GETTING THERE
Another highlight was Kizhi Island, with the treat of being treated to a chamber music recital and impromptu “ball” in the Governor’s Mansion, followed by the chance to browse shops and cafes. This 15th century settlement in the middle of Lake Onega has earned World Heritage Status, thanks to a pair of quite amazing 18th century wooden churches, the larger of which glistens with the beauty of unadorned silver aspen — no gilding the onion domes here.
More wooden buildings were moved here in the 1950s to create an open-air Museum of Architecture, and a highlight was watching a jeweller in one of the houses crocheting glass beads into one of the exquisite necklaces on sale.
Other stops included the settlement of Goritsy, where the main attraction is a huge and picturesque 14th century monastery, but whose multi-coloured wooden village houses have a charm of their own.
The multi-coloured Church of St Dimitri on the Blood in Uglich, named to commemorate the mysterious death of the son of Ivan the Terrible, is visually spectacular, but a nearby performance by a sublime three-man choir was even more memorable.
It’s possible to take the cruise without visiting either of Russia’s main cities but you’d be missing out: there’s an add-on package from the cruise company, although booking your accommodation independently reduces that cost significantly. With a shuttle to the Metro, the DoubleTree Moscow Marina’s rooms were a fraction of the cost of city centre hotels.
My Moscow wishlist focused on Russian art and Jewish heritage, although I couldn’t miss a peek inside the most multicoloured cathedral of them all, St. Basil’s on Red Square, actually a collection of tiny,
A six day cruise on Volga Dream between St Petersburg and Moscow (or vice versa) costs from £1,745 with Fred River Cruises, including port excursions and all meals, excluding flights. fredrivercruises.co.uk
The Moscow CityPass, including entry to the Tretyakov, St Basil’s and the Jewish Museum, costs
exquistely-decorated chapels.
After that, I gazed on the artworks in the Tretyakov Gallery: Impressionists and their predecessors are housed in the elegant main branch, unmissable early Chagalls and Kandinskys in a from around £40. russiacitypass.com
Rooms at the Doubletree Moscow Marina cost from around £95. doubletreemoscow. com
newer building a pleasant mile’s stroll away down the riverbank in Gorky Park.
But my main mission was a visit to the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Centre, considered one of Moscow’s most innovative attractions — a mission
EDITED BY CATHY WINSTON cwinston@thejc.com
indeed, hard to find on the northern edge of the city centre in a residential neighbourhood known as the Jewish Quarter.
It’s worth remembering that while the city’s Metro stations are magnificent works of art in their own right, they are far more widely spaced apart than the London underground or Paris Metro. Luckily, taxis are very affordable, and you get advance notice of the fare by summoning them through phone apps from one of the myriad cafes offering free wi-fi rather than hailing one on the streets.
The museum — easy to reach by bus from the Metro once you know how — aims to tell the story of Russian Jewry, mostly the story of the four million East European shetl-dwellers who suddenly found themselves under Tsarist rule. It’s fitting, therefore, that a recreated shtetl is the centrepiece after a rush through the most vivid events of the Old Testament from Noah’s Ark to the Exodus from Egypt in a panoramic theatre.
Multiple film clips and stills tell where Jews settled in what went on to become the USSR, and how they fared; there is even a recreated Soviet-era apartment which shows that cultural identification endured even in the decades when worship was forbidden by the state.
While those decorative onion domes provide the most striking images of a voyage along the Volga, this Russian journey reveals the many layers of culture and heritage hidden beneath.