Royal Adventure Travel Article

Visits to relatively unknown Russian cities

Moscow and St. Petersburg are world-class cities; tours to see their sights are pretty mandatory for a trip to Russia. A more comprehensive insight into today's Russia is provided by visits to a variety of smaller towns and cities.

This is one of the significant features of Peter the Great Cruises' "Grand Russia Cruise" (from Moscow south to Volgograd): the opportunity to take day trips exploring some Russian cities that are infrequently seen by American travelers.

Saratov

The biggest surprise along Russia's Volga River is the very German-looking town of Saratov. If you didn't notice the candy-striped onion domes on the "Come My Sorrows" Russian Orthodox church in the town square, you might think that you were in Heidelberg!

Catherine the Great, a German, was crowned Empress of all the Russias in 1762. (Arranged royal marriages across national boundaries were common in those days.) After marrying Czar Peter III, Catherine apparently was involved in his assassination. She and her lover/ co-ruler Potemkin then presided over one of the great expansions and developmental periods in Russian history.

She decided that the settling of underutilized farmlands of the southern Volga region was needed and made a generous offer to encourage immigration by Germans.

Catherine offered relocation assistance such as free travel expenses, free land, housing assistance, freedom of religion, very low taxes and the promise that they would never have to serve in Russia's armies.

By 1900 there were close to two million Germans settled in rural villages throughout the southern Volga region, with a high concentration in and around Saratov. These concentrations allowed the Germans to maintain most of their cultural traditions and language, resulting in the present German architectural style so obvious in Saratov.

A new book by Simon Sebag Montefiore entitled "Prince of Princes: The Life of Potemkin," published by Thomas Dunne (634 pages, $45), covers the period of this settling of empty steppes through the migration to Russia of many groups of Europeans.

In Paul Klebnikov's recent review of this book in The Wall Street Journal, he says, "She (Catherine) was one of the most accomplished monarchs in European history, presiding over a great period in Russian history."

If you missed the book review and are interested, send me a business-sized SASE and I'll send you a photocopy.

Unfortunately, by the early 20th century, Catherine's generous promises were no longer being honored by those in power at the time and, for the Volga Germans, the worst threat was that conscription into Russia's armies was a looming possibility. There began a major German migration away from Russia that was accelerated by World Wars I and II. Large numbers of these Volga Germans settled in the American Midwest.

A significant number of present-day Americans have German ancestors who came from Russia's southern Volga region. Two famous German-Americans with these roots were John Denver (born Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr.) and Lawrence Welk. Actress Angie Dickinson and Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota (a possible presidential candidate) share these bloodlines, according to an Internet source.

A couple of years ago, Public Television aired an excellent program on the topic of the Volga Germans. If you're interested in this fascinating German-Russian-American link, a copy of "The Germans from Russia: Children of the Steppe/Children of the Prairie" can be purchased for $ by calling 800/359-6900. Our ship on the Volga, M/S Peter the Great, has a copy of this videotape and showed it to passengers the night before we visited Saratov.

Later, at home, when I punched up "Volga Germans" on the Internet, I found 6,118 entries to explore.

Ulyanovsk

You may have observed that Russians readily change the names of cities. (For example, Petrograd/St. Petersburg became Leningrad, then St. Petersburg again as the political climate changed.) Simbirsk was founded in 1648 and was known by that name until 1924 when it was renamed Ulyanovsk in honor of its most famous citizen, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, more commonly known as Lenin.

Statues of Lenin were taken down over much of Russia after the collapse of the USSR, but in Ulyanovsk the citizens are sticking by Lenin and his images are still in place. He is still revered here as a favorite son, and they believe him to be a now-underrated Russian. (Ulyanovsk's prosperity as a popular Russian tourist destination must have declined significantly in recent years, but the areas we saw did not show the results of neglected maintenance that was common in other Russian cities.)

The local guide described Lenin as a great man. (Youngsters, especially, even if they spoke little or no English, were fascinated at the rare sight of a large group of Americans in the square in front of the Lenin museum.) Those few Ulyanovskites(?) who spoke to us tended to blame the old USSR'S problems on Stalin's harsh implementation of Lenin's ideas.

There's an old saying: "To be a good guest in a foreign country, avoid discussing religion or politics." I find that those two topics are far too interesting (and important for cross-cultural understanding) to be ignored so readily. My formula to generate a conversation that is constructive to those on opposite sides of an issue is to avoid an argumentative approach. I've found magic in the sentences, "These things seem strange or different to me. Tell me about them. I'm here to learn."

The day tour took us to the Lenin museum and then to the home of Lenin's father, who was a teacher. The house is a wonderfully maintained, early-20th-century, upper-middle class Russian home on a quiet, tree-lined city street.

There was a grand piano in the parlor, and prominently displayed was a mechanical educational device that demonstrated the relative sizes and movements of our planets and our moon as they moved around the sun (identical to the device that I remember from my high school physics classes). Simple upstairs bedrooms contrasted with rather fancy downstairs rooms, all suggesting a fairly comfortable lifestyle. (I wondered if the elegant furnishings might be "window dressing" to enhance a favorite son's image.)

The Lenins must have moved frequently, because in addition to a second Lenin residence at the museum site there were another one or two houses pointed out to us as "Lenin slept here" locations.

Kazan

Kazan is the capital of the newly independent Tatar Republic (Tatarstan), one of many republics formed after the collapse of the old USSR. A flag striped green, white and red flies here, not the Russian flag. The population here is about evenly divided between Russians and Tatars. Russians and Muslim Tatars apparently live side by side peacefully here.

The ship's lecturer explained that some of the new nations, such as Georgia and Ukraine, are completely independent of Russia and some, such as Tatarstan, are republics in the Russian Federation (CIS, or Confederation of Independent States) and these republics have varying degrees of political independence.

In stocking feet, we entered one of Kazan's 55 mosques. The interior of the mosque was, of course, strikingly different from that of the many ornate Russian Orthodox churches we had seen.

(Neither have seats or pews: Russians stand during sometimes lengthy services and Muslims prostrate themselves on small rugs.)

The small mosque that we visited was a relatively unimpressive wooden building consisting primarily of two open, high-ceilinged rooms with simple decor that might have accommodated 30 to 50 people. A copy of the Koran was prominently mounted on a south wall (toward Mecca). With tiny but legible print, the complete text of the Koran was there on a document about 18 by 24 inches!

Cheboksary

At Cheboksary, the capital of the Chuvash Republic, another member of the CIS, the high point of the day trip was a visit to the large Ethnographic Museum.

Political boundaries can change over a variety of time periods; during these same times, cultural and ethnic boundaries change very little. This museum features a comprehensive display of life in this. middle Volga region over previous centuries. My guess is that the displays also represent the early cultures and living condition of the bulk of the populations in much of this part of the world.

Souvenirs

In addition to the mandatory nesting dolls to take home, you may be interested in the high-quality Russian lacquer boxes that are offered at every souvenir stand.

These small boxes (typically 2"x4"x2" and larger) have very finely detailed paintings, usually depictions of Russian fairy tales or copies of famous Russian portraits or scenic views.

I bought decent-quality ones in the price range of $10. A large variety is available in the $20-$40 range, and prices can climb to hundreds of dollars.

A couple of companies in the States import them and have colorful and informative catalogs. If you are interested in this Russian art form or contemplate taking a trip to Russia, it would be worth your while to get one of these catalogs to compare prices. Over here, there are few boxes on offer for less than a couple of hundred dollars.

One excellent catalog is provided by Russian Collection, RRI, Box 5, Route 16A, Intervale, NH 03845; phone 603/356-7832 or fax 603/356-5540.

Cruise information

For information and prices of Volga River cruises, contact Peter The Great Cruises, 2610 East 16th St., Brooklyn, NY 11235; phone 800/828-7970 or 718/934-4100 or fax 718/934-9419.

Next month

Shadows of WWII and meeting Russians along the cruise itinerary. Happy Trails!