Today was Valeria Day, the day we got to see our dear friend Valereia Klimova who lived with us for four months in Long Lake when she was a student at Orono High, graduating in 1996. We visited her once before in June of 2001 when we were in St Petersburg with Judy’s mom for our riverboat cruise. Now, 18 years later, she’s happily married to Sergey, a Grand Master chess professional who competes and teaches chess in four or five languages. By lunchtime it felt like 22 years had melted away and Valeria was the same girl we knew back then. Today was the highlight of this trip, for sure!

Not only did we get to see Valeria but we went somewhere few tourists visit – certainly none on the Viking tours: Constantine Palace, today called the National Conference Palace but what some call Putin’s Palace. Indeed, it function’s of the Russian Federation’s President’s official residence in St. Petersburg.

Originally, Peter the Great started construction of the palace at about the same time as Peterhof, which is just down the road a few miles. It always played second fiddle to Peterhof; Peter the Great passed it on to Empress Elizabeth and eventually it became home of the Konstantinovichi branch of the Romanovs. It was finally completed in 1805 but fell into disuse after the revolution in 1917. Nazi occupation completely gutted the palace and it wasn’t until 2001 that the newly elected President, Vladimir Putin, started reconstruction. It served as the headquarters for the St. Petersburg’s 2003 tercentennial celebration, hosted a G8 summit conference in 2008 and most recently was the meeting place for Putin’s talks with France’s President Macron and Japan’s Abe on May 24. Instead of seeing where history was made, Peterhof and the rest, we saw where history is being made.

And what a place it is. Our tour was totally in Russian with Valeria providing some whispered translation, but we didn’t need words to describe the elegance and grandeur of this palace. This isn’t your typical 17^th/18^th/19^thCentury palace either. It’s totally up-to-date. The artwork includes 19^thcentury and current Japanese sculpture and other art objects and more recent paintings and sketches from European and Russian artists. It has gardens that seem to rival Peterhof and Versailles (albeit without the fountains). Any Russian would be proud of Constantine Palace as a symbol of the new Russia.

We next went to a typical Russian restaurant for a 3 PM lunch. No, not that kind of Russian restaurant, the ones where they take the tourists. This is a casual dining chain called Tokyo City (with the y in Tokyo replaced with a Cyrillic backwards N). I likened it to an Applebee’s but with a more open and spacious interior, plush sofa-like seats and a much broader menu that included sushi and other Japanese dishes. Judy and I had borscht; she had a chicken Kiev and I a hunter’s stew. Valeria had pasta. It was really fun to eat at the kind of establishment Valeria takes her family for dinner out.

Valeria has a heart of gold and on the way to the cruise ship we stopped at her mother-in-law’s flat to clean out her personal effects so others could move in. Sergey is in Stochi on the Black Sea at a chess event. His mother has recently moved to a nursing home. It was sad to think of her leaving her place of independence, even though we don’t know her. She was a singer and performed at St Petersburg’s Mariinski and a beautiful women judging from the pictures in her flat.

On the way to the cruise ship terminal we commented on how much more prosperous St. Petersburg seems today compared to 2001 – lots of brand new apartment buildings, late model European and Japanese cars (she drives a Volvo SUV). She said, “Yes, Vladimir Putin, when first elected, said he would make Russia “normal,” i.e., more prosperous for the average Russian. And he did.”

Tomorrow it’s back to the usual: a bus tour to Peterhof and an afternoon “panoramic” (i.e., bus tour) of downtown St. Petersburg – just to refresh our memories from last time. Then tomorrow night we weigh anchor (ok, throw off the lines) and head for Helsinki.

Here’s a question we’ve run across several times in our travels: How can a country that has been truly independent for only 47 of the last 850 years retain its identity as a nation? Poland, which has been sliced and diced numerous times, is a case in point. Hungary is another, dominated by the Ottomans, the Habsburg, Nazi Germany and then the Soviets. Just recently we heard the story of Norway that, since true independence in 1905, has been asking, “what does it mean to be Norwegian” after 400+ years of domination by Denmark, Sweden and Russia.

Estonia has always been a gateway between East and West; a key Baltic trade port since Middle Ages and the Hanseatic era. That’s why Denmark, Sweden. Poland, Germany and Russia have all had dominion over the country from time to time. Estonia won full independence after WWI but lost it in 1939 when Germany and the Soviets agreed the Soviets should have it. That lasted until 1940 when the Nazis overran it. The Soviets gotit back at the end of WWII and kept it until the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Estonia is now part of the EU, uses the Euro and is a member of NATO.

Estonia has about the same geographic territory as Denmark but has only 1.3 million people vs. Denmark at 5.75 million. That leaves lots of vacant land for pine trees, which is a major export commodity for Estonia. The port and capitol city of Tallinn has 600,000 cruise ship visitors each year so tourism is another major “export” commodity.

Our guide told us that the average after-tax wage in Estonia is about €1,000/month versus two to three times more in Finland, where many Estonians work. Taxes are in excess of 50%, including a 20% income tax and a 33% social tax. The latter provides for free universal health care, education through University but does not cover old-age pensions. Our guide’s 78-year-old father still works to support himself and his wife who just retired. The wage difference, our guide said, can be explained by Soviet occupation: Estonia had the Soviets; the Finns didn’t. Estonians had to build an economy from the ground up; Finland already had one. Today many Estonians make the 55 Km ferry ride every day (there are 20-some ferry crossings) to earn the higher wages.

Our guide, a woman with an adult son, told us that Estonians are very reserved and avoid at all costs any person-to-person interaction. She told the story of two women who rode the bus together for five years. For three years they didn’t notice each other. The last two years they did notice each other. Social media is quite popular because Estonians can use it to communicate without interacting face to face. Estonians don’t smile: only drunkards and the insane smile. People meet spouses at school, at work or in bars.

She says Estonians still suffer from the effects of living under the Soviet system, a condition of fear and repression, which explains their inward-looking behavior. Even today Estonians fear the Russians. Her son, who is politically active as a right-winger, is on a three-day trip to St Petersburg. He has removed all evidence of being an Estonian for fear of being recognized as such by the Russians. The experience of 850 years makes this an understandable emotion. She said repression under the Soviets was worse than what was suffered under the Nazis.

Tallinn itself is a very pretty town, at least in the Old Town: narrow medieval streets, lots of church’s, quaint souvenir shops, and great views from the upper section of town. We visited a splendid Russian Orthodox Church built by the Soviets. Three priests were saying mass formaybe a dozen parishioners (all Russian hold overs). One priest with a wonderful deep bass voice chanted, accompanied by a female choir. Come to think of it, all the chanting and singing came from behind the alter so maybe it was recorded. Ten percent of Estonians are religious, the lowest percentage in the world.

Today’s experience gives us new appreciation for Anu Tali, the music director for the Sarasota Orchestra. She’s from Tallinn and is leaving the orchestra at the end of the next season after six years on the job. She’s young and has brought some innovative programming and has greatly strengthened the orchestra.

So that’s Estonia in a four-hour snapshot. It rained in the morning but the sun came out by 11 or so and we’re now sailing on to St Petersburg under sunny skies and fresh breezes. Tomorrow we get to see Valeria and her family. That should be a real treat!

Our friend Hala from Florida gave us a restaurant recommendation here in Gdansk. It’s right in the heart of Gdansk’s Old Town so was easy to find. And what a recommendation it turned out to be. Our twenty something waitress diplomatically suppressed her eye roll when I said, “We don’t know much about Polish food. What would you recommend.” Based on her expert advice we had two different soups that both featured really fine mushrooms, pierogis stuffed with mushrooms and cabbage and some sort of meat stew. I asked our very patient waitress, “What kind of meat is in this stew?” “Oh a little bit of everything – ribs, beef, veal, pork – whatever we have on hand.” And of course it had the usual cabbage, mushrooms and onions. Being on a cultural appreciation tour we of course had to sample the dessert menu: apple pie with ice cream (more like an apple layer cake) and some pastry stuffed with apples, swimming in a raspberry sauce. Top that off with a Polish beer and you’ve got one fine dinner, all for about $58 including a generous tip.

Today was, indeed, Gdansk, Poland day. My going-into image of Gdansk was of some dreary port town, lots of cranes and shipping containers, gray and dingy. Wrong. It’s an amazing, happening kind of place. The old town was swimming in all sorts of people: lots of foreign tourists, of course, including our 600+ Viking contingent. But lots were Polish folks out enjoying the bright, warm Saturday afternoon. Lots of families with kids in evidence. Corpus Christi day was Thursday so lots of Polish people are stretching it into a four-day weekend.

Of course Gdansk, like many European towns, was bombed to smithereens during World War II and suffered destruction during the Soviet occupation. Only one Catholic Church was spared from the Soviets; the priest spoke fluent Russian and convinced the Orthodox Russians that they really shouldn’t destroy his church.

Over 90% of the old town was destroyed during the war. I’ll put some photos of photos in tonight’s posting to give you an idea. Initially, all Polish workers after liberation were assessed a 1% levy on their earnings to finance the reconstruction of the capital city, Warsaw. Gdansk convinced the government that they needed funds to provide housing for essential dockyard workers. In fact the money went partially at least to reconstruct the old town, heart of today’s tourism business.

Old Town is in fact very well reconstructed. The buildings are true to their original form and architecture. Carved stone ornaments, gargoyles, etc. that could be recovered were used in the new buildings. The only problem is that the buildings look too nice: all are painted bright colors, there is no sign of decay around the edges and all the buildings appear to be of the same age, which of course they are. It’s almost too good to be true. Visitors in another 100 or 200 years will marvel at the authentic appearance of this medieval town.

We only found a plaque denoting the former location of the Solidarity trade union. Lech Walesa is of course featured prominently (Pope Paul II gets prominent mention around town too). He’s now in his mid 70s and travels extensively speaking about his life in Gdansk and experiences in Solidarity. His son was educated in the U.S. at Holy Cross and is now a member of the Polish parliament. We sat next to a fellow traveler on the bus coming back to the ship this evening who met Lech Walesa’s grandson today. The grandson is giving tours of Gdansk by golf cart; it’s a summer job while he studies diplomacy. The grandson said he frequently travels with this grandfather so has seen quite a bit of the world.

We had a fun time shopping today for some amber jewelry. While Judy was in the ladies’ room I engaged a twenty-something salesperson who took a bumbling old grandfather under her wing and helped with some gift ideas. At check out the clerk taking our money turned out to be the salesgal’s mother.

So that’s another half-day impression of, for us, a new city and even a new country. Sure, I’ve sampled enough of Hala and Margaret’s cooking to appreciate Polish cuisine. But Gdansk and its people gave us a new appreciation for a great country.

Tomorrow is an “at sea” day, which means we get the day off, other than a few lectures and of course, four or five visits to the feeding trough.