Song of the Volga

Anthea Gerrie cruises between Moscow and St Petersburg on a culture-packed journey along the Volga

Of course we have a synagogue,” said Andrei, our guide in Yaroslavl, the historic metropolis dubbed “city of churches” for its never-ending gold, green and scarlet onion domes. These colourful spires alone don’t tell the full story of this religious town; alongside the Russian Orthodox, Jews prayed more than a century ago in a handsome blue building of their own, hastily renamed a cultural centre after Stalin declared religion an enemy of the state and confiscated it.

Now congregants not only pray again in the shul, the city’s mayor gave the community money to help renovate when they reclaimed the building in 1994, and they are building a mikve. Being Jewish is kosher again, even in Russia’s Christian heartland.

This is a country where Jews can feel conflicted — so much seems reassuringly familiar, from the menus awash with Ashkenazi comfort food ingredients like pickled cucumber, sour cream, beetroot and horseradish, to the same kind of folk dancing we enjoy at weddings and barmitzvahs. Yet Russia has alternately embraced its Jews, acquired en masse with the conquest of Poland and other east European nations, and scapegoated them, eventually chasing most of them into the diaspora with generation after generation of pogroms.

Finally, political stability has spawned more religious tolerance, and the community has grown almost to the size of Britain’s.

One of the most interesting stops on a cruise from St Petersburg to Moscow, Yaroslavl is still only one of the urban jewels in Russia’s Golden Ring. Others fielded dozens, even hundreds more multi-coloured onion domes, not to mention monasteries, convents and charming little riverside settlements where meeting locals was the main attraction.

But you did not have to be in port to experience Russian life; Volga Dream, one of the highest-rated ships cruising Russia’s waterways, is family-owned and devoted to offering passengers a full immersion in Russian culture.

We had language lessons, learned how to form kreplach-like pelmeni and painted matrioshkas; we listened to a fine pianist play Tchaikovsky and a history professor relate the events leading up to glasnost and perestroika. She also lectured us on top Russian artists from Levitan to Chagall (the country’s two greatest painters, arguably, both of them Jewish), authors from Tolstoy to Chekhov and explained how and when Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and other kingdoms which were once full of shtetls were acquired, absorbed and liberated.

The culture was optional, as was the Russian food with plenty of international choices alongside, but for this Russophile it was a treat to be welcomed on board with vodka shots and caviar canapes and sample dishes rarely enjoyed outside the mother country like rossolnik — think minestrone with pickled cucumber chopped into the vegetable mix, served with a dollop of sour cream — and julien, a rich starter of mushrooms folded into creamy melted cheese.

Volga Dream’s vegetarian dishes were among the best of the boat’s cuisine, available at every meal. Forbreakfast there were eggs or omelettes cooked to order plus some of the best Danish pastries tasted outside Copenhagen. Standard cabins were comfortable if not lavish, with high portholes; given the scenery, it’s worth upgrading for picture windows.

And if decor was a little dated, there was plenty of inside and outdoor seating to enjoy those spectacular river views, which included a couple of memorable half-sunken churches, their belfries emerging above water.