Boat trip to Tver

These photos have been sitting on my computer all summer while I was in the UK. So despite being back in Moscow for over a week, here I am catching up on the summer.

The end of term was rather traumatic as Peter had his passport stolen just as I was breaking up. With the help of a 14 year old son of one of his clients he managed to report it to the police, get an incident number and finally apply for a temporary passport. Then he had to get an exit visa and he collected his paperwork on the morning we flew out!! Cutting it a bit fine but we made the flight and got home.

Big changes at school too. Betty has retired so a new head was due. Mark Madeley from school 9 was finally appointed. I am now teaching Year 1 so I had to change classrooms too!!

We broke up Thursday and on Friday evening Peter and I made our way to Rechnoy Voksal to catch the Anatoly Papanov to Tver. It is a traditional, small river cruiser.

Being the only foreigners on board was interesting. We were greeted by the entertainer dressed in traditional costume sharing a brioche type bread with salt.

Break off a piece and dip it in the salt.

To start with we missed the emergency procedures talk - not very clever!! As the evening came on we headed out of Moscow along the canal towards the Volga river. This is a massive water area with resevoirs and gravel pits joined by man made canals.

Leaving the North River Station

Across the basin

Ballast piles

Ballast barge

Nuclear submarine moored in the basin

Another boat following us out to the Volga on a longer cruise

Living on the edge of the river

Little wooden church

Sign for a marina - we first saw this on our train trip to Dmitrov back in May

Sunset

Food was very Russian but quite edible. There was a camera on the front of the boat so we could see where we were going while we ate.

I forgot to take a photo of the cabin which was fine. The double bed was on the minimal side so Peter had that and I managed on the tiny single - probably no more than 2 foot wide which was a bit on the narrow side. I had to wake up to turn over or I would have disappeared under the table. To be honest we spent very little time in there.

While we were in bed we motored through a very long canal with massive locks on. By breakfast time we were turning onto the Volga river. All along the river banks were communities. It was so peaceful.

Soon we were approaching Tver which is a modest town north east of Moscow. The great Volga river rises somewhere near and passes through the town. There is some high rise but not much. What we saw of the town was no more than 5 storeys high.

These next photos are on the approach to Tver.

The Tver river station - similar architecture to Moscow

We finally moored in Tver (Tverskaya is named from this town) after lunch. We didn't realise and no-one told us that we were being driver for an hour out of town by bus to a small museum dedicated to Pushkin in the village of Torzhok. It was very interesting but there were no notes in English and no-one could translate. We just had to hang around as there was no-where for us to go.

Rural clothing from the 19th century

Wood and leather sled

After the museum we were taken to a monastery which is slowly being restored. It was interesting to see a building as it was after the fall of communism. A year ago, when we went to the Golden ring. we saw several monasteries which had been restored, as in Moscow.

When restored the metal dome will be brightly coloured.

Note the new brick work, particularly around the windows.

As we left through the gate we noticed that the ancient gateway had been modified to allow big lorries to go in and out. Often these places were used for storage.

On arriving back in Tver we had about an hour to walk along the water front before we set sail.

This is an unusual monument by the water with a dragon boat growing out of the wall

Pushkin

This is an amazing art nouveau cinema which has survived and is still going strong. I didn't take any photos of the tiles, but they were amazing and I didn't have time to go back to take more.

Leaving Tver

Throught the night we travelled back along the Volga and the interesting countryside we had seen during the day. Sunday saw cruising along the canal back to Moscow. As we went we collected boats at the locks.

Once away from Moscow there are no bridges over the canal but in several places these ferries, but we couldn't see any boats so we're not sure how the cross the water.

The canals are pretty big.

At one end there are often statues. Theses are a bit the worse for wear.

The last two were on the lock close to Dmitrov and Yarkhoma. We saw them from the train when we went to Dmitrov but couldn't photograph them because there was a good train in the way, so it was good to see them from the boat.

When we took the train we saw the gates about 1 1/2 hours from Moscow so I was interested to see how long it would take us to get back to Moscow by water. It took 8 hours. to begin with we couldn't travel so fast and we had to travel much further to go through the resevoirs.

There were also statues along the riverbank.

We docked at about 10.30pm, and just took the metro back to Voykovskaya. After a stressful few days it was lovely to get away, even if we couldn't understand everything. My TA for the last three years comes from Tver and goes back most weekends. I can understand why. I would like to go back one day.

The last week saw me hiding in the flat as it turned hot and humid. I met up with Ruth from church who was leaving in a few weeks. Peter was working for most of the week.

And so we returned to England for the summer, enjoying Harrogate and Thirsk in Yorkshire before coming back 10 days ago.