Wandering Lizard
Russia

A Trip to Russia - Cruising the Inland Waterways - Spring

The 18 locks that we passed through were always interesting and most of the passengers on the ship went out on deck to watch and gawk as the ship's captain and crew efficiently managed the passage. The fit of our ship into the concrete box was tight and margins for error were slight, but we never had any problems. The biggest subject of conversation on deck was about where the water went as we magically moved up or down from one level to the next. On occasion there would be as many as four or five large and small vessels in the lock at the same time and it was obvious that there was a sophisticated time schedule at work on the waterways to avoid traffic jams.

There are a lot of different companies offering river cruises similar to the one which we took with Viking River Cruises. Most are organized by Russian companies, but we saw others that were organized by other European companies. All of them use ships that are virtually identical in basic design and outward appearance. About the only external differences between most of them is the name on the prow, the company flag flying from the forward mast, and the color of the trim paint on the universally white hull. The picture immediately above illustrates one of the reasons - the size of the locks. Many times there were only inches between our ship and the wall of the lock.

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