classicism. We also had to pass through six more locks. The island of Kizhi is a UNESCO site. It is…

Our next stop was Goritsy.  To get to there, we had to cross Lake Rybinsk and continue down the Volga River. We passed the Kazan Church in Tutayev on shore.  We also passed the ruins of the Church of the Nativity in Krokhino.  Build in 1788, it lies at the confluence of the…

Uglich Over the night we passed through 5 locks on the Moscow Canal to get to the Volga River.   After breakfast, we passed through Lock #1 on the Volga (the 6th so far).  There are a total of 18 locks between Moscow and St. Petersberg. When we docked at Uglich, we began…

At 9 we left for our Moscow marathon.  We started at Red Square, and discovered that what we thought was Red Square was not.  Red means beautiful and stands for fire. So “red” has nothing to do with Communism. Red Square used to be a market square, but after one of many…

Day One After a lovely breakfast, a wonderful buffet with everything imaginable, in a beautiful, large atrium, with classical music playing in the background, we headed out on our first excursion to Tretyakov gallery.   This gallery houses one of the world’s largest Russian Art collections with works from the 12th to…

Our next adventure took us to Russia—first to Moscow, then a cruise down the Volga to St. Petersburg.  After a long flight with delays and reschedules, we arrived in Moscow.  Right outside the airport was big electronic billboard advertising the movie The Great Gatsby, which had just been released at home.  I found that…