A Memorial to all the fallen soldiers of World War Two in Vladivostok.

A Russian World War Two submarine in Vladivostok.

A monument about the Trans-Siberian railroad in Vladivostok.

A typical Russian Army uniform from world war two or as the Russians call it “The Great Patriotic War”

A small chapel in the middle of Novosibirsk

Final Week In Siberia

When it was time to move on to Novosibirsk, we took another train trip on through the Siberian countryside.  The landscape was littered with colorful wooden houses tucked away in the birch trees.  We arrived mid morning and were greeted by Sasha, the GSE Team Leader from Russia.  We spent the first day getting to know our host families and completed the evening with a welcome party with traditional Russian cuisine.  Our week was eventful and the weather was absolutely perfect, even hot at times.

Saturday went on a tour of the Baltika Brewery factory and of course had a beer tasting.  Drew was in heaven and feeling his German roots! That evening we were treated to tickets to an amazing ballet “Bayaderka”, a tale of love and tragedy with stunning sets and exquisite costumes.  This was the highlight of Nikki’s week and certainly something to check off the bucket list...Russian Ballet in Russia...check!

Sunday morning Drew and Joe went to a Russian Orthodox service at at very beautiful cathedral and then met up with the rest of the team for an architectural tour of the city.  Novosibirsk is certainly one of the greenest cities we’ve been to and, like all the other cities, is spotted with war memorials honoring Russian soldiers.  Following our tour, we were off to the Zoo.  Mark, our resident team hunter, was in heaven and loved being 3 feet away from a real Siberian Bear.  Although he would have preferred being 3 feed away from a notorious “boronduke”, the Siberian Chipmunk.  This little critter has eluded him the entire trip and only Joe has actually seen one.  The zoo was beautiful and shaded with tall trees and an abundance of rare animals.

Monday morning we toured the TrainMuseum followed by a tour of the Chistaya Voda (Water) Factory.  We were all impressed with the cleanliness and efficiency of the facility.  After lunch we were allowed to visit the Siberian Geology Institute Museum and the Russian Nuclear Physics Institute.  They scanned our passports and provided us a guide to take us through the Particle Collider and to see the facility.  That evening we were joined by our host families at a club owned by one of the Russian GSE team members.  There we enjoyed a variety of piano tunes played by a local musician...what a treat!

The remainder of the week was filled with city excursions, Rotaract presentations, museums and professional days.  We gave our final Novosibirsk presentation at our going away party which was a nice change of pace being out of our suits in a more casual environment.  Like all the other cities, we were sad to say goodbye and will miss the warmth the Siberian people have given us.

Our final presentation was at the District Conference.  It was different from all our other presentations, as we highlighted our journey through Siberia and all the funny and inspiring stories along the way.  It was so great being with such a large group of Rotarians representing such a massive amount of territory.  Yesterday we took a tour of Vladovostock and it’s beautiful oceanside memorials and cathedrals.  Now we are all packed up and headed to the airport for our final leg of the trip and headed home.  Words can not express how grateful we are for this opportunity.  It has thought all of us the meaning of friendship and the importance of embracing all cultures.  Thank you Rotary and all the friends and families that have helped us along the way.  We will never forget this trip and can’t wait to share our experience with everyone when we return.

Spaciba balshoy...thank you so much!

The 2010 District 6960 GSE Team,

Joe, Drew, Mark and Nikki

Soldiers tribute and Lenin

school of nuclear science

Front of a old russian train

Russian Ballet

Beer Factory

cooking show

Krasnoyarsk - Part 2

Our last few days in Krasnoyarsk, produced a fair amount of activities as we try to include all of what this city has to offer in a very short period of time.  We could spend weeks in the city and surrounding areas and probably not touch on a third of activities and sights.  But with our time constraints and the program the Rotarians have put together for us we certainly have done an outstanding job seeing all that we could.

Our first day was filled with professional meetings in the morning and trips to the local art museums in the afternoon/evening.  Mark and Joe also got a nice treat by taking a trip to a local businessman’s warehouse to view some vintage motorcycles that he had rebuilt!  Most were old German war bikes complete with side car and machine guns.  His aim is to keep them as authentic as possible so they all were equipped with Nazi paraphernalia. He further noted that the machine guns were fully operational.  He would not allow us to test for true authenticity.  However, he also has taken an interest in American Motorcycles and has reconstructed a few vintage Harley Davidsons.  The most notable was a 1936 which was brought over by an American Cargo pilot during WWII and had been rotting in a Russian garage until only a few years ago. He had received the bike in pieces and has it almost completely restored. It was quite impressive.

Following our trip to the warehouse, the evening brought us to a church built in 1910 (or at least reconstructed at that date, we were unable to read the plaque) for a recital style performance from three beautiful Russian women whose talents consisted of  a Soprano, Alto and a flutist. We were thoroughly impressed with these young ladies talents and enjoyed such Russian opera songs accompanied by the pipe organ. We certainly took in the significance of the event, sitting in a old Russian church listening to opera ballads on an old pipe organ.

The following day we accompanied the Krasnoyarsk Rotarians to an opening of a park they had constructed for the local hospital children. This is the second park they have completed in the past few years and was quite a step up from the previous park these children were playing.  Words could not describe.

But perhaps the highlight of the entire week was Chef “Povar” Andrew performing on a popular Russian TV show in Krasnoyarsk. He prepared a Gazpacho and some seared Salmon as an entree which was picked apart by some local celebrities to see if they could determine the ingredients.  They did a good job but I think everyone was in agreement that Andrew had stepped up to the plate,  performed flawlessly during filming and certainly will provoke these Russians to try and duplicate his meal.  We all thoroughly enjoyed sitting through the taping of this episode, which took a total time of about 4 hours for 20 minutes worth of material! It was well worth it though, if not just to watch Drew then to watch the director, cameramen and our faithful Rotaract translator hard at work.

Before we knew it, it was our send off dinner once again.  The Rotary club gathered for another meeting and we were presented with gifts and warm heartfelt toasts as we went home to pack our bags for our journey the following day.  It is becoming increasingly difficult to build relationships and as soon as you really seem to get to know one another and the laughs start flowing, it is time to move on to the next city. It is well worth it though for if we did not have this program these would be individuals we would never meet and most likely places we would never see.  Off we go to the next city, Novosibirsk, to build new relationships and make the world just that much smaller.