Cruising out of St. Petersburg

Our route

We left last night on the Neva river to start our trip to Moscow. We're going to travel 5 rivers, 3 lakes, including the 2 largest lakes in Europe, 2 canals and 1 reservoir going through 18 locks.

Our morning lesson was on the Cyrillic alphabet and some simple Russian for our home visit today. Cyrillic is confusing, especially where they use the same letter as we do but pronounce it differently: B is V, H is N, P is R, C is S. Now I understand why USSR, was written in Cyrillic as CCCP (SSSR).And then of course, there are all the Greek, Hebrew, and Cyrillic only characters.
Tea and Pirozhki at Yuri and Vera's

In the afternoon, we visited the small town of Svirstroi, 2000 people, mostly employed by the hydroelectric plant. Our host family was Vera and Yuri who built their home here in 1946 and have lived here ever since. During World War II, this area was occupied by the Finns. Yuri's family escaped elsewhere. Vera's family was put in a German concentration camp where 3 of her 6 siblings died. After the war, her father built their house with wood heat, no running water, but it has electricity and satellite TV. We had tea and pirozhki, a pastry filled with vegetables or fruit. It was our peak in rural life in Russia.

As we travel the rivers, the scenery is similar to Northern Wisconsin with many birch and conifer trees. We can see many dachas, summer homes, for the people who live in the city.