All Classical "White Nights of Russia" Tour

Uzbeki, Anyone?

We intrepid travelers with the All Classical White Nights of Russia tour survived the international airport experience — including abandoning one plane in Frankfurt with nonfunctioning hydraulics! — to arrive at last in Moscow bedraggled and tired late Friday night.

After nearly two hours of nightmarish traffic snarls, we were finally whisked off to a restaurant featuring the unique cuisine of Uzbekistan.

The group is wonderful and the sights and sounds truly magical. Saturday morning we are off to explore the Kremlin.

The Kremlin & Moscow Conservatory

Our first full day in Moscow started with a walk through this city of 22 million residents, tourists and commuters. After reaching the statue of Marx, affectionately called a refrigerator with beard, we made it to the walls of the Kremlin.

This fortress holds a unique mix of government, religion, artifacts and history for this extraordinary country. On a beautiful late spring day, our troupe was particularly taken by the magnificent square of cathedrals.

In the afternoon, we had a special tour of the famed Moscow State Conservatory, the oldest classical music university in Russia. We stayed for our first concert in its small performance hall. Two pianists, Nikolay Petrov and Aleksandr Ghindin, enchanted us from Prokofiev to Rachmaninoff. The audience would not let these artists leave, demanding encore after encore until everyone's hands — performers' and applauders' — were exhausted.

Moscow Metro

Experiencing the Cold War from the other side, we descended under Moscow to ride one of the world's most efficient and clean subways. Art everywhere inside a bomb shelter built to withstand nuclear bombs.

This day we also visited Tolstoy's city estate where he spent his winters with the eight children who lived of the ten his wife bore. Hearing his voice on a recording and listening to a waltz he wrote was remarkable. Everything original and perfectly restored.

Our concert tonight? The Bolshoi Ballet!

Tchaikovsky!

Our Russian tourists left Moscow for a 56-mile excursion to the town of Klin to explore the Tchaikovsky estate and museum. Although the modern museum and extensive gardens were lovely and impressive, nothing could prepare one for the experience of being in the room where sits the Becker grand piano on which he composed Sleeping Beauty and other masterpieces. The room is perfectly preserved with his library, photos of family and intimates, memorabilia and artifacts.

After surviving the Moscow freeways back to the city, we visited a neighborhood chocolate company that dates to the 1930s and then on to another classical concert in the Rachmaninov Hall of the Moscow Conservatory.

From Tretyakov to the Train

The Tretyakov art gallery is the national treasure of Russian fine art from the 11th to the 20th centuries. The Russian tour group spent a half day learning about the early iconic art of this country with our expert guide, Viktor.

By day's end we had been swept up into the hordes of people celebrating Russia Day all over the city and were happy to make our way to the railroad center to catch the night train north. Next stop: Pskov, near the Estonian border, in the district that has been home to Pushkin, Rimsky-Korsakov and Mussorgsky.

Pskov, Pushkin and Monasteries

Traveling through the night on the quaint Russian train set the mood to land in one of Russia's oldest cities, Pskov, nestled near the border with Estonia.

We visited a fortress, climbed the tower overlooking the valley and lake and imagined all the villagers gathering inside for sanctuary. The next day we visited a working monastery at Izborsk near the Estonian border. The monastery of the caves dates from 1473 and still serves the town with bustling enterprises based on self-sufficiency.

It seems no one in Russia is as revered as Pushkin. His summer estate of Mikhailovskoye is lovingly preserved amidst lakes, quiet arbors and scenic tranquil meadows.

Audio: Robert in Russia 5 (3:28)

Audio: Robert in Russia 6 (3:19)

Rimsky-Korsakov–on the Road to St. Petersburg

Our crew had lunch at a roadside café as we traveled 300 km to the countryside estate of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Besides peeking into the life of a great composer and viewing memorabilia from his life, the chance to see the Russian people going about their daily lives far from the cities is an added bonus much appreciated by our group. We watched a kerchiefed grandma hoisting water from a roadside well made of wood. Quiet, lovely woods and peaceful surroundings wherever your eye falls.

Audio: Robert in Russia 7 (3:55)

St. Petersburg!

Hear Robert McBride's descriptions below of the Hermitage, the Chaliapin Museum, a village called Pushkin, a performance in Russian of Madame Butterfly, and a host of other experiences in St. Petersburg.

Audio: Robert in Russia 8 (1:58)

Audio: Robert in Russia 9 (4:55)