Kizhi would be the northern-most point on our journey, being just north of the 62' Parallel. Once we left the Island, we would be heading south and west, re-tracing our path -- a kind of
deja-vu or a film being run backward
: from Lake Onega into the Svir River again, and then back through the canal locks ("haven't I seen these rusty moving walls before?"), and heading toward the delta with Lake Ladoga. (We had actually passed today's destination on the trip northeast, and not been able to see it.) Mandrogi lies on a lazy side-channel of the Svir, just a few miles from Lake Ladoga. We sailed all thro the night, and arrived there about 10:30 on the morning of June 6.
This is the first building you see when you exit the ship's gangway on come on to the Mandrogi peninsula. It is the Souvenir shop...
Then we encountered this cherub as part of the welcoming committee; I don't know where he came from, nor what the yellow tag said. (Probably "If found, Return to ________"). He bore a striking resemblance to one of our sons when he was about that age (3 or 4)...
In 1997, in the middle of that chaotic transition from Socialism to Capitalism, St Petersburg developer and entrepreneur Sergei Gutzeit came up with the Mandrogi project. There had been a small village at this location known as Verkhnie Mandrogi (literally "Upper Falls"), but it was completely destroyed in World War II, and the land had been wild and unoccupied after that. Whether Gutzeit had just read Massie's
Land of the Firebird, or had just returned from Disneyland in California, I don't know. But he decided to build a vacation spot here, a replica of an imaginary Russian village during Russia's Golden Age (1863 - 1881): a place that would never exist again, and perhaps never had existed in the past. A perfect beautiful Russian Village, like Disneyland's Main Street. A Russian version of Disneyland, in other words. First, a modern hotel built to look like a log roadhouse of the 19th Century, but with all modern amenities.
Then Restuarants as lavish as any in the two capitals. Boarding house, Private Villas, Windmills. Livery Stables, Outdoor BBQ and picnic areas. Amusements, droshky rides. Taverns. Tea rooms. A vodka museum. Forest hiking trails. Actors dressed as sparking-clean peasants, and friendly gentry. By 2004, Mandrogi had become a self-sustaining entity, like Disney Worldin Florida. everyone living there worked for the Company. Thousands flocked there every year, particularly as a stop-over for river cruises from Moscow and St Petersburg. Here is a magnificent snow slide, closed now in the warm months, but the center of attraction during
Mastlenitsa, the famous Russian Winter Festival ....
We were accompanied now by 2 young people from Petersburg who we'd met on the side deck just before arrival
: a charming girl of 14 who spoke rathter good English (so there were more than 1-and-1/2, after all) and her 9-year old brother (who was too shy to speak English, though he knew a bit). We had been sitting in the deck chairs, conversing, when she came up asked us
"Do you have the time?"
We told her, and asked her to join us, since her English was very understandable. There were a good number of Russian teenagers on board, and their dress and behavior was totally indistinguishable from their American counterparts -- loud, unruly, rude, irresponsible, cliquish. This girl -- though she was dressed in a denim jacket and skirt -- did not fit with that group. And she said so.
"They are all so... how do you say...stuck-up...and act like their group is the only group that belongs on the boat. They are very silly...and very childish."
We asked if she knew any of them back in Petersburg.
"Oh no, they are all from nicer neighborhoods than ours,"
she confessed.
"Ah, there you have it," I remarked
"They are snobs."
"Snobs? That's a good word for them..." she replied.
Her grandparents had a small dacha not far from Mandrogi, and they were coming to pick up she and her brother; their parents had driven-up earlier in the week, and the whole family would stay at the dach a for the summer. They had been to Mandrogi many times and offered to show us around the resort.
Here is a lovely colorful cottage, straight out of Krylov's Fairy Tales...
And this is the Shektel-esque food and gift emporium...
This is the pony-ride station...
This is the conference center, secluded among the trees...
And here am I, resting beneath Masha the Vodka Bear, on the porch of the Vodka Museum. (Ed spent a good deal of time there)...
Can you guess what this is? If you said 'Tea house', you are observant (look atop the chimney)
.
You can imagine this is Lev Tolstoy's wife and daughter out on the lawn at Yasnaya Polyana...
Another classic villa from Russia's Golden age...
Here is the traditional Nineteenth-Century Russian Roadside Tavern, Restaurant and Boarding House...
And here are the silver samovars, all cleaned and polished; they will be used for the great cook-out under the different colored tents...
This is the highlight of the Mandrogi experience. Each cruise ship is assigned a tent pavilion, and around 1:30 or so, the Belinsky passengers lined up for the serve-yourself BBQ. All the culinary crew are dressed in period costumes...
This would be the best meal we would have in Russia (it was also our last full sit-down meal). We had hot-off-the-grill pork
shiskabobs, lots of fresh raw salad vegetables, dark bread, warm German Potato-salad, pitchers of drinks, and all-you-can-gobble dessert pastries. The Russian girl and boy were no longer with us, having been reunited with their family. It was just Ed and Natasha with us at the table. Ed insisted we sample his keep-sake mini-bottle from the vodka Museum. There are literally hundreds of kinds of Vodka in Russia;this particular variety appeared to be Napalm flavored; one sip was more-than-enough. But all too soon it was 3 PM. Time was drawing near for our rendezvous with the escape car. As we neared the gravel road that ran parallel to the river channel where the ships were moored, we saw the tell-tale black car; Ed and Natasha were standing by it, pointing us out to the driver... Yes, we are the ones going home.
