Monday 4 April 2011

Today Picasa is being very annoying ~not letting me upload pix to my blog !! So I will tell you the story of "Miss Bashkirya" . The Russian cruise ship "Bashkirya" left Yalta in June '66 for more ports of call :Istanbul,Izmir,Athens,Corfu,Dubrovnik,Palermo,Naples and finally Gib before Bay Of Biscay and UK. We were feted in Gib as the first Russian cruise ship to visit and a small band of us went off to meet Mr Serfati,the Minister of Tourism ~bouquets for the more senior ladies . I was content with my "Miss B" sash... What a trip which didn't cost the earth .I decided to splash out a little after a broken engagement.... It started in Tilbury where we embarked on the "Nadezda Krupskaya" for Bergen,Oslo...Leningrad then overland by train to Moscow.I braved the Aeroflot flight to the Crimea so as not to miss the Boshoi. A fantastic hol which has stayed in my mind all these years. Footnote : the ex-fiance and I re-kindled our relationship in '03 and enjoyed 5 happy years together before he passed away in '08. {the Tolstoy prog on BBC1 last night reminded me of the Bashkirs}