Chapter 1 Background and Preparation. September 2019.

In August 2018, my wife Monique discovered an amazing Russian baritone singer called Dmitri Hvorostovsky. You can see more on Dimitry at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Hvorostovsky


You can listen to some of his songs at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV1kzblUElY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SwumVFUMBg

She was fascinated by his singing and downloaded all his songs to her tablet. Daily she would listen to his powerful voice singing opera and Russian traditional songs.  This fascination led me to suggest that we visit Russia by taking the Transiberian train.  Monique's only condition was that we should visit the gravesites of Dimitri in Moscow and Krasnoyarsk.  Dimitri died in 2017 at the age of 54 of brain cancer. His legacy lives on and his singing is still very moving.

We decided that we would make the trip one year from then, which meant September 2019.  This meant that I had 1 year to organize the trip and one year to learn enough Russian to converse with people while traveling.

After looking at various options, I decided to work with a local travel agency (Russia Discovery) as I really did not know enough about Russia to do this myself.  The structure of the trip ended up being a 24 day trip with 11 stops along the route from  St Petersburg to Vladivostok. At each stop, we will be met by a local guide and we will spend 1 or 2 days in a local hotel visiting the various cities before getting back on the train for the next leg. Our itinerary will take us to
St Petersburg
Moscow
Kazan
Yekaterinburg
Novosibirsk
Krasnoyarsk
Irkutsk
Lystvyanka
Lake Baikal
Ulan-Ude
Vladivostok

See the map below showing our trip in red with X marking stops and the distances in Kilometers.

I added a couple of extra days in Moscow and in Vladivostok as I wanted time to meet some relatives in Moscow and to explore Vladivostok on my own.  My paternal Grandfather had a whaling and shipping business in that city.  In fact, my research established that the actor Yul Brynner was born in Vladivostok which put me in touch with his son Rock who is a history professor in Connecticut.  Rock has kindly offered to make some introductions for us at the Vladivostok museum.

I decided that we would stop off in Riga, Latvia for a few days to rest and to visit parts of that country where the family of my mother, a born von der Recke, had substantial landholdings.  We are lucky that friends of ours from Edmonton, Peter von Sass, and his wife Elona von Koskull will be in Riga while we are there. They own an apartment there and spend time each year there as their families also came from this area. They have offered to show us around while we are there.

With the decision to travel to Russia I decided to learn Russian in the 12 months before our departure. I started off trying a variety of systems and apps which are available and settled using LINQ as my main tool. I worked with LINQ as it is a method that forces one to read and this seemed like the quickest method to acquire Russian vocabulary.  I would recommend to others who are learning foreign languages.  After several months of self-learning, my wife found me a Russian teacher who was working in a pastry shop in Fort Lauderdale.

Natalia Krasnova agreed to take me on as a student.  We started working 2 times a week for an hour on Skype and since have moved up to 3 times a week.  After much research, I decided to try a novel way of learning which has 3 rules for the teacher and student
1. Natalia only speaks Russian during our classes which consist of her describing pictures in a magazine we both have as well as in a children's book about Nancy. I started conversing right from the beginning and continue to progress speaking as my vocabulary has increased. We also do not use English unless it is to ask her how to say something as I struggle to form sentences.
2. We only speak about grammar if I have a question.
3. Natalia never corrects me unless I ask.

I am writing this 2 weeks before our departure and will admit that my Russian is still in its infancy but I can express myself and to read basic texts. I am each time amazed at how many words one needs to learn and remember just to have basic conversations. Of course, this requires memory to be able to recall all these words and, with age, wines get better but memory does not...

 The real test will be during the 3 weeks we are in Russia. I expect that much of what I have learned will become available as I am forced to use my Russian. I am told that outside of Moscow and St Petersburg, few people actually English.

I am sending this first posting today. If you do not want to receive further chapters, please let me know at  akeyserlingk@gmail.com.

I will remove your name. On the other hand, feel free to forward this blog on to others who may be interested.

Montreal, August 23, 2019