We got up early, packed up the camp, had breakfast, paddled back to the island for a couple of hours, watching the Belugas before going back to where everything was bundled up on the shore, waiting for the Victoria to collect us.
After a little while, with some communication between the Russians, the Victoria came into view, throttled back and very carefully nosed it's way to a big rock that we could get to with reasonably dry feet and ourselves and our luggage was hoisted aboard and we headed off to Solovetski town.
We were met at the jetty by the hotel vehicle, our luggage was loaded up and we followed the owner via a 'short cut' up to the hotel. We had to take a diversion as the road was being dug up to put in mains water for the people of the area who still have to fetch water from pumps along the street.
The hotel was a collection of wooden buildings with Reception, kitchen and eating facilities and comfortable accommodation in one house, en-suite accommodation with kettles and eating places and a Restaurant which only seemed to open for breakfast.
We settled in and then set off, catching a lift to the monastery, and then walking further along to a restaurant that Dimitri had chosen for lunch. The food was fine but I did get some odd looks because I was in shorts.
After lunch David went off to see if he could find a possible *gull he had seen earlier, Demetri went back to the hotel to sort out his packing and I walked back to the monastery, with Sabrina first doing some shopping in the 'supermarket', which entailed queueing up and then asking for what you wanted. Definitely 'point and smile' shopping. As I waited a flock of goats wandered through the village and a woman came up the road leading her cow.
I walked slowly towards the monastery, leaving Sabrina to finish shopping. Some children were jumping into the lake and it was nice to just stand and watch the world go by. We eventually met up again and went into the monastery by a side door. We dashed into the shop as it was about to close, covering my head with a scarf as I went. They have an amazing rack of bells hung on a wooden cradle. Unfortunately we missed them being rung as we were round the other side.
After a little while, with some communication between the Russians, the Victoria came into view, throttled back and very carefully nosed it's way to a big rock that we could get to with reasonably dry feet and ourselves and our luggage was hoisted aboard and we headed off to Solovetski town.
We were met at the jetty by the hotel vehicle, our luggage was loaded up and we followed the owner via a 'short cut' up to the hotel. We had to take a diversion as the road was being dug up to put in mains water for the people of the area who still have to fetch water from pumps along the street.
The hotel was a collection of wooden buildings with Reception, kitchen and eating facilities and comfortable accommodation in one house, en-suite accommodation with kettles and eating places and a Restaurant which only seemed to open for breakfast.
We settled in and then set off, catching a lift to the monastery, and then walking further along to a restaurant that Dimitri had chosen for lunch. The food was fine but I did get some odd looks because I was in shorts.
After lunch David went off to see if he could find a possible *gull he had seen earlier, Demetri went back to the hotel to sort out his packing and I walked back to the monastery, with Sabrina first doing some shopping in the 'supermarket', which entailed queueing up and then asking for what you wanted. Definitely 'point and smile' shopping. As I waited a flock of goats wandered through the village and a woman came up the road leading her cow.
We walked through the grounds of the monastery, which is in the process of being restored, so there was scaffolding in some places, and Sabrina showed us 2 bells that the Russians had taken from a Finnish church and explained that there were moves to get it returned.
The roof of the monastery was topped with onion domes, made of overlapping wooden tiles and the front entrance was protected by two huge doors, which don't look as if they have been closed in years.
We walked into the building and looked through a door into an incredible room with walls and pillars which were completely covered in gold. There were lots of religious paintings hung around the room and a priest was intoning in front of a small altar. Not wishing to offend I had a quick look round and then we went back outside.
We met up with Dimitri at the port and helped get his luggage on board before thanking him for a couple of great days and saying our good-byes.
Walking back to the hotel we checked out the water pumps and found a large clump of Bog Arum in one of the roadside streams. At the top of the rise David took me to see some Frog Orchids he had found just up from the hotel turning.
The mosquitos were quite horrendous so we didn't linger before returning to the hotel for dinner tthat again had to be heated up before eating.
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