Day 73 - Friday 15th July.

Ian here.

What a few days we have just had.  After all the emotional excitement of meeting the family in Poland we have now come to Russia.  I can so well remember the fear that was instilled in us in the UK , (and presumably also elsewhere in the western world) in the "Cold War" days from the '60s to the '80s, by the propaganda about the mighty Soviet Russian State, and the perils of Communism.

Well with the hindsight of history, and from visiting firstly East Berlin, then Poland and now St Petersburg, it is clear that not many of the general population that had to live under those regimes was particularly keen on it, and most welcomed its demise in the early '90s.  But in Russia they did survive the Nazi aggression, under the dictatorship of that paranoid, Stalin, and in St Petersburg, at least some of the locals survived the 900 day siege.  Dogged  determination.  But then wait for the Warsaw story.......

Monika waves goodbye from Poznan 

So we left the new family in Poznan on Monday morning, taking a train to Warsaw, a few hours away to the east.  We arrived, took a taxi to the hotel, The Le Regina in the New Town (only founded in the 14th C!) and settled in.  Beautiful hotel, highly recommended, best bed I have slept in since I left home!  We went for a stroll around the New and Old Towns.

 They have both been completely rebuilt since the War, as, on Hitler's orders, the Nazis systematically blew up all of the buildings in Warsaw after the Polish uprising in 1944.  Mind you, the uprising started then because the Russians promised to help the Poles if they started an uprising in Warsaw....  and then they failed to turn up to help -- I wonder why?  So a pre-war population of 800,000 were reduced to half by the end of the War, including 160,000 Jews taken from the Jewish Ghetto to the death camps.  Warsaw was not a lot of fun in 1944......

The Old Town Market Square, totally rebuild after the War

But we did have fun. A bus tour and many wanderings through the New and Old town and the Jewish Ghetto, and past the magnificent '50's Soviet Realism style "Cultural Centre" showed that Warsaw is alive and well, and well worth a longer stay if we ever come back this way......

Ian's beer!

Jane had a massage, I swam for my first exercise for a week, we walked, and ate local food, including a huge meal of "farmyard kill" on the last night in a Czech "bierkeller" bar.

Half eaten!

We had our first travel hiccup, when the St Petersburg agency gave us 24 hours notice that our carefully chosen apartment had "a plumbing problem" and so they wanted to rebook us into another one, of unknown quality. Time lost sending emails back and forth, and some fretting, which has turned out to be unwarranted; we are probably now in a better location.

Warsaw's 2nd favorite son, Chopin.  Pope John Paul ll was the first!

So we flew in on Wednesday lunchtime, setting foot in "enemy territory" for the first time.  Impressions so far, we love it! Another cultural heritage - different,  again.

Just 'cos they can now buy Coca Cola and Subway does not make them any less Russian than 200 years ago when they bought in Italian and French architects to design their buildings and they married Prussian Princesses and so became mostly a German royal family, (interestingly, just like the British monarchy about 50 years later with Queen Victoria and Albert Saxe Coburg ....).

Sitting on the Neva River embankment at 11.00pm

And so to St Petersburg.

 Oh, this could be a long blog.  It's now midnight, just getting dark (we are 60 degrees north here, about the same latitude as Iceland)  and I hear a horse and carriage passing in the street below, and hundreds of cyclists seem to have taken to the streets outside, I know not why.

The Church on Spilt Blood at 10.30pm

Every square inch of wall and ceiling is covered in mosaics in the Church - and fabulous acoustics,

Highlights so far are the strolls along Nevsky Prospect, the Oxford Street of St P, with thousands of tourists and locals out for the shopping and the sights, a boat trip along the river and canals passing sights such as the Strogonof Palace and the Winter Palace, and last night a "to die for" concert of sacred choral music in the "Church on the Spilt Blood", built on the spot where Tzar Alexander ll was assassinated in 1881.

Today was a full day in the Hermitage museum, which has one of the finest art collections in the world, housed in a fabulous Palace, built for Catherine the Great in 1745 and extended many times thereafter to house her ever expanding collection.  AND a night at the ballet tomorrow, the former Kirov, now the Mariinsky. More photos will follow....

Tomorrow the Kirov Ballet!

Day 68 - Sunday 10th July. Poland.

Poznan, Poland, with family found

Ian and Jane.

From Germany, we (Ian, Jane and Tom) have travelled to Poznan in western Poland, from where Ian's father departed for the U.K. in 1939, at the outbreak of the 2nd World War, never to return.

For reasons that even now we do not fully understand there was not very much communication between the older generations of the families in Poland and England for most of the last 50 years.  But now we are here, and have had a wonderful reunion with 2 half nieces that we knew of, and their mothers, their partners and some children we had no knowledge of! It's been a wonderful 4 days full of introductions and sign language and marvellous shared meals.  The traditional Polish hospitality has been very generous.  We have spent many hours (and bottles of wine) going through old  photographs recovered from parents' bottom drawers and sharing family stories.  Many new friendships made. A emotional time for Ian too, as he puts into place the Polish half of his family tree that was missing.

Poznan, Old Town Square

Poznan was Ian's father's home, and where he, at the age of 15, along with the entire top class at his High School, enrolled in Polish Army for the uprising of 1918, which resulted in keeping this city within the borders of the reformed Poland, on the carve up after World War One. We now have a great picture of him with his first medal pinned on his youthful chest. As a reward the boys were allowed to smoke in class when they were sent back to school!

One morning was spent traveling to three different local cemeteries to see the tombstones of some of the family.  And Simon will be pleased to know there are at least three generation of actors in the family.  Great Grandfather and his(more acclaimed) wife are buried in the "Distinguished Persons Cemetery". And we hope to see the great great great grandfather - Jan Krolowski's statue in a park in Warsaw.

The husband and wife actors tombstone.

Poznan was badly damaged by fighting during the Russian advance during World War Two, so, rather like Berlin, there is a mixture of the old, the rebuilt to look like the old, and the new side by side. We saw the Old Town Square, some beautifully restored medieval churches and the 15th C. Town Hall, with butting headed goats appearing from the clock on the tower, making the city a tourist centre, as well as being famous for universities and international trade exhibitions.  The churches also contained treasures recently returned from Russia to where they "disappeared" after the war.  A familiar story, like the museums in Berlin.

Medieval and Baroque churches, fabulous interiors, and treasures recovered.

And so after 5 full and rich days we are packing our bags and preparing to move to Warsaw for a day before flying to Russia, the 9th country we will have visited for more than 45 minutes (and 2 for less - very tight flight transfers!).

The Krolikowskya  (but not all of us!)

We have had such a warm welcome from the new family here in Poland. Thank you all. And best wishes to those in the family who are currently facing some health challenges, we send you our best wishes.