Volcanic Russia

Day 11, Grand Asia 2018

Thursday, Oct. 11, 2018, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, Russia:

If Alaska’s Aleutian Islands are perfect pictures of snowy mountains and rugged coastlines, Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula is similarly beautiful. Perhaps their breath-taking beauty is no surprise. Both are along the edges of tectonic plates of the earth, the northern edges of the Ring of Fire that surrounds the Pacific Ocean.

Kamchatka is home of much of Russia’s submarine fleet, but if any were nearby they stayed well below the surface.

The Kamchatka Peninsula also is home to 29 active volcanoes. Several ring the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, including the towering Koryaksky, Avachinsky and Kozelsky peaks. We had a stunning view of these from Trinity Cathedral, a recently built white church on a hill with bright blue roofs and gold dome accents. I tried to quickly sketch them during our too-short stop.

After days at sea with clouds and rain, we were blessed with a sunny, crisp fall day, making the gold domes glisten and the snow-capped volcanoes stand out against a cloudless blue sky. Standing by itself across Avacha Bay, the Mutnovsky volcano was magnificent.

Almost all the Holland America tours include several city highlights. In addition to the cathedral, they stopped in the center of town, at a market and at a scenic overlook. I don’t remember much of the basic Russian I studied before a trip to Russia, Ukraine and Moldova a decade ago. But I could still recognize and sound out the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet to read the directional signs to major cities, such as Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Paris and Tokyo.

What differentiated the various tours was which museum each visited. Choices include military, Soviet history, cultural and – for me – the Vulkanarium, or volcano museum. Our guide Sergio was eager to explain the physics and life cycles of volcanoes. At the same time, I thought he spoke as a romantic poet about the beauty of volcanoes and their relationship with the people of the Kamchatka Peninsula.

This was a new port for me, as it wasn’t on our itinerary last year. Originally we were slated to anchor and tender to shore, but we lucked out and instead docked at the cruise pier. It took a while for a number of Russian officials to clear the ship – I spied them enjoying a nice breakfast on board while we waited.

Russian law requires most visitors, including Americans, Canadians and Australians, to have visas. However if you are part of a tour organized before you arrive, (whether by Holland American or private) your visa is part of your tour purchase. Many who have cruised the Baltic Sea to Saint Petersburg are familiar with this rule. So we could not exit the ship until our tour commenced. Mine was scheduled for 2 p.m., leaving me several hours to sketch the area around our pier from my balcony. It was the first day with weather nice enough to sit out for a while.

Our planned 6 p.m. departure was delayed by two hours, so we left Avacha Bay as we had arrived – in the dark. That meant we missed seeing Три Брата, the rocks called Three Brothers that protect the bay entrance from tsunamis. Earlier we had painted them in our watercolor class.