The buffet breakfast included with the price of the room had a great variety of choices, such as three kinds of lunch meat, three kinds of cheese, fresh fruit, soft boiled eggs, several hot items including stewed mushrooms and three kinds of juice. The Russians on the cruise boat could learn a lot from these Fins. Their meals were on the skimpy side.
The Helsinki city tour started from Market Square by the water front at 11:00 a.m. One stop on the metro got me within a couple of blocks away. There were coin operated WC’s (toilets) by the square. The door opened when I put in two one mark coins. There were supposed to be self flushing but the one I was in was not working very well.
At 11:00 a.m. I boarded a sightseeing bus with a guide who spoke English and Finnish. All the seats were full. There were two notable places we visited. One was the rock church which was Lutheran. The walls were natural rock in a circular grotto. A striking room had been built in a circular dome shape, the center of which was solid with a copper ceiling. The remainder of the roof was skylight. It was a pleasant building to be in.
The second worthwhile sight was the Sibelius monument, a memorial to the composer. It was an outside sculpture to represent a pipe organ constructed out of stainless steel. Off to the side was the stainless steel head of the composer when he was a younger man. The whole was extremely eye-catching and spectacular. The rest of the tour was the usual view of public buildings and embassies.
In the evening I returned t the dance hall where the three piece band played waltzes, polkas, jive, and slow music and played them well. There were many more single women there than men. There was a long bar on a raised platform behind a railing. Many of the men lined up along the railing. It was really like an old fashioned stag line. It was the closest thing to the dance halls we grew up with. Many of the men were extremely rude on the floor. They pushed the other dancers out of their way with no attempt at an apology.
A taxi transferred me to the train station where I was met by an Intourist representative who made sure I got on the right car and at my right seat. It was a compartment with six seats. I thought I would be alone but first a young American woman with a large heavy backpack took one of the seats. Then a young woman from Finland who worked for the United Nations joined us. The American girl had been traveling extensively in Africa and Turkey. She didn’t seem ready to go home. Her guide book was entitled “Europe and Scandinavia on a Shoe String.”
The woman in charge of the railroad car had taken my ticket leaving me no stub. After a couple of hours she gave me back my ticket and asked for my passport. She was efficient, but never smiled. The Russian immigration officers came on board. We were asked to step into the hallway while a female officer gave our compartment a perfunctory search.
The customs declaration asked if I possessed rubles. As it was illegal to take rubles out of the country I answered no. The rubles I had were in my shoe. When we approached the border our passports were returned and the officers left.
After we crossed over into Finland a woman with a money cart like in Reno came down the isle offering exchange. I took off my shoe and exchanged my Russian rubles for Finnish marks. It was a luck think because I had no Fin money for a taxi from the train station to the hotel.
Finland was well cultivated, flat land with few trees. There was mile after mile of tilled fields with a variety of crops in neat rows. The Fins were obviously an industrious people, unlike many of the Russians who were still hoping that someone would pay them even if they didn’t work.
When we reached the Helsinki train station, a taxi took me a short distance to the Radison Hotel. They were efficient and friendly at the reception desk, unlike my Moscow hotel where under the communist they didn’t have to be friendly and they continued to act the same way. The room at the Radisson was attractive with new furniture, a TV with a great selection of programming, a comfortable bed with new sheets and spread and a bath with shiny fixtures and large mirrors. The Moscow hotel had sheets on the bed that had been patched and what appeared to be an old army blanket. There was no TV and the furniture was mismatched.
After checking in, I walked around the streets by the hotel, finding the water front at Market Square where the ferry boats and excursion boats docked. The street names had many letters, such as the Radisson hotel was on Runeberginkatu. At first I couldn’t find where they were marked, but then I noticed the small signs attached to the corners of the buildings. They were difficult to read from across the street so it was necessary for me to cross the street and stare up at the sign with my street map in my hand, like a tourist. In the evening I went to a place where the Fins go to dance.
Lorene and I went a discover tour to see the Boeing plant. We met the bus at Shopco on Martin Way, which is the pickup point for Discovery Tours in Olympia. We took to bus towards Tacoma. Before we got to Seattle, we had lunch at an elementary school lunchroom. We were served by the students. It was a delicious lunch and very well served. It isn't easy to feed that many people in a short period of time.
After lunch, we rode to the Boeing plant in Seattle. We were met by a tour guide. The guide gave us an idea of what we would see. We entered a Boeing bus and rode to the large building where the planes were being assembled. Our guide took us into the tunnels under the large hanger to a balcony where we could look down on the planes being assembled. The building is so large that for the employees to get around from one place to another they use bicycles. We looked down on four different models of planes in various stages of completion. The guide did a good job of describing to us what we were looking at.
The building is massive with overhead cranes that can carry parts to each section of the building. The assembly of the main part of the plane was done in this building. The wings were pre-assembled and flown in from another plant and attached at this point. It was very instructive and well worth the trip.
Our breakfast was early because of the tours. We were taken first to the HermitageMuseum, which was the winter palace. Room after room was filled with the portraits of nobility and the paintings of Rembrandt, Leonardo DaVinci and Michelangelo. There were many paintings by many other famous painters from throughout the world. In the earlier times the subject matter was of a religious nature but in the later centuries they showed more knowledge of the human anatomy and drew muscles as they really are. There were some beautiful landscapes, battle scenes, and nudes. There were innumerable statues carved in stone by Rogan and other world renowned sculptors. Many rooms displayed battle implements and other artifacts. We only saw a small part of the displays.
Before the occupation by the Germans, most of the art work was packed up and secretly removed to a safe location. Only a few people know of the precious cargo and the sealed train carried away to safety. There were so many rooms full of art that a person could spend years looking. At the Rembrandt of Abraham Ready to kill his son with a knife as a sacrifice but stopped by an angel, a budding artist had set up an easel and was duplicating the picture. We had a local guide who led the group from room to room and explaining the art and a guide from the boat to make sure no one got lost.
We ate our bagged lunch on the buss full of British people. Some of them were dropped off in town while the rest of us went to a palace built by a wealthy Russian family. It was occupied by the German and later the Bolsheviks after the revolution. It became state property and was never returned to the original owners, although some of the descendents were still alive in France. Some of the rooms were not as large as the Emperor’s palaces but the decorations were exceptional.
It had a complete theater—with much gilt—that seated two hundred people. There was an orchestra pit, a stage as large as the seating capacity, balcony and boxes. In the days of the Czars the upper class had everything and the peasants had nothing.
It was at this palace that a plot to kill Rasputin was carried out. There were wax figures of Rasputin and the conspirators to reenact the scene. First the poisoned his food and drink, but he didn’t die. Then he was shot and left for dead, but he crawled on his hands and knees up the steps from his murder chamber. They shot him three more times and threw him in the river. When his body was exhumed, they found water in his lungs showing that he was still alive when tossed into the water. He died by drowning. He was one tough old bird.
We next went to St. Peter and Paul Cathedral, where many of the nobles were buried with sarcophaguses over their bodies. Peter the Great, his wife and daughters, Nicholas the Second with his wife and children to name a few.
On the grounds at a statue of Peter the Great I became separated from the group. By the time I was found I was soaking wet from a downpour.
In the evening we were driven to the ballet. The dancers were graceful. The men more athletic and the women more like floating clouds. Bill and his wife, Betty, were with us at the ballet. He was a retired British navy man. He did 39 years of service from the age of 15. After saying goodnight to my fellow travelers I went to my cabin to pack.
We docked in St. Petersburg and after breakfast went on a city tour. The tour wasn’t much of a success because it was raining and the bus windows were foggy. The guide was having trouble with her PA system, so we had trouble hearing her.
However, after the city tour we went to the PushkinPalace, the palace of Catherine the Great. It was an awe-inspiring building of many rooms. The Germans occupied it during the war years and left it in shambles. The left bombs in the building when they left, but these were found and defused. Many of the rooms have been restored to their original elegance and splendor. The main hallway glittered with gold leaf and mirrors. It was large enough to play football in it. The ceilings had elaborate murals and there were many priceless paintings on the walls. One room had the entire walls covered with paintings set in thin gold frames. All the floors were parquet with different colored wood fitted together in intrinsic designs. It must have taken craftsmen much labor to fit the many pieces together.
We were taken to a theater where Russian dancing was done. The performance by two dozen young dancers—half men, half women—was excellent with much vigor and grace. During the intermission champagne and caviar on small squares of bread was served. Back on the boat in the evening we danced.
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