Samara and the mighty Volga River.

Time to pack lightly and fly down to Samara. We have things to do and people to see.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samara,_Russia
Arriving at the airport some distance out to town, we haggle with the locals to get a reasonable taxi fare out to a village where we are to visit local friends. They are tough nuts to crack and finally we settle on a deal that seemed less traumatic than spending the rest of our lives at such a minimal airport. As we bumped along country roads past farms and small settlements, it is evident that the same ice storm that we had in December also affected this region. Many trees were bent beyond recovery and from the loads of ice and many broken or dead. It was a harsh winter. Our friends said that they were cut off from power for several weeks at this time. Finally we find the small muddy lane in the village and we are met and taken to their cottage. It is a very poor village.

Meeting with friends in a nearby town.

We visited the local school where the director has set up a very interesting museum display of the village history.

An old russian stove

The Director second from the right and her daughter who proudly show us around.

Victor invited us into his little cottage. He was a teacher at the school many years. He even offered a concert on his accordian!

We met some other locals too.

Our friends productive vege garden.

Cottage where we stayed.

Finally we bid farewell to the village and our friends and board a local bone shaker bus for a 2 hour plus bumpy ride to Samara where we would stay for the next couple of days. 

Arriving in Samara we find the hotel where we will stay somewhat disappointing but at least we can shower and have a bed and that is a great bonus after hours of wearing out shoe leather around the streets and along the Volga, watching the huge boats and checking out the interesting architecture in this old city. The further one travels from Moscow, the true poorer Russia is seen.

Sunset on the Volga.

The Volga is even more impressive when viewed from above as it widens towards  Kazan.

One of many such large vessels that ply the waters. 

Concert Theatre

Found a composer of renoun!

A sailor's chapel beside the Volga.

A leaning house.

Monumental finds!

The adventurers pose on the beach!

We try our hand at doing some
Russian poses too!

No Russian town is complete without some massive monumental statement! Here is the flying man looking towards the Volga. It rained and stormed a good portion of our time here but this failed to restrain us on our adventurs. It was an interesting place to visit but soon we are getting a bumpy taxi ride to the airport and flying back to Moscow for our final pack and sort before our great adventure on the Trans-Siberian Train to Vladivostok.