It is in the 40’s here near the southeastern tip of Russia. Petropavlovsk is at 65 degrees north and 158 degrees east in a little bay surrounded by huge snow capped mountains. We dropped anchor at about 5 a.m. The local immigration officials took over 6 hours to clear the passengers’ passports. Once cleared, groups of 25 were given tender tickets and proceeded to the tender platform where we had to face an immigration official with passport in hand. Very time consuming procedure, not to mention not one of them smiled. They wanted to look fierce; instead, they just appeared unfriendly.
Other then stepping foot in Russia for our first time, this port was not very interesting. We managed to find a semi art gallery/ tourist crap. They had some pretty good small bronzes and we bought one of a mother bear and her cubs.
As we boarded our tender back to the ship, the consensus among the passengers was that this port, given the difficulty in reaching it, was a poor first port of call. Originally, we were supposed to be stopping in several ports in Japan. But after the tsunami, Japan was dropped and this was one of the replacement ports. No need to ever come back here!
Good night……..
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