6 September

Well, today was a most informative and instructional day which started after a fitful sleep interrupted by the room fridge starting every few minutes and alternating with the sounds of running (or at least walking quickly) along the corridor. After checking (some clothes were dry, others weren’t), I showered and dressed and was down for breakfast by the appointed start time of 0730.
After a bit of investigation I found the breakfast room, which was the nightclub in the evening. There was a palatial buffet set out, including amongst other things freshly cooked pancakes and fried eggs. There was a toaster, but in common with a lot of countries, the toast bread was small. However it was soon done, buttered and Vegemited (then eaten). This was followed by what should have been cornflakes and milk, but which actually tasted like sugar crispies. I finished with bacon and fried egg and wondered if my travelling companions of the last evening would arrive.
While waiting, there are some observations I made. We had music supplied by a piano accordionist and this was gentle and not obtrusive. However one of the breakfast guests (a Finn, I found out later) was rather loud and proved obnoxious on a few occasions, calling out to one of the waitresses, “Hey, Ruskie” and on another occasion, “Hey, you lady” when what he was looking for was right in front of him if he looked. At this stage Harry and Anne from yesterday evening arrived for breakfast. Apparently Anne had left her coat on the bus (putting in neatly in the overhead rack) and tried to contact the company, but there was only an address and a fax number. They were returning to Kirkenes later this afternoon and hoped they would find it by then.
I headed off to the desk and explained about the Internet and had to get two thirty-minute cards for access. I also had to arrange about transport to the railway station tomorrow and was explaining abut Vegemite when I was rudely interrupted by another, unfortunately very good, English speaker.
I went up and finished writing up my blog and then logged on and uploaded the photos, checked my emails and posted out another bulk email. Fortunately all that happened in less than the thirty minutes on the card. A neat trick is most of these cards have no logout function and, once you are logged in, it lapses at the end of the time whether or not it’s been used.
But enough of that. At just before 1000 I went down to the lobby and looked for my guide, Alexander. I saw a tall and young Russian holding a sheet with “Nullet” on it and figured it was close enough – and it turned out it was! He was my guide, we looked at the train ticket and then the receptionist booked the taxi for tomorrow evening. Then Alexander and I headed off for my three hour guided tour.
I emphasise this because we returned to the hotel at 1745, seven and three quarter hours later.
We began by Alexander asking if I wanted to walk a bit, I said yes and so we started walking down to the main street. Then we walked north and he pointed out the five-cornered square (yes, it is correct) and the public areas around there where the populous gather to celebrate (anything). Just up from there is the government offices and then the museum which my Russian companion of the night before had mentioned. That didn’t open until after 1100, so we wandered east past the Ice Hockey/Convention Centre and then into the Railway Station. It wasn’t until after I had taken a picture of a peculiar sign that Alexander mentioned that stations were prohibited places for photographs! We walked over the station and into the dock. Here there were a variety of vessels, including and oceanographic research vessel and a seagoing tug. A few dry docks and coal depots were also visible, showing how busy the port is. From here we caught a bus (fare 10 roubles) to the south end of the city (past a large informal used car market, on the street), where I was foolish enough to agree to a walk up to the hilltop. The hilltop was reached after over an hour and two bottles of drink (after a long exploration of a supermarket). Anyone who tells you Murmansk is cold in September never walked up that hill, especially wearing a coat. At the top it was blessedly windy, lowering my temperature considerably next to normal. On the way we had seen numbers of women collecting herbs.
The view from the top, along the inlet down past Kola and then north of Murmansk, was breathtaking in every sense of the word. Anywhere else there would have been a cable car up to there and a café/restaurant/bar at the top. We walked down and then caught a minibus (window on passenger side held up with a screw-driver) to the north of Murmansk. The driver managed to collect fares, give change, see passengers hailing his minibus and also notice passengers wishing to alight, while still changing gear and weaving through the traffic (fare 13 roubles). He would go well in Italy.
We alighted to take a short walk to Lake Semyonovskoe, where crowds were starting to take advantage of the sunny weather and the traders were moving to take advantage of the crowds. Avoiding the tractor train we walked to the statue of Aloysha, a huge concrete figure of a soldier looking to the east. The statue was being cleaned by the fire brigade, so we couldn’t see the eternal flame. What we could see was a few weddings. The couple, in all their finery, go to the top in a taxi with all the friends in deck-out cars. After photos, they all get back in and then cruise the city, doing laps and tooting horns loudly. A real celebration!
The statue and the block, together with other plaques, are in memory of the Great Patriotic War (WWII to us). So many Russians died and there were so many tragedies occurred, and it is a very moving place.
We wlaked down the hill through the park and caught a trolley-bus to the museum (fare ten roubles). At the museum, entry was 10 roubles (but it was an additional 50 roubles to take photos). The museum is on three levels and covers the natural history of the area, the mineral and fauna of the area and history of the town (it was established in 1916). Perhaps the most moving part was the photo (see it in the pictures for today) of Murmansk after firebombing and only a huge number of chimneys are visible. There was a book covering events around then (From Murmansk to Berlin) and a film on the battles which took place around then (I can’t remember its name).
Because we exhibited so much interest, another part of the gem exhibition was opened for us. Then, when we were about to leave, one of the attendants asked where I was from (Australia) and what did we think about Georgia. I replied that we had so little reliable information that it was hard to really decide what was happening. We caught a trolleybus (fare ten roubles) back to the street leading up to the hotel and there we parted. I said farewell, gave him a koala pin, and then went to my room. I wrote up my diary, processed the photos from today and then uploaded all, checked and sent email and then went to bed.
Murmansk – not crowded, not much traffic, patches of forest even in the city centre, very friendly people, wonderful views but many buildings needing repair.