Goritsy: Saturday, Sep. 22

   

    After breakfast I headed off to a class on decorating nesting  ( matrushka ) dolls, while Larry spent time catching up with all the photos and videos from yesterday.  We bought blank dolls and then were given very brief instruction and the paints, pencils, brushes, water and some example.  Some ladies turned out beautiful dolls; mine were less-artistic of course, but I had fun and am not too embarrassed by the results.

          Shortly after that we attended another Russian lesson – it’s terrible how little sticks! [ the problem is the darn Cyrillic alphabet   [ Larry is “]Љарри” in Cyrillic ].

          After lunch we disembarked at Goritsy village and took shuttles to Kirillov and Monastery of St. Cyril of the White Lake.  At the museum there we saw many really gorgeous ikons as well as St. Cyril’s personal belongings.  The flowers were lovely on the grounds.  It seems their season is several weeks behind ours.  Odd.

    

  The two villages are interesting for their colourful wooden houses.  We did a bit of shopping back in Gorisky, then boarded for the next part of the voyage.  But there’s never a dull moment, so in the late afternoon we went to a Russian tea in the dining room.  Some people had been to a talk earlier and instructed us on proper tea etiquette including drinking from our saucers! [ Grandpa Shaw used to do that! ].

          After tea, the Intrepids had our Traditional hall party.  But we were in the lap of luxury – we had a lounge to ourselves.  We co-opted the services of a lovely Asian gentleman to take a group photo, and gathered ourselves together for dinner.  After dinner was a concert of classical music which Larry is attending while I write this and nurse a miserable cold.

Photos 22 Sep Groitsy