We have been sailing across the Rybinsk reservoir overnight and arrived in Kuzino this morning.

We went by coach into Kuzino and visited a high school. Two 15 year old girls who were dressed in folk costume that they had made, sang for us and we looked at some of the handicrafts that the pupils had made. One of the girls said that she liked lacemaking as a hobby. We looked at a display about the Second World War and then went into a classroom where we were told a little about the school system. Children here go to school at 6 or 7 and stay until they are 17, they have three tiers of school like the American system. The junior school wear uniform but not middle or high school, although there is a dress code, no bright colours and no jeans. They all have to take exams in 9th grade in Maths and Russian and two other subjects that they choose. After 11th grade they can go to university but this means going to the big city and places are hard to get.

We visited the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, which was founded in 1397 by St. Cyril. This was a big walled area with several churches and at its height had 700 monks living and working there as well as many other people, in effect a large village. There are still a few monks living and working here, mainly helping poor people. The monks are the black priests who took the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. In Stalins time, most of the priests were killed or sent to prison and a lot of the treasures were confiscated. We saw some of the treasures, including precious silver items, carved wooden statues and icons. These included one of the father, son and Holy Spirit which was banned as it was considered wrong to depict God as a man. This icon was discovered 8 years ago during renovations to the roof, someone had wrapped it in linen and had hidden it away where it remained for 300 years. A lot of the silver came from coins that had been melted down to decorate icons and make chandeliers, incense burners and candle holders. Our guide said that in the Russian orthodox tradition, icons were theology expressed in colour and their music was theology expressed in sound. He said the worst ruler was Catherine the Great who had come from a Catholic background and who banned them from trading and said that they should concentrate on prayer instead. Andre was a jokey guide, talking about his love of fishing and his cherry tomato which is what he called his wife.

We carried on in the buses to rejoin our ship at Gorinsy, where there were lots of market stalls as we walked to the ship. Some were selling furs, chinchilla and mink, a mink jacket was 850 dollars. After lunch went to a talk on Mickael Gorbachev and perestroika. In 1990, he brought in reforms and 12 countries separated out beginning with the 3 Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. They were joined by another 9 states who chose to become independant, leaving Russia on its own. There was vast inflation, shortages of food and many people suffered at this time.

I then went to a demonstration of how to make Russian Pelmeni, which are like ravioli by Joachim, the Head Chef. They are served with smetana or sour cream.

We then had dinner which was a Russian evening starting with Borscht, then Salmon  in puff pastry with a herb stuffing. The staff were all in Russian dress and afterwards we had vodka tasting where we sat with a couple from Leicester.