After a year and a half of planning and preparation, numerous hurdles and a four-week trip from Rostock along the Baltic coast in changeable May weather, we are now happily moored in St. Petersburg and waiting for the journey to finally begin. Our big destination is Moscow, and apart from the German sailing legend Rollo Gebhard, we don't know anyone who has ever made this journey before. Our Russian guide Boris requests the night-time passage through the then opened bridges of the Neva, on both sides of which lies the city of the Tsars. We are assigned a pilot and told the time we have to be at the first bridge. From here, the daily convoy starts up the Neva - we are told our place number in the convoy shortly beforehand.
It's hard to imagine a more spectacular start to our Russian adventure. The upcoming "White Nights" ensure a bright night, the silhouette of the city is festively illuminated on both sides, and the numerous tourists on foot, in buses or on the excursion steamers create a folk festival-like atmosphere. The weather gods send us autumnal weather with strong headwinds and cold temperatures just in time for the crossing, so that we even have to lend the pilot one of our weather jackets. But our enthusiasm outweighs all the adversity and we enjoy this unique night-time experience. Now we're really inside!
We have around 1,800 miles of Russian inland waterways ahead of us before we will be back here in just over six weeks. The route leads through a system of rivers, canals, huge natural lakes and artificial reservoirs with numerous large locks. As the "Volga-Baltic Waterway" is used almost exclusively by Russian river cruisers, tankers, freighters and pushed convoys, it is widely developed and well buoyed. Outside the metropolises of St. Petersburg and Moscow, however, pleasure craft are virtually impossible to find - and those under foreign flags even less so.
This is probably also the reason why, with a few exceptions, there is hardly any maritime infrastructure along the entire route. When we set off in the morning, it is regularly unclear where we will be able to moor in the evening. Most of the route is also an unknown world for our Russian companion Boris - so little help can be expected from there. As early as the first night, we realise that a berth that seems free is not necessarily free for the whole night. So after only three hours' sleep, we have to start the engines again, dead tired, and move our boat a few miles. It will not be our last experience of this kind.
The Neva comes towards us with a strong current that reaches over five knots at a narrow point. Civilisation accompanies us until we enter Lake Ladoga near Schlisselburg, then it becomes noticeably more secluded. Lake Ladoga is a huge freshwater lake up to 225 metres deep - incidentally the largest lake in Europe. Its water surface area is 17,700 km², with well over 500 islands covering another 687 km², which is more than the water surface area of Lake Constance (536 km²). The lake stretches almost 220 km from north to south and measures 120 km from west to east at its widest point.
We stay in the southern area on the outward journey and leave the lake at Sviritsa before travelling upstream on the River Swir. Here we have to anchor in a tributary, as there is not a trace of a mooring possibility. Due to a strong, unfavourable wind, it takes quite some time for the anchor to hold our 60-tonne yacht. When we retrieve it the next morning, we have some surprising remains on the hook, which we struggle to remove.
The Swir runs through sparsely populated areas and meanders through seemingly endless coniferous forests. It connects Lake Ladoga with Lake Onega, the second largest lake in Europe. With an area of just under 10,000 square kilometres, it is "only" eighteen times the size of Lake Constance. There are numerous islands in the lake, including the island of Kischi with its famous churches, recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We want to make a stop here on the return journey.
But first we make the acquaintance of the first of over twenty large locks to be passed through (length up to 290 metres, width 18 to 30 metres, lifting height 6 to 16 metres). The locks are built for commercial shipping and the process is precisely defined. Here, at the latest, any doubters immediately understand why the mandatory Russian escort with a boat licence is absolutely sensible and indispensable. Their presence is required simply for ongoing radio communication with the lock staff and other officials.
We are usually towed together with other ships. The captains of the commercial vessels look at us "exotics" with interest and often wave over in a friendly manner. Every now and then, someone asks on the radio which country our flag represents. Despite the high lifting heights, locking is relatively quick with corresponding turbulence in the basin. Despite the greatest possible care, our large ball fenders suffer greatly. At the end of the journey, two of them finally run out of breath and the protective covers with their hanging shreds are reminiscent of wounded boxers.
After the summery temperatures at the end of May, the weather completely changed in June: cool, rainy and sometimes very windy. We almost feel at home, but would prefer it to be a little warmer. In this atmosphere, we reach Vytegra - the first small Russian town where we go ashore. It starts with a mooring at an old, dilapidated concrete pier with a few rusty bollards - otherwise no water, no electricity, no infrastructure - nothing.
As soon as we have moored, a dolled-up lady stands there and tells us that this berth costs 4000 roubles (about €90). This is of course an exorbitant price that is not justified by anything, but it gets even better: the price is only valid for 12 hours - that's €180 for the whole night. We make it clear to the lady that we will grudgingly pay the 4000 roubles, but not a kopeck more - otherwise we would leave immediately. After endless phone calls, the lady comes back and agrees. However, we would have to move the boat to the neighbouring, even more rotten pier - as punishment, so to speak. At least we get a form in triplicate with lots of details, signatures and stamps for our money. And we are wished a pleasant stay in Wytegra with a smile - there you go.
The town turns out to be a completely charmless, hodgepodge of buildings of different ages and types. Apart from the main roads, there are no paved roads. We trudge through holes and puddles and finally seek refuge from the rain in a "café". The "café" is in the basement of a house and looks like a hobby cellar furnished with furniture from bulky rubbish. But the coffee and cake taste really good. We will learn more often that you shouldn't be fooled by appearances. Many cafés and restaurants - and often shops - have very good quality, hidden in an unsightly and loveless ambience. It remains to be seen whether it is a lack of money or a lack of attitude - or both.
After travelling through the Vytegra Canal and the Kovsha River, we reach the almost circular White Lake - not to be confused with the White Lake in Eastern Siberia or the White Sea near Arkhangelsk. Due to its formation during the Ice Age, it has an incredibly constant "depth" of around 5 metres - at first we think our depth gauge has stopped.
It gets noticeably warmer, and after several thunderstorms the weather clears up. The lake with its chains of hills on the northern shore makes an inviting impression. Our destination is Belozersk on the southern shore - a small town with a long history. There used to be eleven (!) churches here, some of which have been preserved. One of the most beautifully restored is located in the castle (=Kremlin), which is well worth seeing and is surrounded by a huge, dyke-like earth wall.
Belozersk turns out to be a stroke of luck and represents the contrast programme to Vytegra in every respect: A well-kept silhouette without industrial plants and tower blocks greets us from afar. The pontoon bridge at the entrance to the harbour is opened in a friendly manner and a berth "in front of the green house" is recommended. Located on the old St Mary's Canal system - the Tsarist attempt to create a Volga-Baltic waterway - the harbour and its quayside look like new and are well maintained. An approximately two-kilometre-long paved promenade with wrought-iron gates and an Art Deco clock invites you to stroll around.
The "green house" turns out to be a small hotel, whose owner Andrej helps us tie up the lines and greets us warmly. We get water from his hotel via several extension hoses, we are allowed to use his "banya" (sauna) free of charge - and when we decide to stay a second night after the warm welcome, Andrej invites us to a fish dinner the next evening. With home-cooked fish soup ("Ucha"), a home-smoked giant pikeperch ("Sudak") from the White Lake and the obligatory accompanying drink of vodka, we experience one of the most beautiful and Russian evenings of the whole trip in Belozersk.
When we want to contribute to the costs - we haven't paid anything for water, food, sauna or mooring - we learn another lesson about the proverbial Russian hospitality: if you are not asked for money, you are considered invited. If you are not asked for money, you are considered to have been invited.
We reach the industrial town of Cherepovets on the largely unspoilt Sheksna. Neither the socialist-inspired town nor the shabby marina with the grandiose name "Admiral's Club" invite us to linger any longer. On the Rybinsk reservoir, the panorama opens up and you have the feeling of being at sea again. At almost 5000 square kilometres, the "Rybinsk Sea" is about half the size of Lake Onega, making it the second largest reservoir in Europe.
The lake, like many other parts of the Volga-Baltic waterway, was created under Stalin. Under the waters of four rivers - including the Volga and Sheksna - two towns, around 700 rural communities and villages with 26,000 farms, 40 churches, three monasteries, dozens of former estates, not to mention the forests, meadows and fields, disappeared. It takes us a whole day to get to Rybinsk at the southern end of the "lake".
The closer we get to Moscow, the warmer and more pleasant the weather becomes. We now follow the broad, meandering Volga to Uglitsch, one of the most popular stops for river cruisers with its numerous, beautifully restored churches. As there are no moorings for pleasure craft here either, we make a "gentlemen's agreement" with the passenger boat company: we can use the excellent moorings of the river steamers, some of which are moored in packets, as soon as they have cast off - after all, they mostly sail at night. Cost: 9000 roubles with receipt, 5000 without - we come to an agreement quickly and without much formality.
Before we leave the Volga and turn into the Moscow Canal, we moor in Kimry. Apparently they want to prove to us before we reach the metropolis of millions that Russia does have such things as marinas: a wonderfully well-kept, park-like facility on the steep banks of the Volga, with harbour master, office, electricity, water, infrastructure, Wi-Fi, barbecue area and restaurant at a reasonable price of 2258 roubles (around €50) per boat length against receipt. Even if Kimry as a place owes everything else: Here at the "Two Captain's Club" we felt very comfortable and very well treated - basically like at home. Incidentally, "Two Captains" could also be the headline for another chapter of our trip - the sometimes difficult relationship between me and our Russian "captain". But that's another story ...
We are now only two days' journey away from our big destination of Moscow. We have around 80 miles ahead of us, but there are six major locks to pass through, each with their own unpredictable rhythm. So we plan a stopover en route and moor up at a deserted pier between the locks in the evening. Unfortunately, we didn't count on the landlord. Just as we were about to make ourselves comfortable on board after dinner, we were startled by a radio call. The lock authorities have realised that we have not arrived at the next lock as expected.
We are told in no uncertain terms that mooring between the locks is not permitted. Although the locks are several kilometres apart, we are not obstructing anyone and it is already after 8 p.m., we have to cast off again and join a slow-moving pushed convoy. We still have four of the six locks ahead of us, it's getting dark and we haven't yet found a mooring at the end of the tour. For the first time, I feel a little queasy, especially as I have no experience of travelling at night.
Darkness soon falls, bringing additional cold with it. Tired and slightly chilled, we leave lock no. 6 at around 2 a.m. after another six hours of travelling. After the brilliantly bright lighting in the lock chamber, we are now enveloped in total darkness. Only here and there are red or green lights and white windows, which I find difficult to recognise without practice. Fortunately, Boris steps into the breach with all his experience. We have identified a possible mooring point on the map. Using our searchlight for the first time, we find the spot and approach the pier, which, contrary to our expectations, looks very well-kept - almost too good to be true.
When we have moored, two young lads with beer cans in their hands suddenly emerge from the darkness of the bushes. Boris talks to them quietly and after a few minutes they disappear again into the darkness of the night. The next morning - we can't have been asleep for long, but it's already getting light - I'm woken up by the squawking of an outdoor loudspeaker. At first I don't relate the noise to us, but I take the precaution of checking it out.
What I see makes me wide awake in a millisecond: We are drifting in the middle of the busy inland waterway in front of the bow of a pushed convoy loaded with gravel. The captain has obviously seen us in time, stopped and is now trying to drive us out of the fairway over his loudspeaker. Although we are somewhat shocked, we act like automatons, start the engines and leave the fairway. Apparently we have been untied at night and allowed to drift away - we will probably never know why. The lines lie neatly over our railing - nothing has been damaged or stolen.
It is only thanks to several fortunate circumstances - low current, dawning light, low speed of commercial shipping at this point - that we are able to continue our journey with our ship intact and unharmed. Apparently the good Lord didn't want it all to be over on our thirtieth wedding anniversary of all days ...
With this experience in our bones, we reach the "Royal Yacht Club" in Moscow tired and unshowered. It is not actually a club in the conventional sense, but the name of a beautifully situated marina in the heart of the Moscow capital. During the construction of the Moscow Canal, which connects the Volga with the Moskva, a landscape of lakes was created in the north of Moscow - most comparable to Berlin. The RYC is located on one of these lakes, where river cruisers also start their journey to St. Petersburg. Its very unusual-looking main building, which also houses a top restaurant, was built into a former grandstand that was erected here decades ago for sports competitions, but was left to decay during the communist era.
Our spirits are slowly awakening again. The RYC offers everything you would expect from a marina, is professionally managed - and the price of €60 per day for our size of boat is rather modest based on our previous experience. We had expected completely different conditions here in the capital of Russian "big business". But that's just the way Russia is - for us a country of extremes, where a lot of money for nothing and a lot of service for free in peaceful coexistence
living right next door to each other.
Moscow city centre is easy to reach by metro - otherwise the view from the berth is of water, lots of greenery and a few distant high-rise buildings, of which only the upper floors tower above the crowns of the large old trees. The good overall impression is completed by the excellent summer weather with temperatures of over 30 °C in places. A once-in-a-century high has the whole of Europe in its grip and will give us an unforgettable summer over the next six weeks. When you look around the flybridge barefoot, in shorts and with a glass in your hand, you think you're not in Moscow at all, but somewhere on the Mediterranean. We joke "Côte de Moscow" - and there's more than a grain of truth in that.
But the absolute highlight of our trip is still to come: we want to sail our "Azura" right up to the Kremlin and have some pictures taken of our ship in front of the world-famous silhouette with its red walls, towers and golden church domes as a "trophy". To do this, we have to pass through another five locks from our berth down to the Moskva River and then travel another 17 miles down the Moskva. Moscow, with its 10 million inhabitants, around two million of whom are illegal residents, is a boomtown - construction is going on like crazy.
In addition to the old classic city centre and the numerous faceless suburbs, a modern business district is being built, where not only the height of the buildings but also the architecture is reminiscent of modern Shanghai. A friend of Boris takes excellent photos of us and our "Azura" - we will probably only be here with our boat once in our lives. Despite a slight grounding on the fairly shallow Moskva River, we set off happily and contentedly on the equally long journey back
