KAMCHATKA LAND OF MYSTERY AND MISTS - Page 3

Unfortunately, most hotels in Russia are Russian hotels! Since I was in Siberia 10-12 years ago, they have changed only a little. The "hall dragons" [the ladies who sat behind the desk in front of the elevator/stair on each floor and keep tract of room keys, etc.] are largely gone now and bathrooms are moving a bit farther into the 20th century. Furniture and décor are now more reminiscent of that on American farms in the '40's and '50's than in the '30's. Hot water [and sometimes any water] is more likely to be available but still to be had at the whim of the [plumbing] gods. At one hotel, one room's hot water could be scalding while another's was pleasant for a warm, but not hot, shower and a third room [mine & Rachael's] had cold or slightly warm only. [Poor Rachael, who loved a hot tub or shower, didn't manage one until the Geotherm Hotel, 10 days onto the trip.] All of our hotels had dining rooms with plain foods much like I ate when I visited farms as a child. None had gourmet fare. Lunch and supper usually started with salmon caviar served on buttered bread, followed by salad, soup and a main course of fish [salmon or halibut] or meat [often unidentified but always quite palatable] served on rice or potatoes with a spoonful of garden peas. There were lots of tomatoes and cucumbers, fresh from local greenhouses. Afterward there was tea or coffee but desert was served only a few times. While the food wasn't fancy, it looked and tasted familiar and was safe. I do not know of anyone having bad problems from either food or water.

Sunday morning brought our first regular day of the trip. After breakfast there was a visit to the matriarchal Itelmen people at their reconstructed village a few miles from Petropavlovsk, where we received a traditional welcome by people in traditional clothing, saw traditional dances and houses, heard a

lecture [which Victortranslated] onItelmen history, customs, etc. in the winter house and ate a [maybe] traditional meal, based largely upon salmon cooked several different ways including a soup of fish in clear broth to which one could add condiments such as chopped fern fiddleheads and assorted local herbs, croquette-like patties and a stuffed fish prepared by removing the skin, with head and fins still attached, from a small salmon, then mashing the flesh with a starchy filler, packing the mixture into the skin and baking. This was served with various wild plants, cultivated vegetables and breads.