Photos of my river trip from St Petersburg to Moscow and from Moscow to Rostov on Don are on line at: http://www.imagestation.com/members/wu687

Photos of St Petersburg, including the Hermitage, as well as Madrona, Kizhi, Goritsy, Uglich, Yaroslavl, Moscow, Kostroma, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Cheboksary, Samara, Saratov, Volgograd and Rostov on Don.

Garfield, thanks a lot for the URL. I've bookmarked it and will register later.

What tour did you go on? I'm going on Peter the Great cruise in August. I would love to hear your impressions, get travel tips.

Thanks for the link Garfield. My trip to Russia is off for this year, going to England and Scotland instead. Will probably go next year. Still working on my Russian. Tough language.

Boy, are you right, Art. I've taken a semester course and a conversational course, and I'm not sure I can say hello! (something like sdtradvweetsia)

Wow! Thank you!

We're taking a river cruise this summer and can hardly wait!

I recently booked a river cruise for next August thru Uniworld. I opted to add on the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania by motor coach. I love to look here from time to time and read about other people's experiences, so anything you folks can provide would be great!!!

Thanks for sharing. My ancestors are from Russia; hope to visit some day. By the way, have you seen the movie The Russian Ark? It takes place entirely inside the Hermitage. Just thought I'd mention it because your museum pictures brought vividly to mind some of the shots in the movie.

I have not yet seen the movie Russian Ark, waiting to see it. The other interesting thing about it was that it was filmed in one shoot.

The river trip that I took was on the Litvinov, it is one of the ships that Uniworld uses. I noticed that most of the ships that are used on the river are much the same, a 301-Class ship. We found that the Litvinov was a clean, well run ship, excellent crew and cruise staff. The cabins are small and comfortable with large windows. Don't expect a cruise ship that you would get on the ocean.

Garfield - did you take the optional trip thru the Balkans?

I did not take the trip through the Balkans, I was not with Uniworld. I booked my trip directly with the cruise line, which was Orthodox Cruise Line (cruise.ru).

LVSue, I'm going on Peter the great this July. How was you trip? suggestions, advice greatly appreciated

LVSue... forget zdrastavuitye and just say "privyet".

You can just say "zdrasta" informally -- it's used all the time -- although many don't care to admit it.

The formal greeting, such as to your boss/manager, is zdrastavuitye followed by first name and patronymic (namesake of father), e.g., zdrastavuitye Elena Alexandrovna.

Am I doing something wrong? On the link I get running pictures and some from England(?) but no Russia!

I had about 600 pictures posted until last week, they were first posted in May 03. I just removed them last week. I'll post some new ones in June, I am doing a trip from Constanza in Romania by boat to St Petersburg.

If you want me to repost some of my pictures now, indicated so and I will.

For learning some "tourist Russian", I recommend the Primsleur series. I am halfway through the Russian 1 series and hope to finish it before going on my trip in June with elderhostel. There is a Russian 2 and a Russian 3 but I know I will not get that far given the time I have. I wish I had started it earlier, but so be it.

I am using a Russian dictionary and grammar book as well to help. I did take Russian in high school for a year during the Late Middle Ages so I had some background, but really forgot most of it.

I play the CD's in the car everytime I am driving--and I mean every time. You do have to play each lesson several times before you move on to the next one. The emphasis is getting you to converse simply--asking directions, prices, etc. The CD's are expensive but, if used consistently, they do work.

So there is hope learning Russian? I bought the book "Russian for Idiots" and that's giving me a compliment. I just started the alphabet but am utterly, totally confused. I need to buy some tapes,but wonder if I'd be better to take a class in Russian. There are some Russian immigrants in our town, and one of them owns a wonderful little store (desserts are to die for). My ex was Greek-American and his church had Greek School for the little kids to learn to read and write, maybe they have a Russian Orthodox Church here that does the same thing.

To Garfield: Can the trip from Kazan to Rostov on Don (through Volgograd) be done separately? We took the trip from Moscow(?) to Kazan, but at the time, the southern portion was not available. Spaseba.

Sorry Thomas I have to correct you, it's "spasibo".

Both transliterizations for the Russian word for "thank you" are correct.

When you transliterize from Russian to English you transliterize sounds that English does not have. Hence, you can get variations on spelling.

I would transliterize the Russian "thank you" as "spaceebo".

Place names, moreover, can have many variant spellings. Take, for instance, Horodets/Gorodets/Hordetz/Gorodetz. Those variations are all for the same teeny village in what is now Belarus. Some of my ancestors were born there. There are other variant spellings in English as well. Much confusion is created.

The bottom line is that one should never get in a spitting contest about transliterization of Russian words--especially when someone is only trying to say "thank you".

Garfield ...if it's not too much trouble I know a lot of us would like to se them.

I didn't realize this was an older post.

I do have to start looking at dates before I post!