[amc] Russia Trip
- From: "Ray Gingerich" <rjgingerich@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "My Friends" <RJGingerich@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2007 22:39:44 -0700
Friends,
It's high time I wrote about our 17-day Russia trip from which we (Lisa,
Ron, and Lena) returned on Sep 16. (Barb went on an Alaska cruise in July,
so she stayed home with the grandkids and critters). If I had better
manners, I would have sent you all postcards.
Russia was a trip! Not only literally. Lena (dau-in-law, born and raised in
Siberia) was our guide. She had never been to St Petersburg (our first 5
days), but she knew the language and could read the signs and brochures. We
had pre-planned where we would go. Quite a city of the Tsars since 1700 (the
Romanovs)! Seeing palace after palace and all of the art, gold, the precious
stones, the carriages while the people were in serfdom--no wonder the
revolution. The Hermitage was just huge--it is hard to imagine that much
art--you would think all of the art in the world was there! (Lisa said it
was bigger than the Louvre--she[s been there). Then Catherine the Great's
(and Tsars thereafter) summer palaces S. of the city and Peter the Great's
palace W. of the city--they were huge and also contained incredible amounts
of art and ornate architecture.
Then we flew to Anapa for another 5 days, a town of 150,000 on the Black Sea
where Lena's parents have lived since perestroika (they were in Siberia
before that--way out in Siberia--just north of Mongolia). We stayed with
Lena's parents, went to the beach, winetasting, following Lena and Lisa
around shopping, war memorials and war ruins, went to a little Russian
Orthodox service on Sunday, and met several of the Usurov family friends.
Lena's mother cooked all of our meals--every meal was a different Russian
specialty: wonderful! Her dad served gallons of wine that he himself had
made--quite good--and fired up the sauna for us. We also got some folk
medical treatment from Lena's parents--rather complicated procedure--I'll
have to explain it to you some time. All in all, quite incredible--got the
feeling like 100% of their energy was focused on serving us.
Then, we took the train two days (32 hours) to Moscow, had a berth to
ourselves--1500 miles from south to north seeing much of the countryside of
Western Russia. Played a lot of chess with my kids. Also, read most of a
Russian history book that I began on the plane ride over and finished on the
plane ride back. Some facts I probably knew, but forgot, that Russia is
twice the area of the US but only has about 60% of our population; that the
Russian people have suffered from war like we can't imagine, since they were
conquered by the Mongols in th 13th century. For example, 60,000,000 people
died in WWII: 27,000,000 of those were Russians--7,000,000 soldiers;
20,000,000 civilians!
Moscow is huge--the largest city in Europs--over 10 million! We stayed with
friends of Lena's family another 5 days: a retired judge and his wife who is
still a practicing attorney. Lena and Ron stayed about a block away with
their daughter. Hospitality to strangers like you can't imagine. Again,
insisted on cooking breakfast and dinner and tried to pack us lunch for our
trek (by subway) into the city each day to see the sights: the Kremlin, art
museums, cathedrals, oh yes, and shopping. We spent all of Friday at our
hosts "dacha" (country house) where the cooking continued, oh, and another
sauna.
Because we had Lena and were staying with Russian families, I'm sure our
experience was quite different (better) than most tourists.
Shortly after returning to Milwaukee, we headed for Oregon and arrived last
evening. We're parked again on my brother's little farm between the toolshed
and the corn patch near the donkey-cow pasture just W of the barn.
Come visit.
Ray and Barb
--
Center for Strength-based Strategies
Ray Gingerich, Associate
5631 Bentwood Lane
Greendale (Milwaukee), WI 53129
phone (512) 569-7111
email rjgingerich@xxxxxxxxx
fax (815) 371-2292
website: www.buildmotivation.com
"Change is possible when I stop trying to become that which I am not and
become that which I am." Frederick Perls
Other related posts:
