Yaroslavl - 1 August 2008

Leaving the main St Petersburg-Moscow route the ship took a 250 km side trip up the Volga River to Yaroslavl, the draw card being the UNESCO World Heritage listed Church of St Elijah in the main, or 'Soviet Square'. Unfortunately, we arrived on the feast day of St Elijah so the church was closed to visitors. This town was home to some 50 Russian Orthodox churches, as well as a monastery, nunnery, mosque and synagogue before the Soviet regime and only about half have survived.

The monastery really wasn't worth visiting, after the Kirillov monastery yesterday and, unless you were keen on onion domed churches, there was very little to see or do during our short stop-over. We visited the local market and saw the confluence on the Volga and Kotorosl Rivers and our overall impression was 'not worth the detour'. The most positive aspect of the day was the warm sunny day, much of which we spent on deck watching the world go by.