Steve and Cathy's Blog

We arrive at the Economia port, which is the container port for Arkangelsk: “Russian: Арха́нгельск, IPA: [ɐrˈxanɡʲɪlʲsk]), also known in English as Archangel and Archangelsk.” -Wikipedia. It is 60 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny. Yay! This port is neat, orderly and modern, but is about 16 kilometers from the city. So we begin our tour driving through an old, decrepit industrial area that appears to have been abandoned after the fall of the Soviet Union. There certainly is no cruise terminal, per se, and given that the summer lasts two months (July, August) and winter four months (November through April), we can understand why. We even learn that the White Sea is frozen for five months in winter but modern icebreakers are able to keep the port open. So the container port is our ship’s home.

Our guide is Elena, and you see her in the photo above. Her English is excellent, and, truth be told, Steve has a crush on her about thirty minutes into our tour. Our driver’s name is Alexander.

Elena begins by telling us about the Arkangelsk Oblast. An oblast is an administrative region in Russia, and this one is enormous – about 600,000 square kilometers, larger than the country of France. But its total population, including the city of Arkangelsk, is under one million.  The city’s population is around 350,000, but, like Murmansk, it has been dropping. 

The economy during the second half of the 20^thcentury was dominated by the timber industry. The sawmills have been here for 100 years, and were privately owned, but of course they were nationalized. Since the reforms, I suspect that many of them were shut down as antiquated, but Elena says there is one sawmill and paper mill – privately owned again – in the city.

The three industries of note in the Arkangelsk Oblast are fishing, oil and gas and – ready for this? – diamond extraction. Diamonds were discovered in 1980. The city is home to Northern Federal University, and specializes in Arctic research. It is one of ten federal universities in Russia.

As for the fishing industry, people from Arkangelsk were once known as “cod eaters.” Another sea-based industry developing is seaweed processing, used in pharmaceuticals.

We reach the city, and pass a gas station. Regular gas sells for 47.01 rubles per litre. Here’s how that converts to our measuring system and currency: there are 3.78541 litres to a US gallon. Each ruble is worth $.016, so each litre costs $.75216. .75216 X 3.67541 litres = $2.76 per gallon. Pretty much the same as in the United States We see all different makes of cars, from Lexus to VW to Ford and Chevy (obviously manufactured in Europe). We pass by a shopping mall – a large one.

Shortly after crossing the Dvina River, which runs through Arkangelsk, we make our first stop at a souvenir store. Elena tells us proudly that this one has been open since 1968. There is also an outdoor stand that Cathy immediately gravitates to, seeing many Matrushka dolls, which are the classic Russian nesting dolls. Steve goes inside the store, which is about twenty-five feet wide by maybe forty feet long and is packed with stuff. 

I have been freezing cold since we arrived in the Shetland Islands. It’s my own fault, as I ludicrously thought that a 24-hour day would mean temperatures in the 60’s – as guide books suggested. For the most part, the temps have been in the 50s at best, mostly the low 50s. Having worn the one sweatshirt and one sweater that he packed for – hello- a journey above the Arctic Circle!,  Steve is definitely in the market for warmer clothing. He spies a rack of gorgeous knit sweaters, and decides that he must have one. Cathy has by now joined him, and helps him pick one out. 400 Rubles, which computes to $60 – an incredible bargain. Cathy finds a beautiful cloth hot mat that looks like a small rag rug. Adorable.

Back on the bus. Our guide points out the site of Trinity Church, destroyed by the fun-loving Bolsheviks in the 1930s. We pass by a British cemetery, opened in 1919, commemorating those soldiers who died in 1918-9, those who fought after  WWI ended, attempting to keep the Russian government from being defeated by Lenin and Trotsky’s forces. 

We arrive at the principal stop of our excursion, the Northern Maritime Museum. As mentioned before, Russians have every right to be proud of their Arctic explorations, and we are told that 200 of them began here in Arkangelsk. The city is still considered the gateway to the Arctic region. [An aside from Steve: I would think that folks here would be trumpeting the opening of the Northeast Passage. I have read that this region is the focus of a great deal of tough diplomacy. The Russian government is proclaiming dominion over a lot of territory and countries like Canada, the United States, Norway and Denmark (because of Greenland) are challenging that. Elena has mentioned nothing, and neither did Tatiana on my tour in Murmansk. Curious.]

Right after we enter, we meet our museum guide Ivan, who takes us through the collections. He is a researcher at the museum, and his enthusiasm for the subjects he is introducing us to is infectious. As we tour exhibit after exhibit, he imparts more information than we can possibly absorb, especially about the history of ships and shipping from the very early days to the present. Steve can’t keep up with his torrent of information, which is a shame, but here are a few interesting, random remarks:

• Because of Russia’s size, few citizens are aware of the history of the entire country, but they are quite familiar with regional history.
• Slavic people from central Russia arrived in the north in the 10^thcentury, driven by the interest in trade. 
• He refers to the people here in the northern reaches of Russia as Pomors, something akin to “those who are accustomed to freedom.” Arkangelsk is a long, long way from the central government in Moscow, and it has been an advantage to be sort of ignored by them. Add to that the long history of trade between Russia and Britain (dating from the 1500s) and you have a somewhat different political culture.
• There are still many Sami people in this region. They are not allowed to share their culture with those in Finland, Sweden and Norway.
• What has driven Russian trade since the 1500s has been the search for the Northeast Passage.

If he were allowed, he would spend all day with us. What a great asset to this museum. Unfortunately, we must depart, having had wonderful schooling from such an enthusiastic person.

Our next stop is a pedestrian-only section of Chumbarovska Street that runs through a neighborhood with some of the homes from different centuries and some small shops. We stop at several pieces of metal sculpture, while Elena explains their significance. She points out a house that is typical of the construction in northern Russia. The first floor is built about four feet off the ground to protect it from the cold, damp soil. Cathy spots, of all things, a Tupperware store. 

Our last stop is back at the Dvina River at the site of a large monument dedicated the 100,000 local people who lost their lives in The Great Patriotic War (known to us at World War II). There are also three other smaller monuments nearby. One is dedicated to all those who risked or lost their lives in the convoys bringing supplies to Russia in WWII. In fact, such is the gratitude of the people in northern Russia for those convoys that every five years on August 31^st, a celebration of the arrival of the first convoy, named Dervish, is held.

Another is that of a seal, the significance of which is to remember those who were willing to organize expeditions to the islands in the White Sea in search of seal meat to bring back to the starving people of Arkangelsk during the Great Patriotic War. Elena notes that 38,000 people died of hunger between 1941 and 1943 in her city.

Our guide has one more monument to which she wants to introduce us: a statue of Peter the Great. Not only did this czar build St. Petersburg, but he was the person that built the first Russian shipyard in Arkangelsk in 1693. Peter I, as he is also known, had visited central and eastern Europe, and became entranced with the culture and the technology, and especially shipbuilding technology that the Dutch and British employed, hence the shipyard he built here. By 1730, the yard had constructed the first Russian naval ship.

Our tour of Arkangelsk is winding down as we head back to the ship. We cannot get out of our minds what a terrible life it must have been for the average Soviet citizen, especially because we see reminders of that era all around us. In the immediate case, it is the housing we pass by in the former industrial area. People are still living in many of them, but slowly these buildings are being razed -much as the Russian economy and culture is rising from the ashes of the Soviet Union.

As we conclude our visit to northern Russia, we reflect on a lot of what we have seen and learned. Our guides have been polite, informative and friendly. It has to be a bit challenging to give tours of cities that never had tourists, and that are essentially industrial areas that have been economically challenged since the fall of the centrally controlled economic system. Steve especially thinks what it would be like to be a tour guide in, say, his home town of Waterbury, Connecticut. I would be proud of what the city was – in Waterbury’s case, the Brass Center of the World. But I would be a little uncomfortable with the people I was guiding, knowing that they very well are probably wondering “why the heck are we touring here?”

We are really glad to have experienced this part of the planet. Our affection for the average Russian citizen has grown considerably, and we are now able to separate the political apparatus from the people they govern. As we have said before, the biggest lesson that we’ve been taught is that, on our level of society (the middle class), left to our own devices, we would all get along just fine.