Grand Circle divided the roughly 200 passenger complement of the MS Tikhi Don into six ‘color’ groups, each with our own program director (P.D.). Tikhi Don (Тихий Дон in Cyrillic) is named for a Stalin-era novel by Mikhail Sholokhov. Our green group P.D., Nadia Radaeva, managed to find us before dinner on Wednesday night to welcome us to the ship. We had missed the first day of the tour which included a visit to The Hermitage Museum, and that was an important part of our visit to Saint Petersburg. We asked Nadia if there was anything we could do about that, and we mentioned that the Kleinfields were in the same situation (but they were sorted into the purple group). At dinner, Nadia found us and told us the good news and the bad news. The following afternoon was an open time, and she had arranged for a guide to take the Kleinfields and us to The Hermitage Museum. The bad news was that since our delay wasn’t Grand Circle’s fault, they wouldn’t provide transportation. We had to take a 20 minute ride on the Metro to get there! (A taxi could take an hour to get there at mid-day.) Our guide would meet us at the ship at about 2:30.
Thursday began with an optional tour of Catherine’s Palace which lasted for the morning. We were back on the ship for lunch. I won’t describe Catherine’s Palace here because my description wouldn’t measure up to the excellent description on Wikipedia (click on the link above). The purple group’s bus broke down on the way back from Catherine’s Palace, and the Kleinfields were not pleased (to put it mildly) with how their P.D. handled the situation. By evening they had been moved to the green group at their own request.
After lunch our Hermitage Guide, Ksenia Belous, met us at the ship and we went by Metro to The Hermitage Museum. I again defer to Wikipedia’s excellent description of the museum, but Wikipedia doesn’t have a page about our guide, and I cannot say enough about her. Partly because we were a group of only five, but mostly because we were guided by Ksenia, we really felt like we got a first class tour of The Hermitage Museum. As we were finishing the trip her boyfriend met us all outside The Hermitage and drove us back to the ship. That was the only way he was going to get to see Ksenia that evening, and I must say that I don’t blame him for going out of his way to get to spend time with her. The only downside ( if you want to call it that) was that I brought home two Saint Petersburg Metro tokens at the end of the trip.
Thursday began with an optional tour of Catherine’s Palace which lasted for the morning. We were back on the ship for lunch. I won’t describe Catherine’s Palace here because my description wouldn’t measure up to the excellent description on Wikipedia (click on the link above). The purple group’s bus broke down on the way back from Catherine’s Palace, and the Kleinfields were not pleased (to put it mildly) with how their P.D. handled the situation. By evening they had been moved to the green group at their own request.
After lunch our Hermitage Guide, Ksenia Belous, met us at the ship and we went by Metro to The Hermitage Museum. I again defer to Wikipedia’s excellent description of the museum, but Wikipedia doesn’t have a page about our guide, and I cannot say enough about her. Partly because we were a group of only five, but mostly because we were guided by Ksenia, we really felt like we got a first class tour of The Hermitage Museum. As we were finishing the trip her boyfriend met us all outside The Hermitage and drove us back to the ship. That was the only way he was going to get to see Ksenia that evening, and I must say that I don’t blame him for going out of his way to get to spend time with her. The only downside ( if you want to call it that) was that I brought home two Saint Petersburg Metro tokens at the end of the trip.
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