BACK to HOME PAGE

BACK to TOURS PAGE

'Patrol' in Russia and Ukraine - 1995

  
   The military welcomes our group                 Our host in St. Petersburg, RADM
   aboard the cruiser SMOLNIY.                     Grishanov with Harry Cooper.

St. Petersburg – we go on board the tall ships including CUTTY SARK, in harbor for the festivities.  We tour Russian warships and submarines, palaces and museums aplenty.  We are guests of honor aboard the Flagship of the Fleet, heavy cruiser SMOLNIY where we watch the festivities of Navy Day – paratroopers, fighter and bomber planes, and ships up and down the Neva River.  We spend an evening with a Russian family in their home and at dinner........and when we were Guests of Honor at City Hall, the former Marinski Palace, the Russian orchestra played the Star Spangled Banner for us!

  
   When we toured the                  We toured through this WW II Soviet submarine
   Russian submarine school,          and its museum, in company with many Soviet
   it was the Commandant's           submarine sailors from World War II.
  birthday!  (in white shirt)

Off to the Crimean Peninsula where we visit the ‘Valley of Death’ where the British light cavalry were virtually wiped out at the town of Balaclava in the Crimean Wars.

  
  We are welcomed at our hotel by                 One of the many palaces we visited.
  Ukrainian folk music and dancing.

  
  We enjoyed a reception aboard                  We stood in a centuries-old Phoenician
  the heavy cruiser KERTSCH.                      watch tower to see the entrance to the
                                                                  secret Soviet submarine bunkers.

We go on to the Russian Navy Base at Sevastopol where we are welcomed aboard the Flagship of that fleet, the heavy cruiser KERTSCH - tour more ships and submarines - our cameras were welcome.

  
  Can you believe that this is really a            There were warbirds, transports etc.
  helicopter?  It's the size of a 747!            from the beginning of aviation through
                                                                  the most modern.  Some were so strange,
                                                                  we wondered how they actually flew.

In Moscow, we visited the Admiralty – headquarters of the Russian Navy, and we met the admirals who run the Russian Navy.  We visited Monina Air Force Base and toured the huge air museum there.  We toured Kubinka Armored Training Center, visited their museum - the world's largest armor museum, and we RODE ON A T-34 TANK that participated in the battle at Kursk!  As usual, a fantastic 'Patrol'.

BACK to HOME PAGE

BACK to TOURS PAGE