The Russian Riviera

 

Sochi, Russia

The Russian Riviera

Sochi, Russia

After leaving Istanbul, the ship transited the Bosphorus Strait into the Black Sea. The Bosphorus is the world’s narrowest strait used for international navigation. At its widest, it is 12,000 ft., and at its most narrow only 2,300 ft. Our ship is travelling around the Black Sea in a counter-clockwise direction with Sochi, Russia being our first stop. The countries that border the Sea are Turkey, Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria.

Our transit has been anything but smooth. Our room, at the rear of the ship, is at times going up and down so much that all we can do is lie down for fear of falling down. We did learn something interesting at dinner last night. Our Head Waiter is from Romania and lives on the Black Sea. He told us that the kind of weather and seas we were encountering were the norm, and then he asked if we knew how the Sea came to be called “Black.” We had no earthly idea. Well, he pointed outside and asked what we saw – it was dark grey, almost black. Then he said that when we had a chance we needed to look into the water. In the Mediterranean, if you look straight down the water has a beautiful blue color to it. If you look into the Black Sea, it merely looks black. Sure enough when we got up this morning we gave it a try, and he was correct – black.

Sochi rose to prominence when Josef Stalin built his dacha on the grounds of a Sochi Sanatorium. The trend continues today where Vladimir Putin and other high ranking members of Russia’s elite vacation here. Now Lisa and I have been to Russia several times, and two things about Sochi struck us as different.

First, the immigration procedures for Sochi were very strict. We could only go ashore with a Princess organized tour, and we were never to leave the tour group. Going ashore, we had to show our passports no less than three times. The last check of our passports was at a formal passport control station. Everyone had to stand in a long line to await their turn with the passport official. They were hidden from view until you had your turn to go, when the green light came on. It was a slow process, and when my turn came, I fully expected to be greeted by some old bored soviet style official dusting crumbs off his shirt. Instead I was greeted with a scowl by a very attractive young lady whose demeanor could melt nails. She looked me up in her computer and started looking closely at my passport, slowly flipping pages. Her scowl deepened, and her pace slowed. Several time she started to pick up a phone, but each time she went back to flipping pages, more slowly than before. People behind me started becoming restless, and I begin to wonder if my big fat passport with all those stamps was about to get me denied entry to Sochi. After what seemed like an hour, she looked up and slapped my passport down as if I had done something wrong, and motioned me to pass – whew!

The second thing we noted immediately was the cleanliness of Sochi. On our previous visits to Russia, we were not impressed. The streets were dirty and in poor repair. Their parks were not maintained, and in general the cities had a dull and listless feel--not so Sochi. This was a lively, clean very upscale resort city that clearly had residents with money. That was obvious from the villas that were under construction, and in the upscale cars cruising the streets.

Our first stop was to see the old Stalin Dacha. The Dacha was built high up in the mountains, and even today the grounds have been turned into a very posh property for pricey Russian Dachas. The Dacha was painted green so that it would be less visible in the green forests that surrounded the property. Supposedly the Dacha is exactly as he left it, but while much is original we kept seeing signs that someone was in residence. Well it turns out that the Dacha is available for rent on a weekly basis, and even today people pay large sums of money to rent the place. In other words, it is not normally open for a tour, but today because Princess was in port, the property became a museum, sort of. Our Dacha guide spoke only Russian, so the guide on our bus had to translate. In fact, our guide was brought in from Armenia for the day, as was our bus. Ah well, I just don’t believe that Sochi is quite ready for the world Olympics, but what do I know. I do know that the Russian guide spent a great deal of time extolling the virtues of Stalin, and how great a general he was, and how much he did for Russia – it was enough to make me want to throw up.

We then drove up into the mountains to a spot called Akhun Tower. I have nothing in my written material about this spot, and all I could understand from our guide was that at one point, this was part of a series of towers to protect the town. We had to climb 140 steps to get to the top, and I must admit that the view from the top was spectacular. When I got down I really needed a bathroom break and when I asked our guide where to go, he set off down the hill to where it was located. I am telling you it was a steep descent into the woods and I swear that we went down as much as I had just climbed for that tower. Getting there, I discovered a unisex hole in the ground with a grumbling old matron standing guard. She was to be paid in Rubles or the “hole” could not be used. No one in our group had Rubles. In fact none of the merchants would take anything other than Rubles, but we were never given an opportunity to obtain Rubles; another slip in their tourist ambitions. Anyway, here I am standing along the side of a steep hill having “needs” if you catch my drift and no Rubles to pay off the guard – and I guarantee she was not going to budge. Fortunately a kind gentleman came to my rescue and paid her my admittance fee, so all turned out well.

That in a nutshell was our tour to Sochi. Of course we had to go back through passport control two more times, but we finally made it back onto the safety of the ship. Well, today was an experience.

Jim

PS I was able to upload the blog and the pictures however I do not have time to label all the pictures nor to include pictures in the blog. Sorry, but these next few days are going to be very busy and it is hard to keep up.