Not big on cruises myself, but to see a sea, you need something seaworthy, so here we go.
Already familiar with lots of Georgias (the American state, granddaughter, etc.), here’s one more: the republic of Georgia to add to the list. The trip is scheduled to include stops in Bulgaria, Turkey and Ukraine as well as Georgia and a trip to Yalta, long associated with Churchill’s visit in 1945, so it seems fitting that Churchill College my (alma mater) should be represented on this Cambridge alumni cruise. It’s almost fifty years since I drove across Europe to Istanbul in 1964 to be met at the border by a welcome from the Turkish army mobilised to attack Greece over the Cyprus issue. This time troops were confined to barracks but there were certainly a lot more people in Istanbul than before, currently over twenty million, most of whom seemed to be walking the streets or filling the bazaars. Yet there were still enough locals available to create all-day monster traffic jams on the roads.
There is still the odd picturesque water-seller to be seen handing out chained metal cups to thirsty pedestrians, as well as overzealous merchants using every trick in the book to part the customer from his or her money, and convince you that his wares are superior to the identical items next door.
However, Istanbul is merely the point of departure for an exploration of the Black Sea just twenty miles north and east, so we pick up our small ship and head east for 500 miles to the far eastern end of Turkey bordering the republic of Georgia and the port of Trabazon. Apart from the production of tea (third largest producer in the world) and hazelnuts (seventy percent of world production), the town’s main claim to fame today is the UNESCO site of the Sumela monastery, built in 384AD and perched precariously half way up a mountain, difficult to reach on foot but worth the climb, just to see the 14th and 17th century frescoes. Whatever doubts I had about the climb were dispelled when I found a fellow traveller with only one real leg had made the climb while I still have the benefit of two. Many of the frescoes are sadly defaced with ‘Mustafa woz here in 1987’ etc., a global practice it seems.
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‘Into the valley of death’, not to be confused with Death Valley, of course. The peninsula of the Crimea was a Russian satellite until 1991 (ED: but is now an autonomous part of the Ukraine) and is probably most famous for three things:
hosting the 1945 Yalta conference
the charge of the light brigade in Sevastopol
and being the base of the Russian navy in Balaklava
It seemed fitting to be following in Winston’s footsteps, and therefore to be invited by the Oxford and Cambridge Alumni group to lay a wreath at the Monument Stone of Reconciliation set up on the battlefield some years after the end of the Crimean war, and probably visited by Sir Winston during his visit. Three men dressed as soldiers in period Russian uniform stood one side, an English and French soldier in uniform on the other.
It was salutary to stand, as Lord Raglan once did on June 18th 1854 above the Balaklava valley where several hundred (probably less than Tennyson’s 600) of England’s finest were mown down in just fifteen minutes. It is recorded that Lord Raglan disclaimed any responsibility for the disaster, and immediately retired to eat dinner and drink champagne. The battlefield has now been sown with extensive vineyards which thrive unsurprisingly.
No visit to the Crimea would be complete without a visit to the site of the Yalta conference itself, when the three world leaders met to discuss the post-war reconstruction of Europe. I do not know how many old Churchill College alumni have visited the site, but I felt moved to be there, where there were so many references to yEPUNnnR (a poor attempt to translate Churchill’s name into Cyrillic as it was written in Yalta. It was doubly moving as the site had been the summer home of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, with many mementos of this tragic family, in particular a moving photo of the four daughters in profile.
Before we left the Crimean Peninsula for Odessa, we spent a fascinating afternoon exploring the underground tunnels dug into the foothills of the Balaklava Mountains to provide access for Russian WWII submarines to return for maintenance and fitting of warheads. Certain design precautions were deemed essential for such a site (only open to the public since 2003): maximum protection from a nuclear explosion outside, and from catastrophic mistakes (nuclear or other) inside. All specialist staff were sworn to secrecy (even from employees’ families) on pain of death, and all the specialists were required to talk through their actions one by one to a dedicated ‘minder’ to provide an ‘audit trail’. Subs would sneak into the lake (invisible to ships passing along the coast) and enter the underground canals where staff worked on them (without electricity and therefore without electric light for safety reasons) in claustrophobic working conditions.
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Odessa to the northwest of Crimea is a relatively new (1794) city established by Catherine the Great, a city whose main claim to fame seems to be the incident in 1905 when troops fired on civilians when the mutinous crew of the battleship Potemkin rebelled against their Tsarist regime officers over food hygiene. Consequently, the city features numerous war memorials and indeed is currently awash with modern-day Russian sailors on shore leave. The architecture is grand in the French style, built on a grid pattern and featuring many fine tree-lined avenues, paths, parks, orthodox churches and a grandiose opera-house built in the 1880s along the lines of the Opera in Paris. An evening of ballet enabled us to fully appreciate the rococo gold and red luxury of the internal decoration as well as the performance, of course.
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The last stop before returning to Istanbul lies in Bulgaria at the ancient peninsular (again!) of Nessebur, founded in the sixth century by the Greeks (again!). All these Black Sea bordering countries seem to ‘change hands’ every few centuries, and Bulgaria is no exception: Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans, Russians, Germans, with the odd brief periods of independence in between.
Its claim as a UNESCO World Heritage Site is based on its remarkable forty odd churches built from the 5th to the 16th century, all set in cobbled streets and old wooden houses, plus a corresponding volume of tourist tat outlets it must be said.