We arrived this morning in Mandrogy, a craft village, which I thought meant a tourist opportunity to part us from our money. It was not quite like that, more a village of very skilled craftsmen and women. I signed up to do the Matroysha doll painting. This was great fun although we were treated like naughty primary school children by Helen, Mother Goose, and we were her little goslings. We were told about the dolls and what all the different colours meant and then we started painting and time soon got the better of us. After this, we walked round the village and looked at some of the different workshops, including blacksmith, matryoshka painting, birch bark carving, dried flowers, weavers, lace making, linen work, artists, most of whom were very good artisans.

Back  to the boat for lunch and sat with the couple from Leicester and two ladies from Washington DC.

Went to the final question and answer session on modern Russia, with Misha, Andrey and Alexey although had heard most things discussed in some way before on this trip. We sailed on past miles of wooded shores, all in their autumn colours, with small groups of wooden houses every so often. Another great sunset before we entered Lake Lagoda but then the ship began to rock as we got ready for dinner. I opened the door to the balcony and there was a fierce wind blowing.

A captains farewell dinner tonight, 7 courses, and we thought we were going to sit on our own but after we had ordered, a couple came in late and joined us. They were Viccy and Lazarus of Greek extraction from New Jersey. They were Greek Orthodox and he was a professor of politics with economics in a university, still working a couple of days a week. It was his 78th birthday 2 days ago and they produced a cake for him as he had been unwell on his birthday. We had a good discussion about theology and faith and religion.