Taschir Sochi

... It is the usual story with the socialist regimes - lots of officialdom, multilayered processing, lack of grace and politeness and duplication seem to be the order of the day. We were given a guide called Anna, a very attractive young lady of 24 from the Ural area who and wasn’t shy about telling of her personal life when questioned by nosy guests. We took a trip out to the future Winter Olympic site at Krasnaya Polyana in the Caucasus ...

... stopover in the European Russian town of Staryy Oskol, I began to admire an old friend named Elina for her conversational abilities. You could tell she was skillful, because, amidst her story-telling, she regularly used the phrase, "Sam ponimaesh." (You yourself understand.) And whenever we argued, she won. I realized too late that what I wanted to do with her, rather than drink, or argue, was tell her how fondly I remembered our Summer of ...

The first of our eastern block countries. The news about Sochi was that they were waiting to see the outcome of their winter Olympics bid. We heard when we arrived back to Sydney that they were successful in that bid. The only issue I have with that is that they will probably need to have an etiquette crash course as I found them particularly unfriendly. You would imagine if they were practising hosting the Olympics that they ...

Yesterday we were in Sochi, Russia. Sochi is no St. Petersburg. I wasn't able to get off the ship because I don't have a Seaman's Book yet. Apparently I didn't miss much. The weather was rainy and kind of cold, and there is nothing to do in Sochi. It is not a common place for cruiseships to go to, and I think this company is reconsidering going there as a port. I took a few pictures from the ship that I will ...