June 21st Goritsy

A leisurely morning was followed by a talk on ‘Modern Russian History’.  It was interesting, made the Kevin /Julia struggles look like child’s play. 

During the morning we went past a church in the middle of the river.  Below us was the village and the church was only visible because it was set high on a hill and didn’t disappear when the area was flooded to make the waterway we were travelling on.  The church is just being left to fall apart and will eventually fall into the sea.  It looked rather haunting.

After lunch we had arrived at Goritsy.  We didn’t tour the Nunnery there but it was noted that this nunnery was established by one of Ivan the Terrible’s female relations.  Any wife that was to be replaced was suddenly taken with ‘religious devotion’ and became a nun.  The nunnery holds 600 nuns.  One woman and her daughter that had been sent there were both drowned in the river as Ivan the Terrible still believed she was a threat to him.

So onto the bus we went to see a monastery that was 7km from Goritsy, the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery which was founded by St Cyril (Kirill is Russian name for Cyril) in 1397. 

There are still a number of priests living there.  They can marry have children but there are also monks and they certainly don’t have those conditions.  They only eat fish and on fasting days, which are more than 200 a year, they only eat veggies, which are grown within the monastery.  A lot of restoration is under way but considering its age it was looking ok.  The domes are more the cap shape rather than onion shape which were more common later on.  There was a lovely display of handmade lace in part of the Museum.  The ladies of this region were known as talented lace makers but what was offered for sale was the same as I could buy in Spotlight – very disappointing.

We managed to buy some toothpaste at the general store – Colgate brand with lots of Russian words.  Den’s was taken at one of the airport security checks so we were running a little low.

Back on board and by 4pm we were moving again. Today is Father’s Day in Russia and so when we returned to our cabin there was a Father’s Day card and a bottle of Vodka. 

At 6pm the entertainment was vodka tasting.  Arty – one of the tour guides gave a talk on vodka and also a few different ways to drink it – as in ways to hold the shot glasses.  He said this was something we can do to surprise our friends and family when we return home – the first surprise will be that we did return home and secondly these ways of holding the glass to drink.  The first was putting the glass on the back of your hand – the second was holding your glass in your elbow and the third was two glasses one above the other held in your fingers so that the top glass cascaded down into the second glass.  They asked for a volunteer and I couldn’t resist.  A great cheer went up when I achieved it.  We all had great fun.

Dinner was next – just as well as we had all had a few vodka shots by then.  The night’s entertainment was the ‘Liars Club’.  The cruise director – Dianna and two of the tour guides – Arty and Elena – each would give us the meaning of real English word and we had to decide who was telling the truth.  It was a lot of fun. 

If you wonder why I didn’t write this blog last night before going to bed – re read the paragraph on the Vodka tasting!!!