In Russia Anything is Possible

Petropavlovsk, Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia

Friday, July 26, 2019

Two items first:

Forgive the multiple postings of some documents. There is a prompt that sometimes appears after I push the “Publish” button telling me it didn’t post. Evidently it sometimes does post. 

The name of the city we visited on the Kamchatka peninsula is Petropavlovsk but sometimes that is spell-corrected to something very similar. After the first four syllables of a Russian word one forgets what one meant to say, one does.

It seems that on every voyage the port that sounded so dry and dull on paper turns out to be a quirky delight. Case in point, Petropavlovsk.

As warned, getting all the paperwork processed so we can go ashore that normally takes about ten minutes in a western world port takes hours in an eastern bloc port. We landed before dawn (at 6 am today) but the first passengers (those with passports from South America, Eastern Europe and any other spot in the world deemed not a threat to Mother Russia) weren’t permitted off the boat until at least 9. The rest of us with either HAL excursions or previously booked private excursions waited another hour or so before collecting our passports, now stamped with temporary visa, and heading down the gangway to have another official check for that stamp and then another do a passport face match.

And then we got on a bus that was built for commuter travel. The instructions on the hand holds suspended from the ceiling are in Chinese characters. There is also a fringed curtain that runs all around the windows making it very festive. It’s very clean and we have plenty of room. Rarely does HAL fill a bus to capacity. If there are 40 people on a tour, better to have two buses with 20 people on each than 40 on one bus which guarantees whining from somebody.

Our guide is Maria, 40-ish, stylishly dressed and a grin and a giggle from moment one. I’m not sure that she ever introduced the driver, but he was the strong, silent type not a cowboy as some of them can be. Lucky for us his manhood did not depend on how fast he could get from point A to point B, narrow streets and curving roads be damned.

First impression: Nice cars. In Russia. Huh? Toyotas of every size but mostly SUVs, the occasional Lexus and Land Rover. Per Maria: “Japan is our closest neighbor. Toyotas cost the same as Russian cars. We all choose Toyotas.”

Second impression: All those Toyotas have either left hand drive or right hand drive. Again, huh? They drive on the right as we do so why have a right hand drive. Per Maria: “In Russia, anything is possible. Most of eastern Russia prefers right hand drive. That’s what I have. The only problem is the airport parking lot; the toll taker is on the left side.” She also said that the government attempted to decree that all cars must be left hand drive but there was so much opposition from the eastern half of the country that they gave up. Kamchatka is so isolated (accessible only by water or air) that I’m wondering if “They” thought it even worth the trouble.

More car stuff. Like Juneau, Dutch Harbor and, it seems, any geographically isolated town or city, there aren’t that many roads in Petropavlovsk and those that are seem pretty crowded.  As Ivan (gotta give the guy a name) wormed his way through the traffic — there must be Italian DNA hereabouts. Parked cars are seemingly left here and there and the intersections! There are some traffic lights, but mostly it seems that left turners have the right away except when they don’t but think they still do. Ivan, bless his heart, actually waited until the coast was clear to make his turns. As I was sitting at the window on the left side of the bus, I did so appreciate his caution.

Petropavlovsk is the largest city on the peninsula, where most of the 300,000 live. It’s built along the harbor and surrounding hills. The Avacha Bay is HUGE! It has a narrow opening that protects it from tsunamis. Surrounding the bay and city are volcanoes. Everywhere. And many of them are the classic cone shape, all with snow. I don’t think it’s possible to take a picture anywhere in the city  without one photo bombing in the background. 

As luck would have it, the fleet is in! Navy Day is Saturday so there are several navy ships and submarines at anchor. None of the vessels look like new warships so we’re thinking this lot is for show not go. The sailors (hundreds of them) gathered in Lenin Square (I think it also doubles as a parking lot because I can see lined parking spaces but it has a statue of Lenin so it’s Lenin Square) to practice for tomorrow’s celebration. 

Ivan took us from here to there and then back to here, passing, I kid you not, a Gold’s Gym several times, to see various monuments and the beautiful Russian Orthodox cathedral before we went up, up, up to a view point above the city and harbor. Such a beautiful day which I gather is a rarity. Maria told us that they have a lot of winter sports, skiing, skating, snowmobiling and the children are very good at all of them. But they should be because winter lasts about nine months. Then she said, “Tourism is a big business here. Hiking, fishing, hunting. People come to enjoy it in the summer. (Dramatic pause) Which is August.”

Our main destination, though, was the Vulcanarium, “a most modern museum of volcanoes.” We arrived to find a nice, newish building, but very small and cramped inside. Various rooms of rocks and stuff. Honestly it looked like a science fare in a middle school cafeteria. We first were ushered into a “lava cave,” each of us thinking, this is gonna be a very long hour. But then, Katarina appeared, pointer stick in hand. Maybe 30-something, adorable with a lovely, lilting voice. And she knew her stuff which she communicated very capably in English. She led us from room to room, doing little demonstrations of lava flow, breaking lava glass, etc with her handy-dandy little blow torch. What a good teacher. After all our travel around the Ring of Fire we thought we might have a degree in volcanoes by now but we learned a lot from her. I picked up a flyer on my way out. vulcanarium.com. On my list to look up when we’re home with fast internet. On that note, Lordy, but we’re spoiled. 

We made one more stop on our way back to the ship at the Market. It’s a two story mall with small shops selling clothes, shoes, toys, pet food and caviar! Half of the first floor was a meat and fish market, so clean it had no fish smell other than the enticing odor of smoked fish. And then there’s the caviar. Big vats of it. Buy it scooped into a container or canned to take home. Many different kinds, all available for sampling like Costco on a Saturday afternoon. Except it’s caviar and not Hot Pocket bites from a toaster oven. There was a small fresh food market outside with gorgeous radishes and other root vegetables plus lettuces and flowers. So tempting but what am I going to do with a bunch of radishes in Stateroom #117? Pras and Joko, our stewards, would be stumped. I took too long to finish my apology truffles from the Pinnacle Grill maître d’ so they tossed them! Pras said they were starting to “look funny” and he didn’t want me to get sick. Jim gave me a side eye that said, “don’t even try to tell them that chocolate never looks ‘funny.’” 

Part of the fun of a shore excursion is asking the guide questions about life in their city or country. Obviously there is a whole lot of capitalism happening in this little corner of the Motherland. Small businesses are everywhere, with big, flashy signs. I remember next to nothing of the Russian I learned in the early 70s so who knows what they were selling. Lines at the ATMs in the Market and lots of people shopping. There are new buildings, all faced with colorful, shiny material, that contrast with the usual cement, Soviet Bloc style apartment houses. Mary said that most people live in apartments, some own them and some have small houses up on the hillsides. When she’s not a tour guide she is an English teacher. For the past decade or so, the only foreign language taught in their schools was English. But she said her 9-year-old daughter came home with a notice that in the future they would also be learning German. She’s not too sure why German is back in the curriculum. There are two colleges and a medical college in Petropavlovsk but the best and the brightest go away to school and rarely return. It’s hard to keep them down on the farm and all that. I can’t blame them. The peninsula is so isolated. The hope is that the ferry service between Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk will be revived. The only real option right now is air service. Can you imagine relying on Aeroflot? No, thank you.

We got back to the ship around 2 where the afternoon tourers were waiting to go and do. All aboard was 5:30 but an hour later we were still at the dock with the pilot boat circling around waiting for us to leave so he could follow along, pick up the pilot and be done for the day. Around 7 the captain came over the loudspeakers to say that the paperwork was taking longer than expected but “we’re in no hurry” so what the hay. We were sitting at a window table in the dining room when we finally left the harbor. I just cannot tell you how fabulous it is to sail by an endless string of volcanoes. Supposedly the one across the harbor let out a bit of steam late last night at sunset. But like Katarina told us, there are 30 active volcanoes hereabouts and one of them is always doing something.

Now, on to Japan.