MIR Corporation's Travel Log:
Russia's Southern Urals & Lower Volga
Follow along with Bill Altaffer and a group of travelers through the Urals and Lower Volga and into some of the lesser-known towns along the way.
Bill Altaffer, 64-year-old ski instructor, photographer and travel company owner from Mammoth, California, was declared the "World's Most Traveled Man" in 2005. This year he is in third place and running as fast as he can to catch up. Of the 757 countries, territories, autonomous regions, enclaves, geographically separated island groups, and major states and provinces counted by the MostTraveledPeople.com, Bill has been to 676 of them, with 81 to go. His favorites places are the obscure Russian oblasts that he writes about in this blog.
Days 17-19: Astrakhan, Return to Moscow
October 7-9, 2008
 | | Traveling on the Volga between Astrakhan and the Caspian Sea |
After a day cruising down the river, we arrived at Astrakhan, the center of the chess board where the Great Game (the Anglo-Russo "war" for control of the Orient) was played out. From this base, Russia launched many expeditions into the Caucuses and beyond. Tamerlane burned the city in 1395 and it was conquered by Ivan the Terrible in 1556. We saw many centuries-old buildings during our city tour, including the beautiful Ascension Cathedral, built in the early 1700s, in Astrakhan's kremlin. In the afternoon, we drove out of the city to a hunting and fishing camp where the Volga splits into many smaller branches to form its delta on the Caspian Sea. We loaded into three small fishing boats and spent the next two hours speeding to the Sea and back. The banks on either side were brilliant with fall colors. We saw huge stands of lotus, no longer in bloom, and many birds, including gulls and groups of white swans. After returning to the fishing camp, we were treated to an incredible feast to cap another highlight of our trip. The following day, we flew back to Moscow before returning home.
All the cities we visited contained a pleasant mixture of old and new. Very old buildings housed new Internet cafes. Signs in English competed with those in Cyrillic Russian. On park benches, elderly babushkas bundled in scarves, heavy cloth coats and thick socks watched as myriads of fashionable young women in spike heels, tight jeans and trendy jackets hastened by. How much longer these cities will keep their old charm is anyone's guess. As we saw, bustling traffic and cell phones were everywhere. McDonalds and Baskin-Robbins were only two of the American franchises that have become common. Twenty-four-hour, modern grocery stores were also abundant. Modern freeways and luxury car dealerships have sprouted up like mushrooms. To all appearances, capitalism is alive and well in Russia, and it has dramatically improved the standard of living of the average citizen.
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