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Join me on my 2005 trip to Russia, from the beauty of St. Petersburg to the cultural symposium in Vytegra. Experience fishing, monastery visits, and local cuisine in this unforgettable journey. See the River Luga, Muromskii Monastery, and more through my lens. Dive into Russian culture and landscapes captured during a wonderful adventure. 8 Relevant
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Russia 2005 – Petersburg and Vytegra Michael Makin
My 2005 trip to Russia • In October of last year I flew to St Petersburg, where my very good friend Vasyamet me at the airport, and took me to his cottage in Lemovzhe for the weekend. After a day back in St Petersburg, we headed to Vytegra, (Vologda oblast’), for the annual Klyuev symposium.
The River Luga at Lemovzhe was beautiful, but predictably unkind to me (I caught nothing)
Maybe when Vasya fills the carp pond at his dacha, I’ll finally catch something….
Lunch in Café Stolle back in St Petersburg was not to be missed
Nor was the view from the apartment of Ksenya, Vasya’s oldest daughter
After a couple of days in Lemovzhe and St Petersburg, it was off to Vytegra for the Klyuevskie chteniya Vasya drove me in his brand-new Jeep Cherokee to Vytegra, and before the chteniya began we took a trip to Gakusa, from where a fisherman took us to the Muromskii Monastery. We stopped at Saminskii Pogost along the way to Gakusa.
At Gakusa, across the Karelian border From here we took a motor boat up the canal, past the huge cranberry bog, through Lake Murom, and on to a fishing settlement by the shores of Lake Onega
On the left: the building within which formerly sat the Chapel of St Lazarus, now on Kizhi. On the right: myself, Vasya, the Abbot of the Monastery, and Vytegra author Venya Tampio
After the day at the monastery there was also time for fishing, but success was … limited
I visited the Vytegra College of Forestry and gave an informal lecture
I spent my last evening in Russia eating roast bear at Ksenya’s apartment