#spaceships and vodka official

[rowanthestrange]

A figure was crouching in the emergency exit. He had two bulky objects in his arms: a large coil of copper wire, about the size of a wastepaper basket and a cardboard drum looped with insulated cable. Between his teeth, making a T-shape with the dagger-like line of his beard, was a screwdriver.

oh honey.

You remember the guy who wasn’t the Doctor in that Christmas special that really given the themes I’m surprised we don’t talk about more often? Same emotions. *taps screwdriver on table* “Well, er, it makes a noise. That's sonic, isn't it?”

… we atone for the inadequacy of critical writings on the life and career of Miss Marlene Dietrich - for the unsatisfactory nature of nail varnish under Communism…

Can’t believe my Whittaker!Master is gonna need nail varnish now but I’ll adjust.

The Master enjoyed the scene. Not the sudden disappearance of the alien aggressor, but the sight of nine uniformed Russians crouched on the bridge floor, bidding good riddance to a hostile spaceship that had never arrived, getting up to brush invisible dust from their clean uniforms, and running, joyously, to congratulate him for having saved them from a peril that never existed.

jesus christ

The Master did not look at them. He was gazing at the figure of K'vo, loitering in the doorway of the emergency exit, clipboard in hand, smiling a thin smile of triumph. It was only when she had slipped from view that he acknowledged the handshaking and the backslapping.

Oh my god he wants them to swap and to have a companion so badly oh my god

'A simple solenoid,' he said, with the airiness that he knew the Doctor favoured in such circumstances. 'I had an inkling that these metal creatures were held together by electromagnetic force. So I interrupted it.' Nine men with very little understanding of physics gave a loud cheer, raised the Master to their shoulders, and began a loud chorus of 'Kalinka'. They carried him in a circle around the bridge, until someone looked in a cupboard and discovered an unopened bottle of Polish bison grass vodka.

He got carried around. And more vodka for his alcoholism (mention number 4). He’s had such a good day.

The Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers was there to greet them, fill their glasses, and introduce them to the august company assembled.

I mean 5.

The General Secretary relinquished the Master's hand and nodded to a nearby official, who produced a silk-lined box. It contained a shining medal suspended on a crimson ribbon. 'The Order of Lenin,' wheezed Brezhnev. 'The highest honour the Soviet statecan bestow upon a civilian.'

A MEDAL YOU SAY

That night, the Master slept a sound heroic sleep. Was this, he wondered, how it felt to be the Doctor? He awoke at six and went to the bakery at the end of the boulevard. He bought custard tarts and a bag of sunflower seeds, and rushed back with them to the apartment of Mrs Pelageya Vlasova. It took him a moment to locate her doorbell. He realised that he'd never had cause to press it. Mrs Pelageya Vlasova opened the door in a state of discombobulation. She did not like to be seen without her make-up. 'Sorry to be so exuberant at such an early hour,' said the Master. 'But I had a very successful day at work yesterday. So here's something for you and something for Margarita. Mrs Pelageya Vlasova accepted the gifts with pleasure. Then her neighbour clicked his heels and went on his way to the Cheryomushki metro.

jesus fucking christ

Even K'vo was in the mood to celebrate. When the tea break came, they shared her first cigar of the day. The Master felt like he was in the opening number of one of those Soviet musicals about a boy, a girl and a tractor.

(Don’t think I’m ignoring the meta layers about that cigar either)

[vicarfelix]

Incompetence

__

Felix Millstone x Fem. Reader

Warnings: Language

A/N: Not many Felix fics on here...

Word Count: 3,308

“Baby, you’re one of the damn finest captains to ever run a ship.”

__

“Welcome back, Captain.” ADA’s computer generated voice rang out in the entrance of The Unreliable.

The captain groaned under her breath as she closed the airlock of the ship behind her. She said a silent thank you to whoever was listening that she made it back in one piece and in relatively good health. She was a little banged up, but nothing a shot of adreno wouldn’t fix. It was her duty to save Halcyon...or at least get it going in the right direction. She knew this very well. Dr. Welles wouldn’t have woken her up from a 70 year hibernation if he didn’t think she had what it took. But this last mission had been a rough one.  

Initially, she wasn’t sure if she could afford to spend time on this mission. It was out of the way and where they would have to go was deep into the Monarch wilderness. However, Nyoka had been so hesitant to ask for the captain’s help which showed her how desperate she actually was. This was even more obvious considering that Nyoka hadn’t known the captain very long to be asking for personal favors. It was important to her to visit Hayes’ grave and try to find the rest of her old hunting squad. So, the captain figured it was worth the trip. She knew how important closure could be.

The captain, Nyoka, and Ellie had hiked a ways into Monarch and into the old cave that Nyoka and her previous team had made into a base camp. Sadly, they only found the dead bodies of her beloved friends and ended up putting them to rest once the rogue mantiqueen was taken care of. It was hard on Nyoka especially, but it even got the captain thinking about the current situation. Here she was, a Hope colonist who was thrown into a space pod by some crazed scientist for all she knew with the task of saving an entire colony. She had been asleep for the last 70 years and now she was supposed to hop between planets to save them from turmoil? It was insanity. She was only human and could only handle so much. She was thankful that she had been able to assemble a team along the way.

She met Parvati first. It was just the two of them for a while. She was the first friendly face the captain had met on her journey. She saved Parvati from the destruction of Edgewater and their crooked mayor. The captain desperately needed her engineering skills as well as a sharp mind to keep the ship in order. She was nice company and always willing to lend a hand. She never let her forget how grateful she was.

Vicar Max was a challenge in the beginning. She didn’t like the fact that this esteemed priest had asked her for a favor the moment she met him. She wasn’t sure if his spiritual counseling skills would be beneficial to the team. After all, she needed a gang of intelligence and physical combat skills. Max proved himself through his computer hacking skills which wasn’t something she would’ve expected from a vicar. He grew on her quickly and she was happy to have him around.

SAM was actually the last person she recruited into your party. Honestly if she hadn’t taken the time to deeply search through the late Alex Hawthorne’s spaceship, she never would’ve noticed him. He was stashed away in one of the closets upstairs, so at first she thought he was just used for parts. Once she took the time to get him fixed, he was up and off to work. She didn’t really ask him to be a part of the crew. He sort of just got started on his own. He didn’t say much, but he was a good fighter and kept things spiffy and clean.

At the time she met Ellie, she was in desperate need of a medic. She could only do so much, so having a doctor around was helpful. Ellie had the most secretive background of everybody. She came from one of the wealthiest families in Byzantium and really could’ve had it made. The captain commended her for living the life she wanted to live, even if it meant risking having her own flesh and blood disowning her. She was often the one the captain turned to when she needed to talk, because Ellie would tell it to her straight. She never left a conversation with Ellie still wondering how to handle something.

The captain tended to think that she saved Nyoka’s life. She was a drunk living in Monarch. She had been burned one too many times by the evil things of the world. Captain never judged her for how she chose to cope with her hurt and losses. She had a fiery passion for helping others and bettering the colony. The captain admired her worth ethic. It was her family and friends above all else. She was very loyal to those she cared about. She rarely questioned her captain’s decision making and always backed her up through it all.

Then there was Felix. Oh, wow. When she first met him on Groundbreaker, it was the first time she had stopped in weeks. He had been standing near the landing pad, arguing away with one of the mardets about something sketchy he had done. She had taken the time to stop to speak to him. She immediately noted that he wasn’t shy when it came to a fight. He wasn’t shy when it came to violence. Truthfully, Felix had kind of brushed her off at first. He didn’t seem very interested in joining The Unreliable. So, she moved on.

She completed a few favors for Groundbreaker’s main engineer Junlei Tennyson. Once the business was settled there, the captain decided it was time to set flight. As she was leaving, she saw Felix standing by the entrance of The Unreliable. She was surprised to see him, considering he hadn’t seemed too impressed by her before. He complimented the ship, claiming that she needed him to join her team.

She already knew she was going to say yes. However, she wasn’t going to be seen as a pushover. Because she wasn’t. He was delighted that she had given him a chance. He read his list (literally) of reasons as to why she should hire him. She was amused by him. He interested her. So of course she hired him on the spot.

He was like a kid on Christmas when he set foot on The Unreliable. She later learned that he had never been on a real spaceship. As a matter of fact, Felix had never even left Groundbreaker before. He was born and somewhat raised on Groundbreaker, living in the Back Bays all his life. It was all he knew. He was going to see space for the first time and get to explore new planets. She was his golden ticket to a more exciting life.

It wasn’t long after Felix joined that she grew closer to him. She felt wrong for a while for being so drawn to him. She was his “boss” as he always called her as well as his captain. But at the same time, she was really just his friend that happened to be in command of the ship he now lived on. They were the only real night owls, so they spent a lot of time into the late night hours just chatting. Getting to know each other over a bottle of spectrum vodka and strengthening a personal connection. Soon enough, they were sort of the equivalent of a modern day couple.

The rest of the crew sensed that something was up, but they had yet to officially say anything. The crew didn’t mind. They all agreed that she deserved someone loyal like Felix. They knew she would never favor him over anybody else, because she was always fair.

So, here she was now. She was just plain exhausted and needed some time to wind down. She had originally planned on leaving Monarch and docking at Groundbreaker to get some drinks before turning in. However, the mission had taken longer than expected, so she decided to stay in Stellar Bay and hit up Groundbreaker in the morning to give everybody a day off. They needed it. She entered the control room to deactivate ADA:

“ADA, we’ll head for Groundbreaker in the morning. You can shut down for the night.” She ordered the PC system.

“Docked in Stellar Bay and shutting down, Captain.” She replied before her screen went black.

It was ironic that you always had to tell ADA when to turn off. She couldn’t really turn off, because then the whole ship would go dark.

The captain felt relieved to have made it back safely. For there were a few moments where she had her doubts. She left the control room and climbed the stairs. Everybody was sitting around the table, Nyoka and Ellie looking especially tired. The captain’s eyes flicked over to Felix who was fiddling with the tossball that he always kept in his pocket. He flashed his girlfriend a grin, however it faded into a sympathetic frown when he noted how drained she looked. Everybody else looked at her upon noticing her standing in front of them;

“Hey, guys. Change of plans. We’ll leave in the morning for Groundbreaker. It’s late and quite honestly, I don’t feel like traveling,” She admitted; “Take it easy tonight. Tomorrow will be our off day to piddle around Groundbreaker. Get some rest.”

Everybody agreed happily to a day off and dispersed into their respective sleeping quarters. She rubbed her eyes to keep herself from getting too tired. She still had a few things she needed to do, so she wouldn’t be turning in just yet. She made sure to turn SAM off for the evening. SAM could power down on his own, but he often had the tendency to roam the ship freely during the night. Parvati had been spooked one too many times by SAM walking into her room unannounced.

She felt a hand on her shoulder as she went to approach the stairs to go back down. She looked up to meet Nyoka’s gaze. She had a certain gleam in her eyes past the fog of sleeplessness;

“Thanks for today. I really appreciate it, Captain,” She gratefully said; “I can rest easy now knowing they’re at peace.”

“Of course, Nyoka. Anything for you,” The captain returned with a smile; “Get some sleep. ADA will wake us in the morning.”

Nyoka returned to her room and the captain went back downstairs to her room. Truthfully, she wouldn’t be able to sleep even if she didn’t have work to do. She had too much on her mind. She sat at the long desk across from the bed, thumbing through files and papers that Alex had left behind. He had left piles and piles of reports about all the planets in the colony. She could just ask ADA, but these were personal notes and maps. They were useful, but detailed. It took serious time to go through them. Soon after she had sat down, she heard a voice from behind her;

“Hey, Boss,” Felix said gently tapping on the doorway; “You got time for a nightcap?”

She turned to see him standing there with two cups wrapped in one of his hands. She felt a warmth creep over her at the sight of him. She needed someone to talk to.

“Always,” She said, accepting his request to enter. A goofy smile appeared on his face as he entered and he handed her one of the cups. She thanked him before scolding him; “I told you that you don’t have to call me Boss.”

He shrugged as he took the chair adjacent to her for himself;

“It’s got a nice ring to it. I save Captain for special occasions.” He said sipping whatever was in the cups.

Speaking of, she peered down into the ceramic mug to see a familiar purplish liquid bouncing back your reflection. She smiled softly as she raised the rim to her lips, letting the sweet liquid grace over her taste buds.

“I hope you don’t mind sharing the portion. I know we usually get our own but we’re low on purpleberry juice so I split a bottle between us.” He said sliding down into his chair slightly and entwining one of his legs with hers.

“Oh, that’s totally fine. I’ll be sure to pick some up tomorrow,” She stated, taking another sip; “How were things here today?”

Felix rolled his head from side to side in an attempt to work out any kinks. He laughed shortly;

“Ah, the usual. SAM cleaned every square inch of the ship. Parvati spent all day writing a message to Junlei. Max had his nose in a book all day,” He explained; “I, on the other hand, was actually productive.”

He reached into his pocket, pulling out a carton of cigarettes that he picked up on Scylla. They weren’t his favorite Spacer’s Choice brand of smokes, but they would do. He offered her one first, lighting it for her, and then picking one for himself. She raised a brow at his previous statement, hiding her unconvinced smirk behind the cup;

“Is that so?” She asked for elaboration.

“Yeah! I organized all my tossball cards from my favorite to least favorite. It took me almost all day!” He clamored.

She laughed heartily. Only Felix Millstone would consider that to be productive. However, considering he didn’t get into any actual trouble, she would take that any day. She watched as he brought the cigarette to his lips that were upturned into an amused smile.

“Well, I’m glad you have your priorities straight.” She said sarcastically.

His eyes brightened;

“Hey! At least I didn’t get in a fight with ADA this time. I minded my business,” He defended; “But enough about me. How did it go with Nyoka and Ellie? You ladies seemed extra worn out.”

She sighed, her smile disappearing from her face. His heart did a quick pang in his chest when he saw her demeanor change so quickly. He had wanted to go with her on Nyoka’s detour mission. The captain had told him no, considering he had just gone on the previous one. He always felt that he could save her some grief if he went along on difficult missions. 

“It was long. It was hard...mentally and physically. Especially for Nyoka. She was expecting to find at least one of them alive. They were all dead.” She said recalling the overrun cave.

Felix winced at the thought. He had grown up in the Back Bays of Groundbreaker. He had seen his fair share of people get killed, but nobody he really cared about. She took a long drag of her cigarette. Letting the smoke fill her lungs completely.

“Marauders?” Felix asked referring to how they had died.

She shook her head as she released the puff from her chest through her nose.

“We don’t know for sure. We think it was mantipillars. Nyoka seemed sure that there was no way marauders could’ve found that cave.” She explained.

She had agreed with Nyoka’s theory. It had taken some serious navigation to get there and even with Nyoka’s help she still got turned around. She took another sip of her juice, hoping that maybe she’d get sleepy soon. She didn’t want to put her problems onto Felix, because that wasn’t his burden to bear. She knew that he enjoyed listening to her. He cared about her a lot and he was thrilled to hear about her thoughts...even if he didn’t get it. He was more than willing to help where he could.

“How do you feel about it? Now that you’re back and the job is done?” He questioned, leaning forward to be closer to her.

She looked down into her cup, swirling the juice around the sides and letting it splash back into the center. She didn’t want to look at him. That’s when he could really see through her. She felt so vulnerable.

“I feel lost,” She admitted; “I don’t know what I’m doing, Felix.”

He furrowed his brows, cradling his cup in both his hands with his cigarette between his index and middle finger;

“Do any of us really know what we’re doing? I thought you told us to take things step by step?” He asked.

“Well, yeah. I still believe that, but I mean me personally. I’ve been tasked with saving Halcyon from completely falling apart by some man that could be a total fraud for all I know. I feel so incompetent.” She confessed.

A blank stare crossed Felix’s face. Law bless him. He didn’t have the best range of vocabulary.

“I feel like I’m not good at anything I do.” She said defining the word she had just said.

Felix looked shocked at her words. That was crazy. She had been busting it the last several months trying to accomplish her bestowed goal. He had seen her at her best and at her worst. She took everything in stride and gave everything her best shot. She was friendly and kind to those who had good intentions and stone cold to those who took advantage of innocent people. She was a blend of warm and tough. She was the perfect person in his eyes.

“Are you kidding? [Y/N], you’re not at all incontinent.” He said using the wrong word.

She snorted at his horribly wrong use of the word. If only Felix knew what the word he had just said actually meant.

“Incompetent.” She corrected.

He chuckled. She could be such a smart ass.

“Right. Anyways, you’re great at what you do. I’ve seen it myself.” He proclaimed.

Her gaze averted downwards again, not feeling convinced.

“You’re just saying that because you like me.” She said half joking.

“Well, you’re not wrong. I do like you. A lot. But I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.” He said truthfully; “Baby, you’re one of the damn finest captains to ever run a ship.”

She finally looked at him, taking the cigarette from her lips;

“This isn’t even my ship, Felix. It was a total accident that I ended up on this thing.” She argued.

“It is your ship,” He retorted; “You were assigned to it. You made this ship your own. You gathered your own crew and your own life here. So, you’re wrong. This is your ship.”

He had a point. She did take over the ship without a second thought. She improvised. She was quick thinking on her feet. She overcame. Isn’t that what captains are supposed to do? She finished off her cigarette and the last of her juice. He had gotten through to her enough to make her feel more comfortable. The whole 70 year hibernation had done a number on her emotions.

“It’s my ship,” she repeated; “I am the captain.”

He smiled proudly;

“Damn right you are. I’m proud of you. I’m glad to be your right-hand man.” He beamed.

He kissed the back of her hand, guiding her out of her chair. He disposed of his own cigarette and he tore her away from the desk. Soon enough, she was in bed, curled up next to him. His arm was wrapped around her, keeping her warm and comfortable. He kissed her temple, rubbing her back gently. He wanted her to get a good night of sleep so she could enjoy their day off tomorrow.

“Goodnight, Felix.” She whispered just before falling asleep.

He rested his chin on her head, watching the stars outside the observatory window and into the endless space.

“Night, Captain.”

[ecotone99]

The Last Guy at the Liquor Store Before the Storm

The clouds finally rolled in that afternoon while I sat in my truck, idling. They were heavy and dark, more black than gray. The lights in the parking lot flickered on.

“Trying to tell me something, God?”

I waited for an answer of any sort from the big man. A lightning strike probably would’ve sufficed. Nothing happened though, and I sighed.

“I could use a little support here,” I said. As I spoke, the burden of the bottles of liquor in the trunk became an almost physical presence. They were pulling me down, impossibly heavy weights tied to a drowning man’s ankles. It’s funny how heavy they were, in spite of what humanity was facing. The end of the world was nigh, and a week’s worth of booze was still fighting for control of me.

I had chosen this parking lot intentionally. If I was going to dump out my liquor, I wanted it to be where I bought it. I needed the store to see me conquer it. “See that, ‘Fine Spirits?’ I don’t need you.”

Sure, the store had been closed for a few days, and sure, it was about to become impossible for anyone to find alcohol anywhere. If the scientists were right, the storm that was coming was never going to end. Outside of the elite, humanity was basically done for. As I was nowhere rich enough for a ticket on the tastelessly-named “Noah’s Arc” spaceship, my alcohol problem was about to be solved for me against my will.

That’s why I was here, though, ready to throw away all the booze I had left. By doing so, my upcoming sobriety would no longer be a cosmic sentence imposed on me by God, but an empowering choice I made to better myself. Who cared if I wouldn’t have very long to reap the benefits? Fuck the benefits.

I hopped out of the truck and into the pre-storm atmosphere that had invaded the parking lot. Once upon a time, in another life, I had loved the moments leading up to a thunderstorm. The stillness of the animals, the scurrying of people to get inside, the smell of the air. Something about it was electrifying.

I poured out a bottle right onto the blacktop, then another, and another. The slope of the parking lot was gradual, but enough that a small vodka-river began to flow. As I opened up the last bottle, the first droplets of rain began to pitter-patter down.

I finished pouring it out, and was struck by the realization that I was officially sober forever. I was no longer a drunk. A strangely empty feeling started to settle in. So who was I, then?

I glanced around the parking lot, but not a soul was there to be seen. There was no one to impose anything on me now. I could be anyone. I smiled.

In that moment, I was the last guy at the liquor store before the storm.

Nothing more, and nothing less.

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[jayfurr]

On Wednesday, August 22, the Furrs sailed into the grips of what had once been known as the Evil Empire:  Russia.

St Petersburg, Russia, to be exact.

And I remember the first words I uttered as opened the stateroom curtains and looked blankly toward the shore:  “That’s one tall building.”   The Russian need to overcompensate for perceived inferiority had once again reared its head: they built the tallest building in Europe miles north of the St Petersburg city center, surrounded by … nothing, looking for all the world like an invading spaceship that had come in for a landing.

That said, we were in St Petersburg for two days, with an overnight stay allowing for extra time to enjoy the city and its environs.   We had two days of tours (the exclusive small group tours, which as we found out in Estonia, didn’t mean we’d avoid crowds) booked.  On the first day, we were going to be taken to the Catherine Palace twenty miles south of St Petersburg proper, then bus back to the city for lunch, followed by an afternoon at the legendary Hermitage Museum (which is anything but a small hermitage.  Jeezum crow, that place went on for miles).

We originally hadn’t had anything planned for the evening of our first day, but Carole had spotted a “folklore dance show” excursion that we could go back out to in the evening, and that had sounded interesting enough to sign up for.

On the second day, we were going to go see a second huge palace, the Peterhof, known for its elaborate fountains, and then we take a hydrofoil back to the city, and then get trundled around to a series of lesser cathedrals and palaces and things.  It all sounded good in principle, but in execution, it ran us ragged.  We were dead beat by the end of each day.

Of course, before any of this could take place, we had to get off the ship and through customs and border security.  In every other port on our itinerary, entry had consisted of walking off the ship, down a dock, and waving idly at the customs employees in their little shed.   Not so in Russia.  Russia has some of the toughest visa requirements in the world and frustrating-as-hell border controls to go along with them.   Even if you’re on a cruise ship and the cruise line has sent all your information to the Russians in advance, you still have what can turn into a multi-hour wait to stand in lines and go one by one up to a window where a bored Russian guard asks you strange questions and decides to let you in.  (No, we couldn’t and didn’t take pictures.)

But take our word for it; it wasn’t fun.  And we, at least, got a bit of priority — all the tours that had been set up by Norwegian Cruise Lines got to go through security first; only then did the passengers who had booked their tours on their own get to go through. (You couldn’t go onshore under any circumstances without a ticket for a scheduled tour offered by a licensed vendor.)  We understand some of the folks who decided to save money by booking their tours directly had a two-hour wait.

A note about money in St Petersburg:  Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to withdraw cash from a Russian ATM, especially the ones lined up at the cruiseport just after you go through customs.  As far as we can tell, they’re not real ATMs and exist only to steal your information.   We tried to withdraw some rubles using our American bank card and even though a sign on the machine said you could do that, each time we tried the system took our PIN, asked us what account to withdraw from, etcetera etcetera… then said the transaction had encountered an error.  Or words to that effect.  So we gave up.

Well, it turns out that starting the moment I tried to withdraw rubles at the port, persons unknown started trying to buy $400 and $500 worth of goods from the Nike online store using our debit card information, goods to be shipped to Russia.  Our bank promptly put a freeze on the card, which meant that things like our utility bills that were on automatic draw didn’t get paid until we got back and found out what was going on.  (The bank was supposed to have sent us an email if something like that happened, but never did, so we only found out when we got back.)  We weren’t out any money as a result of the attempted thefts, but the Russians tried multiple times over multiple days to use our card info.  And since the only place we tried using it in Russia was in that ATM at the cruiseport… and since the attempts started that day… well, draw your own conclusions.

We found, later, that our regular credit cards could be used in stores… and even street vendors, like the guy we bought a music box from at the Catherine Palace were set up to use them.  (We also found that just about everything in Russia was absurdly cheap.  A McDonald’s Happy Meal sold for about $1.05 American in Russia, once you converted the price in roubles into dollars at the official exchange rate.  No, we didn’t eat at McDonald’s.  There were posters everywhere advertising McFood and the McPrice.   The only place we went that wasn’t cheap was a large store we were taken to on our second day there.  They were selling faux Faberge Eggs, vodka, Russian matrioshka dolls, furry hats, and so forth — all for about ten times the price that the vendors in the shops at the cruiseport proper were charging.

Anyway…

Once we were finally off the boat and in our little bus, we had about a half hour trip from the port to the Catherine Palace.  This afforded us a look at some really grim looking Soviet-era apartment buildings near the port and along the route.   It turned out later that a lot of St Petersburg was lovely and scenic and had great architecture, either from the Imperial era or from the post-Soviet years… but that didn’t mean that all the Soviet monolithic apartment blocks had just up and vanished.  They were all still there and still occupied.  And there were a lot of ’em.[spacer height=”20px”]

The Catherine Palace was immense.  It was located in the Pushkin area, south of St Petersburg proper.  Construction of the palace had been started by Peter the Great’s wife Catherine.  Tsarina Elizabeth tore a lot of it down and started over, spending money like water and basically bankrupting the country.  Catherine the Great, who more or less succeeded Elizabeth (it’s complicated) regarded the whole thing as a tacky white elephant.  But that said:  Huge palace.  Grounds that went on for miles.  Room after room with elegant fittings, furniture, art, etcetera.  After a while one got sort of numb to it all.   (The Russians, to give them credit, had done a tremendous job of fixing the place up again after the Nazis shelled the hell out of it.)  It didn’t help that we, of necessity, had to be rushed along if were going to see it all, to say nothing of the endless encounters with other tour groups and their guides all shouting in a veritable Babel of languages.

We had lunch back in the city at a restaurant (“Troika“) that turned out to be the local naughty cabaret (but not at lunchtime) where we were served the traditional Eastern European tourist lunch: chicken, potatoes, salad, and vodka.  Carole didn’t want her vodka and gave it to me; I promptly spilled it on the white tablecloth and wound up sopping it up with some bread, which I then ate — an action I dubbed “the most Russian thing ever.”  It was while we were going to and coming from the restaurant that we got to see a lot of the new St Petersburg, including the street with all the expensive foreign car dealerships lined up along it, one after another.

Then they took us to the Hermitage museum, right in St Petersburg proper on the banks of the Neva river.  (It’s called the Hermitage because back in the day, it was very very exclusive.)  The museum is situated in a network of linked palaces and buildings and the collection is just enormous.   They don’t have room for everything to be on display, but what they do have on display runs the gamut from ancient Egypt to renaissance Italy and France, neoclassical and impressionist stuff from the 19th and 20th centuries… I mean, basically they have everything worth collecting in the entire Eastern hemisphere.    And crowds in proportion to the size of the collection, crowds upon crowds upon crowds.  Imagine Walt Disney World on the busiest day of the year, only in an art museum, and give everyone cameras and an urge to photograph everything they see.  And that’s the Hermitage.

Now that I’ve seen both the Catherine Palace and the Hermitage, if you asked me to recommend only one of them for a future trip to St Petersburg, I’d definitely choose the Hermitage.  Its art collection was absolutely first rate.  It wasn’t all paintings, either.  Lots of sculpture, statues, artifacts, antiquities, doodads, thingamabobs.  You could spend days there and not really do it all justice.  Even if there weren’t crowds you’d need days.

After the Hermitage, we went back to the ship and had dinner and a quick swim to refresh ourselves, then rushed right back out to get back through customs for our trip to the “folklore dance show”.  We didn’t know if the Russians, just to be Russians, would make us take just as long to get through security as we had earlier (although we knew there would be a lot fewer people going through at 6 pm as opposed to 8 am), but since we’d already been through once and had a certain piece of important paper tucked into our passports (I don’t speak or read Russian, so for all I know it said I was a piano tuner from Addis Ababa), the trip through security took about five minutes.

We were bused to an older district of St Petersburg and taken to a building they identified as the General Assembly House of the Officers of the Army and Navy (aka the Officers House), a lovely concert hall on Liteyny Prospekt, where a nightly show called “Russia through Fairytales” was presented.   Tour groups were their stock in trade and it was obvious from the way the employees spoke to us that some groups had paid for the vodka-and-wine-and-crudities-during-intermission and some hadn’t and Heaven help you if you tried to help yourself when you weren’t supposed to.  We absolutely loved the show.  It was everything we hoped for; the troupe of male and female dancers dressed in what we assumed was classic Russian garb leapt and pirouetted and danced and tumbled and we were worn out just from watching them.   We would happily have purchased the souvenir DVD but the sour lady at the table selling them didn’t take any form of plastic and we didn’t have enough paper money in any currency she took on us.  C’est la vie.

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What We Did On Our Summer Vacation, Day 8 (St Petersburg) On Wednesday, August 22, the Furrs sailed into the grips of what had once been known as the Evil Empire:  Russia.