A Cold War Moment

Our last port before heading for the high seas is the city of Petropavlovsk, Russia.

Situated on the Kamchatka Peninsula and home to a little over 100,000 people, the city is the poster child for remote. There are no road connections to any where. With Moscow over 8200 kilometers away it seems a perfect location for a cruise stop?

The area around Petropavlovsk is home to around 160 volcanoes,

with 29 of them still active. A very photogenic place but way to may earthquakes. In the last 12 months they have experienced 23 earthquakes ranging from 4.5 to 7.2. A perfect location for a cruise stop??






It once took us almost 10 hours to clear customs when we entered Russia from Mongolia. Things have not changed much in the intervening years. We were required to turn over our passports to the ship, the night before. Arriving early the next day, the passports were turned over to the custom officers who boarded the ship early in the morning. The passports were returned once they were all reviewed and we were allowed to exit it the ship, not before being ogled and questioned by more custom officers. A perfect place for a cruise stop???

The ship is not able to dock so we were tendered into to shore. A new experience for us as well as a stressful one for Nonie who likened the tenders to smaller versions of a ferry. She managed to overcome here fear and boarded the tender for the short ride to shore. That is a grimace, not a smile.

For the next few hours we explored the city. The city was first settled in 1740 which surprised the heck out of me. While the scenery is beautiful, who they hell would want to live in the middle of "no where".



And like ever Russian city we have ever visited, came complete with a statue of Lenin,

a Russian Orthodox church and

a Russian bear.

But Petropavlovsk has a dirty little secret. Well maybe not so secret. For those of you who are old enough to have lived through the Cold War, Petropavlovsk was and still is home to Russia's largest submarine base. The submarine in the picture is compliments of Wikiwand and is a K-211 Petropavlovsk-Kamtchatski class nuclear ballistic missile submarine.

We were scheduled to leave the harbour at 6:00 PM but did not leave Petropavlovsk till after 10:00 PM due to submarine movement in Avacha Bay. I and a bunch of like minded Cold Warriors spent those 4 hours perched on the front of the ship keeping our eyes and cameras peeled for a submarine sighting . While no submarines were seen, some suspicious bubbles appeared that came in from the bay, swung by the ship and then back out into the bay. Definitely a Russian submarine toying with us.

Visiting Russian is not easy but if you can work your way through the bureaucracy and avoid Russian subs, it is worth while.




Next stop Vancouver.