We went through 6 locks overnight and woke up around 7am to the ship being rocked about by the waves on Lake Onega. This is the second biggest lake in Europe and we are travelling up here today to Kizhi Island. This is a small island about 1 mile by 2 miles and is the site of a 300 year old wooden church, built without any nails or screws holding it together. There are many other wooden structures here some dating from the 15th century and it is a unesco world heritage site.

In the morning we had a tour of the bridge with the Captain telling us about life on board ship. There are always at least two people on the bridge round the clock and they work 4 hours on 8 hours off continually. It was quite windy today and the lake was choppy, this is considered as being at sea in a large body of water and therefore they could use automatic pilot.

We then went for a talk by Alexey on the up to date political situation,  the time of Yeltsin and Putin. Then it was lunch followed by docking at Kizhi island.

We went on a walking tour first of all to the Cathedral of the Ascension, which is in the process of being remade. The walls are made of pine logs and are being repaired or replaced. The shingles on the domes are made of Aspen and have to be replaced frequently. The church has a metal structure inside it for support until this process is finished. Next door the people had built a winter church as they could not afford to heat the big church. This had the usual icons and screen inside and is still used as a church during the summer season.

We then looked round a farmhouse which had one big room on the ground floor, where the family lived, cooked and slept. There was a big stove at one side that was used for heating and cooking. The opposite corner was the red (beautiful) corner which had the family icon in it. The first floor was where they kept the animals, the hay for winter feed and used as a workshop. There were wooden logs in a ramp up to this level to let the animals go inside.

We walked on to the end of the island, a quiet, beautiful place.

Returning to the ship, we went to another Russian lesson before dinner. As the boat set sail around 5pm the sun came through under the clouds and we had a wonderful sunset as we sailed on down the river.

At dinner, we sat with a couple from Baltimore, Maryland, Rob and Cressie. He was a recently retired burns surgeon and she had trained as a teacher, but been a homemaker for many years. After dinner there was a quiz based on Call my Bluff with Katrin, Joachim, Evelyn and Alexey. We won a bottle of champagne, yeah.