Western Crimea

Monday 13th bought the same weather again. This is our last day in the Crimea - tonight we take the train to Odessa.



Monumental GPW sculpture



As the day warmed up, we desided to have a stroll to walk off breakfast. This became more of a forced march, as we pressed ourselves uphill to find a sometimes visible monumental sculpture in the heat and humidity. Around us, Sevastopol shakily stirred to the working week - this was about 9.00 am, but there's not much hurry and no rush hour here.

Finally, after much back-tracking and a number of hills we found our objective. A statue of this size is pretty difficult to hide and it was placed on top of a hill. The statue commemorates the role of the army and the navy in liberating Sevastopol in the Great Patriotic War. Is is visible from parts of the harbour - except where is is obscured by the large concrete Hero City Obelisk or by the large concrete unfinished apartment block.

Anna picked us up and we headed off. first to St Clement's Monastery, near Inkerman. You can see the site of teh Inkerman battle from outside the monasterery. The monastey itslelf is a small establishment with accomodation and a small church partly set into a limestone cliff face.

Next stop was the Khan's palace at Bakhchysaray, which was the paalce of the head of the Crimean Tartars and ruler of Crimea until Catherine II seized the area. The palace is an Islamic structure, largely of wood and stone. It resembles the more grand Islamic palaces of Turkey and Spain and with some similar features like ornate doors and fountains, a harem and open meeting rooms with intricate decoration, all set in a garden of roses and shade trees. We toured the palace.

Uspensky Monastery

Next stop was the nearby Uspensky (Assumption) Monastery. You approach by a rising path to reach the monastery set high into the cliffs. A small gold-domed church is built into the limestone. From here, you can get a good view of the narrow valley and the steep cliffs on either side.

This area is home to Crimean Tartars, who were expelled by Stalin in 1944 and allowed to return in the early 1990's. We had a late lunch at a Tartar restaurant, whcih proved very good, supported by some real fresh oprange juice and Crimean lemonade.

Boarding our last train at Simferopol

Next stop was Simferopol railway station. After a wait, our train arrived and we boarded for our last train trip. This was a very new first-class compartment, though it proved to the over-heated in the now familiar style. The countryside outside was flat agricultural land, generally sown with large fields of wheat. We had a final train meal ("we have meat, fish or chicken") in the restaurant car, with a Chardonnay of unknown origin, as the train rattled across Crimea.

Sevastopol - Rest Day

Today is Sunday 12th and it's a rest day, with nothing planned.

We are maintaining our record as "sun gods" - the day was cloudless and warm. We took a stroll in the morning. We looked in on two churches - but were full, with everybody standing. At one, street sellers sold bunches of flowers or green leaves to churchgoers who carried them into the church, but from our brief look inside, it wasn,t clear what the purpose was.

Sailors & marines at the war memorial

Further on we found a crowd at the 41-45 War Memorial in Nakimova Square. Russian flags were flying and there were ranks of sailors and an honour guard of marines, along with a military band. We suspect that the celebration was for Russia Day. In a brief ceremony, various anthems were played, the marines snapped to attention, a group of assembled dignitataries advanded to the memorial carrying flowers and then the marines and the banded smartly marched off. Everybody then dispersed.

Everyone strolls in the park on Sunday morning

We called in on the Black Sea Fleet Museum. Russian-only captions made this difficult, be we got some sense of the fleet history that was being being described. There were many Russian sailors about - there seemed to be some sort of concert or assembly near the Fleet Museum, presumably for Russia Day.

Sunday is clearly the day for family strolling in spite of the rising heat and humidity. We found a flea market and an art market - both of similar quality.

Lunch was Japanese and wasn't bad, particularly if you prefer very lukewarm miso. Of course, it was the weekend, so it wasn't possible to put sushi nto a square bento box. Fortunately, it was possible to put it into a round container.

Cruiser Moskova - Russian flagship

We had a rest for a while and then headed out for a harbour tour in the somewhat cooler late afternoon. We spent 45 minutes in a small boat cruising the harbour, mainly seeing the dark grey ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and the lighter grey Ukrainain Navy ships.

Our hotel has a restaurant with a large marble balcony overlooking part of the harbour. We had dinner there, which gave us the opportunity to sample a local Inkerman dry red, which wasn't bad.

The Southern Crimean Coast

On Saturday 11th, we were collected by Anna and taken on a tour of the southern coast of the Crimea. It was yet another cloudless, sunny day of about 27 C.

Inside an underground submarine pen

First stop was Balaclava, a small town south of Sevastopol which has been occupied for 2500 years. The remnants of the 15th century Genoese fortress of Cembalo can be seen on the hills above the harbour. The town has a brilliant natural harbour that made it attractive to seafarers - narrow and easily defended, with a S-shaped sweep of water and with the entrance largely concealed from the sea. It's too small for large ships, but it attracts many pleasure craft. It's shape also attracted Stalin, who ordered construction of an underground submarine storage and maintenance facility here during the cold war.

Michael & Anna in the underground arsenal

We visited the Balaclava submarine facility, which was decommissioned at the end of the Soviet era. The underground submarine pens are only large enough for the small diesel-electric subs that the USSR operated in the Black Sea, but the facility seems very secure, with large blast doors, and very well equiped, with dry docks, maintenance facilities and an arsenal. Apparently the USSR stored nuclear munitions in the arsenal.



From there, we crossed the Balaclava battlefield valley and drove along the southern coast of the Crimea, with the road perched between rugged montain cliffs and the sea below. We paased through Foros, which has two attractions of note. It contains Gorbachev's dacha, where he was held under house arrest during the abortive 1991 coup attempt and also the small gold-domed Church on the Rock, perched high on a crag overlooking the sea.



Alupka Palace view

Next stop was Alupka Palace. Built by the immensely wealthy regional governor, Count Vorontsov over ten years from 1830, ths palace is part Scottish castle and part Mugal fantasy. Winston Churchill stayed here durng the Yalta conference in 1945. The palace has a wonderful garden with great views, stretching steeply down to the sea.

We had a great lunch at a restaurant with spectacular views. The main sight was Swallows Nest, a tiny "castle" precariously placed on the very edge of a sheer cliff overlooking the Black Sea. We had an feast of caviar, vodka, chicken kiev and crimean white and enjoyed the sunshine and the views.

The Yalta decisions were made at the far table

Next stop was the Livadia Palace near Yalta. This was the site of the 1945 Yalta peace conference which detemined the shape of post-WWII Europe and various displays reflect that conference. It was also the favourite holiday destination of Nicholas II and his family. It doesn't feel like a palace, but much more like a family home, with rooms that are wood panelled and "family sized".

Yalta beach

We drove to Yalta and had a strll along the waterfront promenade. There is very little beach; just two small sections of pebbles, both packed with people sunning themselves like a tightly packed group of seals. An ugly restaurant shaped like an Eqyptian boat on tall stilts protruded out from the promenade across the water. The promenade was crowded with tourists enjoying the Saturday sun. Yalta must be impossible at the peak of the season in July/August. Most tourists here are Russians, though there were some French from a cruise ship in Yalta harbour.



From Yalta, it was home to Sevastpol via the same cliff road. This is a fishing area, so we had a good fish meal at a harbourside restaurant.

Crimea Day 1 - Sevastopol

Our train arrived at about 5:40 am, which was 30 minutes late. Of course, we didn't understand that there was a time zone change, so we were up an hour too early.

Anyway, we met our guide and were driven to our hotel in the centre of Sevastopol. We got our room immediately and caught up on missing sleep. After a few hours, we had breakfast and did a preliminary recon before we met our guide, Anna, for a tour.

The Foggy Bell at Khersones

Sevastopol is a very attractive city on a large and pretty harbour, so that it has a Mediterranean feel in the blue skies and sunshine. There are a number of coves and inlets within the harbour, with the main harbour being over 7 km long. Both the Russian Black Sea Fleet and the Ukranian Navy are based here, with ships of both evident in the harbour. The Russian Fleet is a major employer, because of its use of Sevastopol services and companies.

We were driven to the nearby ruins of the Greek (and Roman) city of Khersones, which was founded in 421 BC.. At its height in the 4th century AD, this was a city of about 20000, though the city didn't die out until about 1400. This site includes remnants of Greek and Roman houses, fortifications and a theatre, along with subsequent alterations by the Ottomans. Famously, the Rus leader Volodymyr the Great was baptised here in 989 AD and thereafter launched the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia.

From there, we drove to the Panorama Museum on a nearby height, which was the positon of a bastion defence in the Crimean War. This consists of an immense painting (115m x 14m) in a circular building, with 3-D props in the foreground (much like the Belgorod diorama), which portrays the siege of Sevastopol in the Crimean war. The seige lasted 349 days. Of course, the Crimean War made no real change to the status quo, other than the loss of about 500,000 men (Russia "lost", but in the peace negotiations kept Crimea and Sevastopol).

The "Valley of Death" at Balaclava

From there we went to the Diorama Museum on Sapun Mount, just outside the city. The diorama is dedicated to the assult on this mount by Russian troops to reclaim Sevastopol in the Great Patriotic War. The diorama is again a large painting (25.5m x 5.5m) with 3-D foreground props. It is well executed and vividly depicts the final rapid assalt which freed the city.

The observation deck in front of the diorama looks out over the Valley of Death, where the Charge of the Light Brigade happened at the Battle of Balaclava in 1854. It is a wide valley, with numbers of small rises, which today is largely vineyards. With some instruction, it is possible to understand where the battle occurred and how the famous charge happened.

Harbourside restaurant in Sevastopol

From there, it was back to town. We were guided around part of the town, including squares and monuments, before we farewelled our guide and settled in for a beer by the waterfront. We continued to wander and after another beer, headed off to a well regarded local restaurant for an excellent fish meal washed down with some Inkerman sauvigon blanc - yes, we had found something close to Russian wine (actually Crimean wine, but it once was part of Russia and also part of the USSR).

It might be worth making a brief comment about ethnicity here. Eastern Ukraine and particularly the Crimea is peopled mainly by Russians, with Russian the local language. In many respects these people feel disenfranchised by the dissolution of the Soviet Union and their loss of Soviet (meaning Russian) identity. Western Ukraine is apparently different, with people seeing themselves as Ukrainian and speaking that language. The Russian Fleet is here in Sevastopol until 2042 (at least).

Belgorod

A Katyuska at the Dioarama

Thursday 9^th was our last day in Russia. We loaded our bags into Alex’s car and headed off to the Diorama. This wasn’t yet open, so we had a stroll in the park. Belgorod has numbers of parks and seems to have preserved its trees on the streets. The town of about 300,000 seems clean and well cared for.

We had a look at the Diorama. The by now familiar collection of Soviet armour was evident at front and back of the building. Inside, the diorama is actually quite impressive. It consists of a large, semi-circular painted background, with a life-sized battlefield in the foreground. You view this from a balcony about two metres above the battlefield. The whole effect gives some understanding of the confused and violent environment of the Prokhovovka battle with its mass of tanks and infantry.

Following a coffee, we had a look at the Regional Museum, which surveyed the local fauna and history from the Neanderthals to the current day, including mammoth tusks and bones and stone age flints and axes.

We visited mass grave and memorial for 2500 locals who were killed by the Nazis during the occupation. We then headed off to the city centre for lunch. Lunch was at a popular buffet restaurant, a style which seems common in Russia.

Shortly, it was time to head to the station, where we found our train to Sevastopol. We have all four beds in a second class compartment, so we have it to ourselves. Russian immigration locks the train at the station and deals with the departure formalities without problem.

The train moves off. A stream of entrepreneurs pass along the corridors offering clothes, trinkets, money exchange and heaven knows what else, a process that continues for some hours. This is something that we haven’t seen previously.

Our Second-class compartment

It’s only a short distance to the border, where Ukrainian immigration officers board. One didn’t seem to like us or our passports, so he wandered off  to find a comrade who spoke some English, with sounds of “Australian” resonating down the corridor. We didn’t understand the concern, as we had the correct visa. We were asked for evidence of where we would be staying or details of the tour company we were using. They weren’t interested in our Russian tour company, but luckily we had a confirmation for our Odessa hotel. Still they persisted – “tourism?”; “how long are you staying in Ukraine?” We liked the next question – “do you have any Australian money you can show me?” – which prompted a confused “no” from us, even though we were both thinking that this was a Ukrainian shake-down. They lost interest and stamped our passports.

Our train stopped at Kharkov, where numbers of passengers alighted. About an hour or two later, three men flashed id-cards and wanted to see our passports and tickets. They had very little English. The examined our passports in detail, muttering over our Ukrainian visas. We explained that we were Australians, that we got the visa in Australia and we were travelling to Sevastopol and Odessa. After some more muttering, they gave us back our passports and with a gruff “good luck”, left us. We can only think that they see very few non-Russian tourists and were are therefore somewhat suspicious.

We now knew something of why Russians told us that they preferred to holiday in the Red Sea, Turkey or Cyprus, where service standards were higher.

The friendly welcome for tourists in the Ukraine is starting to look an exaggeration……..

We then rolled on though the Ukrainian countryside into the night. We hit the sack early, as the train was due in Sevastopol at the unsociable time of 5:05 am the following morning.

Prokhorovka



View of Kurst Salient Memorial



Our train pulled into Belgorod on Wednesday 8th on-time at 7:23 am, where we were met by Alex, who was to be our guide. After checking in to our hotel, we set off.



Our objective was to explore and understand the Battle of Prokhorovka - the link gives a good overview of the battle and why it was important. Prokhorovka is a village about 50 km north of Belgorod.



Matthew, Michael, T-34 at Kurst Memorial



First stop was the Kursk Salient memorial. As with all the memorials we saw, it was adjacent to the fields where the battles occurred. The country is very gently rolling agricultural land - there are no real hills, only rises and depressions, so that the countryside is largely featureless. The Salient Memorial is actually a series of memorials; a large main memorial comprising of a wide steel sculpture and a number of smaller memorials, including a re-creation of the defensive trenches and a T-34 tank on a plinth. This was not the last T-34 that we would see this day. There is a good museum underneath the memorial itself, though all the captions are in Russian only.

The proximity to the battlefield tells the greater story - with green fields rolling away from the memorial.



At the Prokhorovka Memorial bell-tower


Next we went to the Prokhorovka memorial. This is a large bell tower at one side of the Prokhorovka battlefield, with an adjoining field displaying Russian tanks, tank-killers, armoured vehicles and howitzers.This ia a relatively recent memorial (in the last ten years) and is well done. The battlefield itself spreads away in front of the memorial.

After this we went into Prokhorovka village itself. This is a small village, but it now contains a hotel, a memorial church and a museum. The memorial church seems recent (especially inside) and is quite moving with the names of Russian dead etched in gold in the marble walls inside the church.

The adjacent museum is only one year old, but it is excellent. It tells the story of the people of the village in the war, including its occupation, and of the battle in the surrounding field. Captions in English make the experience vivid. Graphics display the defences of the Soviet army and the penetration of the German tanks.



View from the bunker - just a field - but where it all happened

Outside the museum, a recreation of battlefield defences shows the entrenchments used, but is enhanced by parts of destroyed tanks and vehicles found in the battlefields. In fact, battlefield remnants are still being found, as are remains of combatants.



We had a good lunch in the Prokhorova hotel. Afterwards we went to the battle bunker of the commanding Russian General, which was brilliantly placed to survey the battlefield.

The spring water is good

Then we went to a communal gravesite memorial in a small village. For many of the dead, communal gravesites are all that remain. At this memorial, we forutitously met a woman who was the administrator of the local village area. While she had only Russian, she insisted on taking us on a tour of local sites.



She led us to a lake, with a sandy beach being enjoyed by a number of locals. The lake was fed by a number of springs of clear, cold, delicious water. The local community were developing an tourist attraction around this spring, including a plunge pool and a museum of typical past housing. We had the full tour.

Battlefield memorial to a brave anti-tank crew

She then took us to a small memorial in a field of small sunflower plants. This was in remembrance of one Russian unit and the particular bravery of an anti- tank group that destroyed seven Panzers before being overwhelmed, but who thereby blunted the German advance. This position was actually directly over the rise from the bell-tower memorial and emphasised the tightness of the battle and the effect of the low rises.



She then led us to a crossroads where she passed us over to another man, who seemed to be a representative of the adjoining village area. While we initialy thought that the woman, who was unsmiling or was unhappy with our presence, she proved to be delighted that Australians were there and determined to show us important things and to generously give up her time to help us.

Mass grave & memorial in a local village

Our new local guide led us to a local memorial. This was another mass-gravesite, with a prominent Orthodox cross (erected since the fall of Soviet Russia). Ths gravesite is now closed, but others remain open to accept the remains that continue to be found.

We headed back to Belgorod and our hotel. Given the early start, this had been a full day and much more than we really expected, given that we really didn't know what we might find here.

A beer and a shower refreshed us enough to head for the restaurant that was next to the hotel. It was quite good, with good food and a fine Chilean chardonnay. This was our last dinner in Russia and we enjoyed it.



Moscow - Day 3

Tuesday 7th was our final day in Moscow. The weather continued the pattern - blue skies, bright sunshine and about 25 C.

Tverskaya Street

We started the day with a walk towards Red Square from our hotel. The total distance is about 3 km, b the walk took us down Tverskaya Street to Teatralnaya Square (outside the Bolshoi) and then in a loop back up Petrovka Street, with various wanderings between. These are the main up-market shopping areas of Moscow. Every major expensive retailer of cars, jewellery, watches and fashion was represented. We stopped for a coffee and brioche at one cafe and enjoyed the wandering in the open air.

The streets contain attractive buildings, both for shops and for government offices. There is clearly plenty of money around!

Matthew in the large Puskinskaya McDonalds

We sampled various foods today, preferring to graze on small serves. We started with the brioche, we had a small burger at a McDonalds (just to experience it - it was very large and very well patronised), later an excellent club sandwich and then a small serve of assorted of pirogzhe in the evening. For the economists - a Big Mac cost 77 rbl (about A$2.60).

We did plenty of additional walking, finding a pretty residential area around park with a fish pond (called Patriach Ponds) - it seemed rather like the South Yarra of Moscow.

Izmailovo Market

In the afternoon we took the Metro out to a market called Izmailovo in the suburbs. It is reputed to have a wide selection of Russian souvenirs. Apparently it is busy on weekends, but was very quiet today. It is adjacent to what looked to be a very kitch theme park, which we had no difficulty avoiding. However, we did find some souvenirs to buy.

Back in the central city we had a quenching ale, a wander around the Gum arcade, by Red Square, and then a further ale before heading back to our hotel to relax before heading for our train.

We have had three busy days in Moscow. Helped by the superb weather, we have travelled far and wide to see many of the sights of this city.

Our train is only a 10 hour trip, which seems so short after our previous journeys. However, we are seasoned train travellers by now, so we think that we know the ropes. We asked the hotel to call a taxi and were told 30 minutes. The hotel offered to have the doorman flag down a car. We found that this was quite literal – he stood outside and flagged down passing cars, negotiating with three until the fourth agreed to take us to the station for a normal taxi price. The statement that any car in Moscow is a taxi seems to be true.