The Soul of Russia

      Music is everywhere in Russia

 On our cruise ship the Ms Rossio, we heard music and in hotels, in theaters, in palaces in the open air while we traveled through the rivers, canals and lakes of Russia. We covered 800 miles and sailed through the two largest lakes of Europe.  Our trip got off to a rocky start on Lake Ladoga.  The waves were very high.  We were on the upper deck near the Tsar Bar and we could see the waves washing past our window.

  St. Petersburg.

Upon arrival we were given a walking tour around the Ambassador Hotel and we purchased bottled water, chocolate and crackers. I was very thirsty, but too tired to go to dinner.

Our hotel was new and very beautiful. From our window we could see the golden dome of St. Isaacs Cathedral, an apartment building with a playground in the foreground. We slept well in the very comfortable room.

 After a great breakfast, we visited the Church of the Spilt Blood, but we did not go in.  Then we visited St. Isaac’s Cathedral, a marvelous space built on a swamp.  Amazing. The heavy bronze doors and the soaring interior columns of lapis lazuli and malachite caused us to look up at a golden dome with a dove.  The place is a museum, but a small side room is used for worship since 1998. There were many beautiful mosaics.  Under Communism, many churches were torn down until someone got smart and said, “Let’s keep these as museums of atheism.”  That saved many of them. Now some are used for worship.

     While cruising the Neva and Volga Rivers aboard the ship Ms Rossia from St. Petersburg to Moscow, I was given the opportunity to learn to play the balalaika.  I thought it would be easy. A young woman Victoria recruited a small group of us willing to learn.  The balalaika is a three stringed instrument that was brought to Russia from Mongolian Tatars in the 13^th Century and developed in Russia through the 15^th Century. It is plucked with the thumb or strummed with the index finger and to this day is popular in Russia.

 Barbara and Victoria my Mentor

     I love the sound of the instrument but I am a slow learner and did not feel prepared when we were told we would play in front of an audience—everyone aboard the cruise ship!  So I quickly handed my balalaika to someone who really wanted to play it.  Victoria said I should play the spoons with the group—easy enough— and so I did keep rhythm with spoons along with the balalaika ensemble.  Then she suggested I sing some Russian songs with a chorus, so I did.  I love Russian music. .  There is something about the music that is the soul of the Russian people.  We sang Dark Is The Night, My Heart and several other Russian songs that were translated into English for us to sing. The words to these songs are heartfelt and the melodies lovely.

     Victoria Zyablatseva, our lovely young mentor, played classical music on the three stringed domra for us.  The melon shaped instrument, older than the balalaika, was burned in Red Square by Ivan the Terrible, the unstable Tsar of Russia in the 1500’s.  He had the hands cut off of anyone who played it.  Good thing for Victoria it is not like that in Russia any more. Music in Russia is everywhere: on board our cruise vessel where a young lad accordion player entertained us on the way to the dining room, and we heard classical music played by an orchestra of children at their music school.  This was better than I had expected as a young girl played her own composition on the piano. It blew me away. Before we left the U.S. we were asked to bring toys for the children at the music school that was also an orphanage.   I had brought kazoos to give the kids and their teacher rolled her eyes when I presented them. If I had known how talented these young ones were, I would have brought something more appropriate.

On our way to dinner on the ship we were serenaded by an accordion player and young women dressed in their traditional Russian garb

     At Catherine’s Palace in Pushkin a trio of men serenaded us with Russian songs.  The acoustics were marvelous and Catherine’s Palace elegant.  Outdoors is a statue of the poet Pushkin whom the poetry loving Russians admire.

We visited

 the Catherine Palace in Pushkin, an hour out of town passing the monuments of war heroes and Lenin.  We’re told that some places toppled statues of Lenin, but not St. Peterburg.  Our guide Ivan says Lenin looks like he is hailing a cab.  He does. Catherine's Palace was put back together like a broken eggshell after being bombed in WW II.  There we were serenaded by a trio singing a Capella.  The acoustics were marvelous.

                                                                Pushkin

Our dinner is not included and so we ate next door at an Ajerbajen owned restaurant.  The owner is Moslem, and our waitress who looked like a China doll is from South Russia.  Russians are all sorts—like Americans.  When I walked down the street in St. Petersburg or Moscow the people were very fashionably dress and they could have looked like people in a large city of the U.S.

My friend Wanda and I really enjoyed this trip, the art, the scenery, the people, and especially the music.  On a crowded subway in Moscow, two young women offered us their seats.  The people we met were very kind.

     At our hotel we enjoyed a jazz trio in the lounge and then we went to the ballet Swan Lake with the beautiful music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky at the Moscow Theater.  The ballet troupe and the music expressed the soul of Russia.  We enjoyed the elegant marble theater.

     In Uglich our ship was greeted by a brass band all dressed in their band uniforms.  This put us all in a happy mood.

I wish Putin were a better person.  We enjoyed the people of Russia but not the politics..

https://www.globaljourneys.com/operators/travelmarvel/ships/ms_rossia.php

Warthog for Dinner at the Boma

Warthog for Dinner at the Boma

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, Africa

          Smoked crocodile, chibuku (the  beer of good cheer) carried to our table in a bucket, marinated and grilled warthog and impala, gem squash, stir fried vegetables, and dessert were all served up to the exciting sounds of Zulu drums, tireless dancers and melodious song at the Boma.

     Visiting Victoria Falls, one of the greatest natural wonders of the world, can make a person ravenous.  And a way to savor the local cuisine and take in tribal dancing is at the thatched roof restaurant called the Boma.

          We could have had chicken or a slice of the roast pig turning on a spit over a bed of coals, or ostrich shish ka bob, but warthog is a favorite food for lions and we like it, too.  It has a delicate flavor and texture and after sighting many warthogs on the loose, we knew it was organically grown.   We watched the chef grill the meat we had chosen . The smoke rose into a night sky filled with stars we could see through the openings between the huge umbrella shaped roofs of thatch. 

          Our waiter ceremoniously brought us water to rinse our hands and we wiped them on the large stiffly starched napkins.  He then brought us chibuku beer and poured a small amount into an earthen ware cup.  My husband took a sip, and said to me, "Don't drink it!" This startled me.  It was some of Zimbabwe's home brew--an acquired taste we decided.  So then we ordered some of the excellent bottled beer of the region.

          The floor show at the Boma is extraordinary.  Several different tribal dances and songs kept us tapping our feet all through dinner.  The cast danced and sang with such enthusiasm that we could feel their unquenchable pride in their traditions. 

                    Known for their warrior traditions the Zulu dancers  moved with grace, joy and exuberance.  The dancers wore animal skins around their waists, and legs and feathers in their hair.  Their singing has been made familiar through songs such as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and those popularized by Paul Simon.

      We also were treated to dancing and singing of other tribes that evening. There are traditional African songs for many occasions, especially love songs. We felt far away from the generic food and music served up in ordinary restaurants and wished we could bring some of this home with us.

The Ghosts of Petra

 The Ghosts of Petra


     Petra is haunting in its wild beauty.  In contrast to Amman, Jordan with its uniformly white, geometric houses and tall buildings, Petra is a dreamscape of swirling colorful sandstone echoing  with the sound of galloping horses hooves and the ghostly presence of a  past civilization.

Two thousand years ago, the treasures of the ancient world poured through Petra’s narrow divide as the Nabataeans collected tribute from the caravans.  We were on our way to see what splendors this civilization had left behind.

Driving from the prosperous city of Amman to the ruins of Petra, the landscape changed to colorful sandstone outcroppings reminding us of scenes from New Mexico or Colorado. When we reached the entrance to the ancient ruins of Petra, we looked down on a spacious corral where the horses and horse wranglers could have been a scene from the western U.S. Arabs are known for their love of horses and some galloped them through the narrow canyon with high walls known as the “siq.”

Horses or horse drawn carriages for tourists are available and soon we were on our way.  A horse wrangler led my horse through the echoing canyon walls at a walk... the air grew chill in the shadow of the high walls.  I was glad I had worn a wool tweed jacket.  The passageway was a kalaidoscope of swirling  layers of rose, muted ochre, and blue sandstone.

We passed niches carved into the sandstone for bygone gods and goddesses.  One, the god of the rocks, looked Mayan with square eyes.  There is no mouth.  Why?  I’m told that the god can’t answer you. There are 800 monuments showing the splendor of a wealthy people. Water was diverted down channels carved into the rock by clever engineers.

    an Arab people called the Nabataeans, had a flourishing city around the time of Christ.  They controlled trade routes from China, India, South Arabia, Greece, Rome. Egypt and Syria by exacting tribute from all who needed to pass the narrow divide. The riches of the ancient world poured through Petra.  Excavations in Petra are ongoing: much has been uncovered, but there is still much that is hidden.

     We got off our horses and walked, then suddenly, through the narrow passageway,  we gasped as we saw a graceful  temple carved into the rose colored stone face of a cliff.  Its beauty still shines although it has been vandalized over the years.  Carved in the center over the entrance is the Nabataen death goddess Zoos, much defaced but the work very fine. Corinthian columns carved by Greek slaves in the 3rd century B.C. flank the opening of the temple, also called the Treasury because of a legend of buried treasure.

     I walk around inside this mysterious place calling out to hear my voice echo. Unlike the outside, the inside is very plain and not very spacious. From the front door I can see the colorful twisting one kilometer passageway I had just walked.

     From the front of the temple I saw an open space and a view of rock walls studded with tombs.  Perhaps the place I am standing was a temple and also a tomb. This is a mystery.It feels mysterious to me.  I am standing in the temple of the death goddess.

     After walking farther we reach a giant ampitheater that could seat 3,000 people and again I test the acoustics with my voice.  The rocks answer back. These rocks have heard many voices.  What pageantry did the ancients behold in this place?  Behind are more cave like tombs carved into the high walls of the canyon.

     Until Jordan set Petra aside as a national monument, nomadic Bedouins inhabited the place.  Now they must be out at sundown, but they are everywhere to be seen during the day, selling camel bone necklaces, jars of colored sand scenes, and other trinkets.  A winsome little Bedouin girl offers to sell me a pretty stone. An old man wearing a caftan sleeps in a cave with his feet outward.  Did Elijah look like this?

     Other Bedouins are selling tea in a cave not far from the ampitheater. We are given a taste of what life was like here thousands of years ago: a friend buys everyone in our group a cup of tea and we gaze out the wide opening of the cave at surrounding hills.  Just on top of the next hill is the High Place of Sacrifice with troughs to catch the blood that ran at this place.  Further on the center of the city and the Royal Tombs.

A Bedouin and his camel outside of the cave rest in the late afternoon sun. I do not think life has changed much for the Bedouins.

     Petra is a Greek word meaning city of rock.  The site
in south west Jordan was referred to as Sela in the Bible and was the capital of the Nabataean Kingdom until it was finally conquered by the Romans in 106 A.D.

What ghosts from the past haunt Petra?  The rocks know  but they are not telling.

Petra Jordan click here for more info