Mandrogi: Monday, Sep. 24

 

         

 This morning was the fourth lecture and included the young women on the crew explaining their education, their opinions on life in Russia during communist times versus today, their aspirations etc.  Unfortunately the room was highly scented from cleaning products and I had to leave.  Larry enjoyed it.  He said that one young woman indicated that she wouldn’t attend a state-run university because marks were altered by bribery and the education wasn’t as good as at the privatized schools.  One also indicated that the tuition she was paying was US$2000 per year.

          Prof. Liliana took issue with the bribery statement, saying that it certainly didn’t apply to her.

          When asked about health care, it seems they have a 2-tier system with the public tier being very unsatisfactory.

          Late in the morning we went ashore at Mandrogi where I browsed through various craft workshops, small domestic museums and souvenir shops while Larry put in some quality internet timebut he said it was low quality as I couldn’t use the laptop – just a usb memory stick.

          After lunch we rehearsed the Canadian act for the concert tonight.  Naomi has us singing and moving like a well oiled machine.

          Because of his win as “Mr. Cruise”, Dave McNaught was the MC of the talent show.  He did a great job and we all had a really good time.  Our Canadian group led off the show with 3 camp songs.  

 We all dressed in red and white and carried flags and had Canada balloons; many of us had Canada stickers, etc – crazy!  At the end we tossed chocolate loonies and townies into the crowd.

          We were followed by Carol Cosgrove singing Coal Miner’s Daughter as a tribute to the Nova Scotia mining community.

          Then Myrna Torrie played a selection of songs from Fiddler On The Roof.  Canada did well, maybe overwhelmed them – but that’s OK because we ARE more than ¼ of the ship.

          Other individuals and groups did a great job too.  It was a terrific evening.  At the end Dave asked all the Russians to sing their National Anthem.  There was a scramble to assemble their musician and instruments, and it was goose-bump raising.

 

Photos 24 Sep Mandrogi