Relatively short history of Russia for M&B on the eve of their 2015 trip to Russia

Special Edition of Where in the world...- Relatively short history of Russia for Michael and Beth

The trip you are about to go on is a truly great opportunity to see some small fraction of the world’s largest country (1/6 of Earth’s land mass, and maybe more if Putin brings back some of the former Soviet Socialist Republics to the fold), to interact with some of its people, to begin to understand the Russian approach to life (which is pretty fatalistic to me), to see a new religion and its beautiful architecture, to get some insight into why Russians and vodka go hand in hand, and to view where some of human history’s greatest events took place.

Your trip starts in St. Petersburg and ends in Moscow. Russian history doesn’t exactly go with that flow- it starts in the hinterlands with wandering Slavs, Finns, and Vikings; it then moves thru places you won’t see but may wish to see on another trip (Novgorod and Kiev in particular); it eventually focuses on Moscow with the early tsars (Ruriks), then it moves to St. Petersburg at the center with Peter the Great (near the beginning of the “Romanov” dynasty which started in 1613, and why I used “ ” around Romanov will be explained later) through 1917, the fall of the Romanovs, and the rise of Lenin and the Communists, and then it switches back to Moscow for the Soviet era and afterwards. In fact St. Petersburg’s names reflect a lot of this history- St. Petersburg thru the 300 years of Romanovs, then Petrograd with World War I (thought to be less German sounding), then Leningrad for the Soviets, and after 1991 by popular vote of its citizens back to St. Petersburg. For this write up, I am going to abbreviate St. Petersburg, whatever its name at the time, as StP, Peter the Great as PtheG, and Catherine the Great as CtheG.

Map of the route you will generally be taking

You should know from the start that this is not a natural waterway system. Using slave labor Stalin changed the flow of the rivers and connected the Volga to the northern lakes and the Neva River. Look for a church steeple sticking up above the water midway in your trip.

What that little geographic paragraph did not address was Russia’s position in Eurasia- part in Europe and part in Asia. This shows up in the history too. From the 1200s through the mid 1400s the rulers in Russia were actually, to varying degrees at different points in time, vassals of Genghis Khan and his Mongol/Chinese descendants. Probably the countries that have been Russia’s sworn enemies for the longest time through history are Sweden and Turkey (the Ottoman Empire). This leaves out a lot of wars with Lithuania and Poland, both of which were on top at times but mostly carved up and subjugated by Russia. On the Asia side, think of all those “istan” countries that used to be Socialist Republics. The dividing line between Europe and Asia is the Ural Mountains and the town that is most famous near this artificial line is Yekaterinburg, which is where the last tsar and his family were shot, then thrown in a well and then had acid poured on them by the Bolsheviks in 1917.

Before getting into timeline kind of history, there are a few other things for you to digest and keep in mind as you think about Russia- 

Item 1. About 44% of the population of Russia was serfs in 1860, the year before they were freed. This means they were poorly educated, if at all, and very medieval superstition oriented. (For reference in the US at the outbreak of the Civil War, our population was about 10% slaves.).

Item 2.The Russian people have suffered unbelievable horrors over the years. Imagine having a ruler called Ivan The Terrible. Invaded by Napoleon. Moscow burned by Napoleon. 1.7 -2.25 million military deaths during WWI. 20 million military deaths during WWII. The Leningrad Siege for 900 days through 3 Russian winters and a daily ration of a slice of bread that was about 50% sawdust. And then the body count during Stalin’s rule from 1927-1953:

"1 million imprisoned or exiled between 1927 to 1929; 9 to 11 million peasants forced off their lands and another 2  to 3 million peasants arrested or exiled in the mass collectivization program; 6 to 7 million killed by an artificial famine in 1932-1934; 1 million exiled from Moscow and Leningrad in 1935; 1 million executed during the ''Great Terror'' of 1937-1938; 4 to 6 million dispatched to forced labor camps; 10 to 12 million people forcibly relocated during World War II; and at least 1 million arrested for various “political crimes” from 1946 to 1953.”

Addendum in 2017 as we "celebrate" 100 years since Lenin's Russian Revolution- Communism cost Russia about 55-65 million people.

Item 3. The Russians have almost always had an authoritarian ruler.  All power concentrated at the top during the times when there was a tsar and then orders came down through a huge bureaucracy from the tsar. With the Soviets, Russia replaced the tsar on top with a Politburo and then had a similar bureaucracy to put those orders in effect. 

Item 4. While Russia’s population is decreasing due to a low birth rate and low life span (both probably due to vodka in large part), and while we sometimes dismiss Russia as a superpower since the dissolution of the USSR, Russia still has enough nuclear weapons to obliterate all humanity. And Russia feels like it gets no respect. You will probably wonder  how Putin has been reelected even though he has made mincemeat out of the notion of a democracy in Russia, or whether the Russkis  support him. Imagine a family with all its squabbles. And then envision how that family comes together in a united front when attacked or disrespected from the outside.

Item 5. When you see the remnants of Soviet style housing and hear about the food shortages and waiting in line, you can understand the fall back to vodka and the general feeling of hopelessness. 

Soviet era apartment building

History in a nutshell=

Early settlement by traders, fighters, farmers; Slavs, Vikings, Finns.

Kvosch for drinking vodka or mead

Vikings probably give the land the name Rus.

Viking at the Crossroads (Vasnetsov, 19thC)

900 AD- Kiev in what is now Ukraine is the center of power.

988- Vladimir is the ruler. He wants to unify his lands under one religion and sends his guys out to report back about Catholicism, Greek Orthodoxy, Judaism, and Islam. Although there was undoubtedly a marriageable Byzantine (Greek Orthodox) princess involved, the story goes that he rejected Rome due to a distant pope who had power over kings, rejected Judaism because he wanted to eat pork and didn't like circumcision, rejected Islam because he enjoyed vodka, and settled on Greek Orthodox which evolved into Russian Orthodoxy. St. Cyril, a monk, comes to Russia and adopts the Greek alphabet into the Cyrillic Greek looking alphabet which evolved into what the Russians use today. (However Church documents use an older, more Cyrillian alphabet called Slavonic.)

Cyrillic or Slavonic?

1250 or so to 1450 or so- Mongols move in and require tribute from the Russians. Era of the Khanate.

Mid 1300s- rise of Moscow as the home of the Grand Prince. Kremlin means fortress. Many Russian cities have kremlins; Moscow’s is most famous.

Mid to late 1500s (about the same time as Elizabeth I in England)- Ivan IV= Ivan Grozny=Ivan the Terrible= Ivan Majestic or Awesome= the first Tsar. Known for a 7 year reign of terror. Territorial expansion toward the Caspian Sea on south and into Siberia in the east. Kind of like Henry VIII in England, Ivan had 7 marriages- his wives kept dying on him. 

1581- Ivan kills his son and heir apparent and his pregnant wife. Ivan’s last wife had a son Dmitry which the church did not recognize. (Above painting by Repin, 19th C.)

Then the Time of Troubles before Romanovs get established as next dynasty.

1605- Boris Godunov (you might hear about an opera named for him), on his way to trying to become tsar, probably arranges the convenient murder of Dmitry, Ivan’s last son in Uglich. You will visit Church of the Spilled Blood in Uglich on your trip and you will laugh when the guide tells the story of how Dmitry was supposed to die. Highly improbable and it cost Boris his job and aspirations eventually.

A recurring theme in Russian history is that in unsettled times someone steps up and claims legitimacy by being some ruler who has been killed previously. 

Early 1600s- a couple of false Dmitrys and then the first Romanov tsar (Mikhail) in 1613.

Mid 1600s- Time to mention the Cossacks, who lived in the Ukraine area and then out to the Caspian Sea along the Dneiper and Don Rivers. Basically an unruly bunch who would be soldiers for the tsars some of the time and then become offended and ally with the Polish or the Turks against the Russians. Famous as horsemen. Note the topknot.

Cossacks writing a letter to the Turkish sultan (Repin)

1682- Sofia, the sister of a young Ivan, the apparent next tsar, takes over as Regent. Since Ivan is not all there mentally, Peter, his younger half brother is co-tsar with Sofia behind the scenes. There is a double throne you will see in Moscow which has a screen behind it so Sofia could tell the young boys what to say. Sofia eventually plots to take over for herself, Ivan dies, and Peter with the army behind him takes over. He sends Sofia to the Novodevichiiy Monastery which you will see in Moscow. (Sofia Painting by Repin, 19th C.)

Late 1600s to 1725- Peter the Great, 6 feet 7 inches, spent time in his early years incognito in Europe learning trades such as making shoes, forcefully turns Russia toward Europe, builds a Russian Navy, kills thousands of laborers in his effort to build St. Petersburg as a “window to the west” out of a swamp. He was a real character. If you mentioned you had a toothache around him, he would pull your tooth (and it might end up in a museum called the KunstKamera which you can visit in StP). He made the nobles cut their beards and move to his new city. Peter was a man always in a hurry, always ahead of his fellows, and he changed almost every institution of Russian life.

St. Petersburg (founded 1703) is built on a group of islands at the mouth of the Neva River. The Neva is a short river which begins in Lake Ladoga. One of your first stops after StP will be the all wooden Kizhi church and monastery on an island in Lake Onega (lots of domes).

In StP  you may see Peter’s little wood and brick house where he first stayed and which now houses the first ship of the Russian Navy on which Peter learned to sail, Peter’s Summer Palace (a modest 8 rooms compared to what else you’ll see), and the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul inside the Peter Paul Fortress he built to guard the river and act as a prison. The Cathedral has the remains of all the Romanov tsars. Outside is a famous, somewhat controversial sculpture of Peter with an oversized body and a tiny head.

Peter by Shemiatin at Peter Paul Fortress StP

Peter’s drinking buddy, right hand man, sometime general, and woman finder was Alexander Menshikov. Menshikov built for himself the palace that is now the Kunstkamera (and houses other curiosities collected by Peter- freaks of nature real and fabricated) mentioned above and gave Peter his second wife who became known as Catherine I. In another example of a recurring theme in Russian history, if the ruler doesn’t like his wife and wants another, he would send the undesired wife to a monastery like Novodevichiiy mentioned above and marry whomever he wants. This is what Peter did with his first wife. Menshikov outlived Peter, fell on hard times with Peter’s successors, was accused of corruption, and sentenced a cold life in Siberia with his family: (Painting by Surikov, 19th C.)

You will surely see in StP the great statue of PtheG called the Bronze Horseman and given to the city by Catherine the Great (Catherine II, 1762-1796, so not Peter’s wife). You will probably see several brides and grooms near the statue- this is what Russkis do (ask Mom).  Pushkin, the most well known Russian poet, who basically made the modern Russian language, wrote a poem called The Bronze Horseman  about Falconet's  statue coming to life and chasing a guy during a the huge flood of 1824 in StP.

A brief word about Catherine, Peter’s wife. She was a peasant and a bar maid, but she was also the only person who could calm Peter when he was in a drunken fit or rage for some other reason. She also outmanned Peter’s generals and saved the army in a battle with the Turks. She and Peter had 10 children, only two of whom survived, both becoming tsarinas. But before they came to the throne, Peter grew suspicious of his son Alexis by his first wife. He had Alexis tortured and Alexis died in custody. (Painting by Repin, 19th C.)

History repeats (see Ivan above).

When Peter died in 1725,  he did not name a successor. There were six rulers between Peter’s death and the ascension of Catherine II by military coup in 1762 . Catherine I, PthG's wife,was “an illiterate peasant who died of drink, [daughter] Anna had a reputation for cruelty and a liking for dwarfs, [daughter] Elizabeth is renowned for the 15000 dresses … in her closet after her death, “ and of the three men, one died as a baby, one died as a teen, and one was overthrown by his wife. Elizabeth did get the Catherine Palace at Tsarskoe Selo and the Winter Palace in StP (now the world famous Hermitage art museum which you should see) built.

Winter Palace, now Hermitage Museum

The future Catherine the Great and Peter’s grandson Peter had an odd marriage. Peter III liked to play with soldiers, real and toy, even in bed with his wife, and affected to be more German than Russian. He had a favorite mistress and paid little attention to Catherine. Catherine was a German but became Russian, learning the language and converting to Orthodoxy. She had several children with her lovers and one of the lovers was very probably the father of the future Tsar Paul (so from him on they really aren’t Romanovs any more…). Oops, and Catherine’s husband Peter was killed in custody by the brother of one of Catherine’s lovers after the Palace Guard took over and installed Catherine in a coup d'etat.

Another of Catherine's lovers was Gregory Potemkin. Potemkin annexed much of Ukraine and Crimea for Russia by taking it from the Turks. After adding Odessa and more, Catherine wanted to visit. It is said that Potemkin erected fake villages and populated them with happy peasants to show off for Catherine (hence the expression "Potemkin villages" for something putting up a good facade). Potemkin's name comes up again in the 1905 Revolution in the name of the mutinous ship (and Eisenstein's movie).

CtheG had almost as much energy as PtheG. She fought a couple of wars with the Turks, a couple with the Polish and split Poland up three times, had personal correspondence with Voltaire (this was the same time as the American Revolution and the French Revolution) and had to deal with a Cossack rebellion led by a man claiming to be her husband Peter III (history repeats). In StP you may also see the Smolny Institute which Catherine established to educate noble women and girls (and later became the headquarters for Lenin and the Bolsheviks) and she added the Hermitage to the Winter Palace. CtheG and later tsars used their wealth to buy up collections of European art masters, and the Hermitage collection of DaVinci, Raphael, Rembrandt, Rubens, Matisse, Gaughin and others is unbelievable. Here's a serving tray from those days now in the museum:

Catherine the Great gets my vote as the best tsar or tsarina or premier or president the Russians have ever had.

Catherine the Great in Palace Guard uniform

In addition to an inattentive husband, Catherine also did not like her son Paul. Neither did the Palace Guard regiments in StP when he became tsar, and they overthrew him in 1801 in favor of his son, Catherine’s grandson, Alexander I. Alexander probably knew about the plot and is said to have regretted his role in it later. In StP you can see the Engineer’s Castle where  the drunken guards and noblemen did the deed.

With Alexander the scene shifts a bit since this is the time (early 1800s) when Napoleon is on the march, defeating every European power in sight.

Alexander and Napoleon were enemies, then allies, then enemies again. Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812 and marched toward Moscow as the Russian Army withdrew, only giving him one full scale battle at Borodino (a draw). The Russian Field marshal Kutuzov, a very old, one eyed general, withdrew past Moscow instead of standing to fight at the heart of Russia.

Kutuzov

 But Napoleon's troops looted Moscow, burned it and then got very comfortable there for too long. With no army to fight at hand Napoleon decided it was time to go home and began to head back to France. But winter arrived early and the Russians had burned all the provisions along the way while they were retreating. The French had no winter clothes and then no food. Only about 20,000 out of 600,000 made it back to France. 

Napoleon's retreat

Alexander led his triumphant Russian Army right into Paris. His soldiers in Paris would ask the restaurants for something quick to eat (in Russian, something like "bwistre") and the word "bistro" came into the language. Alexander ended his reign spending many years almost in monk like and mystical seclusion.

The 1800s were a golden age for Russia in terms of the arts but also the stresses of one man rule, the size and ethnic diversity of the empire,  an unregulated industrial revolution, and pressures within the social classes led to the unraveling of the Romanovs reign: 
In 1825 there was the Decembrist Revolution in St. Petersburg which led to the Tsar Nicholas I's soldiers firing on his own men. Dostoyevsky ends up in the Peter Paul prison and is pardoned only as the firing squad is about to execute him. Tsar Nicholas I has a policy of Orthodoxy (religion), Autocracy (one man rule) and Nationalism (watch out ethnic minorities).
Arts: Pushkin, poetry and stories; Gogol, short stories; Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, novels; Glinka, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Tchaikovsky in opera, ballet and orchestral music; and Repin and Surikov in painting. 

Tolstoy by Repin

As you can probably tell, I really like the historical paintings by these Russians. It started with Bruillov's Last Day of Pompeii (1833), a mammoth canvas which, when shown in StP, had people standing in line for days and women fainting. It is now in the Russian Museum in StP, where there is also Pushkin's statue. If you have time and can visit either this museum or the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, they are well worth the visit. I am tempted to list Surikov's great paintings but I'll just say look up his Feodosia Morozova and ask Mom or me about it. The event portrayed led to our second marriage in Siberia. Regarding Repin, whose paintings  I have shown a lot above, you should also see his painting at the Tretyakov Museum "The Unexpected Return" which portrays as surprise return home of a political prisoner from one of the Siberian  camps. 

1856- Another war with Turkey (The Crimean War) which drew in England and France and did not go well.

1861- Tsar Alexander II sets free the serfs, but in 1881 after many attempts nihilists murder him in St.P where the multi domed Church of the Spilled Blood was built (you can't miss it).

The next Tsar Alexander III was a bear of a man and a real hard liner (similar to Nicholas I- Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationalism). He is known to have held up the roof of a train car that had wrecked to give time for people to get out.  
  
Alex III's son Nicholas was weak in comparison, but almost more than that he was unlucky. Right after his coronation in 1896 (Link to video: coronation ), Nicholas II had a banquet in a field near Moscow for his subjects. About 500,000 showed up and, when a rumor went thru the crowd that the tsar was giving away enamel cups with a gold coin in them, the crowd stampeded. About 1400 people were killed.
Like other tsars, there were pogroms against the minorities and especially Jews. This is the era of Fiddler on the Roof.
He got into the disastrous Russo Japanese War in 1905 which led to the Potemkin mutiny, riots and his token consent to let the people have a representative assembly (it never had real authority). See the first part of this blog's entry on our Trans Siberian trip.)
Nicholas II was totally in love with his Danish wife Alexandra and had a beautiful family of daughters. Then he had a son (the tsarevich) with hemophilia which was not well understood at the time.  Not knowing what else to do, the tsarina brought in a  mystical Siberian monk, Rasputin, who somehow stopped one of the boy's bleeding episodes. However Rasputin took advantage of his "in" with the tsar's family in many ways (especially with noble women) and drove a wedge between the family and the rest of the people.

 

Rasputin, Alexandra, the 5 girls and Alexis, the tsarevich

                                          Nicholas II and family


WWI broke out with the tsar fighting with his cousin the king of England against his cousin the emperor of Germany. The Russians were not prepared for the war and were sending soldiers into battle with no shoes and no weapons (watch Zhivago). Since Nicky was at the front, the tsarina Alexandra was in charge at home with Rasputin whispering in her ear. A group of nobles in StP decided it was time to do something about Rasputin and lured him into a honey trap. They poisoned him with cyanide, then shot him and then wrapped him in a blanket and threw him in the Neva River in winter. It took all that to kill him. In StP you can visit the room in the Yusupov Palace  where all this took place.

The war continued to go badly for the Russians; eventually there were protests, riots, and strikes, and then the tsar was forced to abdicate when the army switched to support the people. The ship Aurora, on display now in StP, actually fired shots at the Winter Palace in StP.
Lenin came back to Russia from exile (he returned to the Finland Station in StP), there was a struggle for power which he won and then the Soviet Era begins after the October 1917 Revolution.

Lenin in front of Smolny by Brodsky

Lenin's desk at Smolny

The royal family is first under house arrest in Tsarskoe Selo, at the Alexander Palace outside of StP, but then they are moved inland to Yekaterinburg where they are murdered.

This next photo is a total fake but used by Stalin to shoow he was friends with Lenin:

Lenin dies, there is another struggle for power and a few murders, Stalin ascends in 1923, and the horrors of his rule begin.
World War II: the slaughter of Stalingrad (Enemy at the Gates) and the siege of Leningrad (StP) by the Nazis.
Stalin dies or is murdered in 1953.

This is my example of the Soviet era along with the apartment photo shown earlier . This was taken in Yaroslavl where you will be going. Along taken in 2010, it exemplifies the classic Russian saying about the Soviet government: they pretend to pay us so we pretend to work.

Khruschev, the Cold War, Brezhnev, then Gorbachov. 

Gorby knows the Soviet system is broken and tries to reform. He opens things up and then can't get the genie of freedom back in the bottle. There is a coup by the old line in 1991 but it fails. Then Yeltsin, then his handpicked successor, Putin (watch Putin's Way on PBS Frontline Jan 2015). 

So I hope you see there is more to Russia than mushroom domed churches like St Basil's in Moscow-

 

Additional resources :
Movies- Alexander Nevsky; Battleship Potemkin; Attack on Leningrad (about the siege in WWII); Anna Karenina (I prefer Greta Garbo version); The Last Station (last days of Tolstoy); The Way Back (escape from Siberian work camp); Dr. Zhivago (1900 +/- thru early Soviet times); Happy People (documentary about life in remote Siberia); Russian Ark (one shot documentary- Winter Palace from Catherine to Lenin); Reds (1917 Revolution); Leviathan (man against the machine); East West (soviet life) and even  comedies- Window to Paris, Irony of Fate, Good Bye Lenin.
CD classes- Mom has a series on Russian Literature and one on Russian History.
Literature- nothing short but all those listed above are great. Add Chekhov for plays and short stories and add Anna Akmatova for some sad, moving poetry. Just for fun, I'd suggest Gorky Park and Polar Star- 1990s murder mysteries set in Russia.
History- again, nothing short. Robert Massie's books on Nicholas and Alexandra and on CtheG are the best. Also 900 Days by Harrison Salisbury about the siege, and Lenin's Tomb by David Remnick about the end of the soviet era.
Music- Tsar's Greatest Hits and anything by Tchaikovsky, but especially the Russian Symphony, the 5th and 6th symphonies and the violin and the piano concertos. 


 

San Francisco and Baja California

San Fran and Baja California January 2015

Had an enjoyable 3-day visit with Jill and family. Stayed at a VRBO about 3/4 mile from their home - comfy living area and bedroom, small kitchenette area on the bottom floor of a charming home on an acre or so at the top of West Seaview Drive - giving us a challenging hike home on the two days we walked the neighborhood for morning exercise.

Jan 20- uneventful flights, on time. Movies- The Good Lie, and This is When I Leave You. We rode the Marin Airporter to San Rafael and Graham met us, took us to the grocery store, and then to their house for dinner with the children, Rosa Laura the Italian au pair and Graham and Jill (a little later).

Jan 21- Graham gave us a ride to the ferry terminal and we rode over to San Fran for an 8 mile round trip walk to Fort Mason for some WWII research with a stop on the way back at Ghirardelli Square. Then Jill and Graham's for dinner.

Jan 22 - today we took a walk around downtown San Rafael and then went to pick up both children, Ravenna at gymnastics and Theron at preschool. We met Jill and Graham at Terrapin Crossing for a burger dinner.

Jan 23 - another walk around the suburbs of San Rafael along the San Pedro road and then some back streets. We had a great lunch with friends from the Trans Siberia Rail trip, Bob and Diane Coleman, who live in Piedmont near Oakland. Bob is the friend who got Beth the photo shoot for American Fondouk (veterinary hospital in Morocco). The lunch was at Fort Baker near the Golden Gate Bridge. After lunch we met Ravenna and Theron and Rosa Laura at music class at the Exploratorium. We had a pizza dinner, washed some clothes and packed for the next part of the trip.

Jan 24 - we flew to LAX and then to La Paz in Baja, boarded a bus and rode for 3 1/2 hours to San Carlos to get on the Sea Bird. It was a very long and somewhat uncomfortable ride but it's over. The trip ends back in La Paz so we don't have another long bus ride to face. The Sea Bird can accommodate 62 guests, most in outside facing rooms.  Ours is 217, about 12' x 12' including combo toilet/shower area. We have 2 windows, 4x3 and 2x3 so can sit on the bed with a clear view of the vista as well as all those who pass by our room - and they of us. 

Jan 25 - the ship traveled north overnight from San Carlos to Bahia Magdelena and to Bahia Santa Maria where we stopped at Sand Dollar Beach, a place with huge wild dunes and a long stretch of Pacific Ocean beach without a building or another soul on it. Bahia Magdelena is the inside and Bahia Santa Maria is the name of the ocean side. On the Pacific side there is long flat beach with huge nicely curling rollers about 100 yards out. On the bay side (inside) (this bay is about as big as San Fran Bay) the dunes come right down to the water. Then we came back to the boat and entered the Hull Canal which is very narrow, mangrove lined, and a good place for spotting birds. The only new species was brant (a kind of goose) but there were plenty of brown pelicans, double crested cormorants, great blue herons, great and snowy egrets, an osprey, magnificent frigate birds (kleptoparasites) and gulls, either California or western. As the channel widened we entered whale territory and were surrounded by gray whales and calves. Baja is where they come each year to mate and to have their calves (with a midwife whale) every year before beginning the trek north to Alaska. We also had porpoises bow riding the ship and swimming in and out of the whales.

More about gray whales later.

My new Zeiss birding binoculars which Connie gave me for Christmas were perfect for spotting the birds and the whales. Muchas Gracias!

Jan 26 - Boca de Soledad-  today we went ashore at another beach (on Isla Magdelena) where the dunes were even larger and the ocean stretch just as deserted. Connie and I jumped off a big dune and I will probably still be getting sand out of my ears for a couple of weeks when we get back.

For the second part of the morning we went out in the zodiacs with local Mexican guides to see the whales up even closer.

This was not the polar bear experience as we had at Svalbard where they were at long distance. Here the zodiacs went up to within 30 or 40 feet of the moms and babes. We watched "logging" moms where they just lie quietly at the surface, perhaps while the calf nurses. We also found one very cooperative mother who seemed to enjoy coming up right under the zodiac and nudging it with her head. She also allowed us to touch her. So far the babes have not been as cooperative, but the guide tells us these calves are very young and so they are mostly feeding and practicing their swimming skills for the trek north.

Added a white ibis and a whimbrel or curlew but the whales were the stars of the show today.

The afternoon was a repeat of the morning- half of the passengers at the beach and half whale watching and then a late afternoon switch. We stayed in for the beach portion to catch up on this journal.

The afternoon whale watching was just as good as the morning- again I got to touch a mom who came up right under the boat. One special added feature was delighting in a panga full of Mexican school children watching the whales and having the whale come under their boat and move it around.

About the Baja California Gray Whale- the current count is about 24000 and stable. All are born right here where we are, all about this time of year. These are baleen whales and bottom feeders. They communicate via a low hertz vibration which is good for communicating over long distances but not as an alternative to sight. They really don't need to see very well. In Baja waters they are in about 25 feet of depth, and for a 45 foot whale there is no need for deep diving. Hold breath for 5 minutes. Babies weigh 800 pounds when born and are about 15 feet long. The gestation period is 11-13 months, and they are sexually mature at about  12 years old. Male testes weigh about 80 pounds and the theory is that when mating they want to have huge volume of sperm to push the other guys' sperm out. There is no fidelity- multi mates on both sides. The biggest predator is killer whale or orca and the orcas won't come into the close confines of the Baja bays so that's why this is the birthing spot. Gray whales have no dorsal fin, just a bump and then a few knuckles down the spine. All adults have barnacles and amphipods on their back. The amphipods as well as some fish eat dead skin. The babies acquire barnacles and lice (the amphipods) by nursing and rubbing against the mom.

The moms keep close tabs on the newborn and don't let them interact or play with the other calves for a while. They basically have the babes swimming against the tide up and down in the bay here to get in shape for the long swim north to come. Tired of whale photos yet? I only have about 250 more.

We had them 360 degrees around us at several times. The babes we saw never got more than 15 or 20 feet from their mom.

One other side note- the Nat Geo photographer on this trip is Flip Nicklin, who is somewhat famous for his photos of whales and narwhals. He told me he pitched his first story on whales to Nat Geo in 1980. At the time Nat Geo had done 3 whale stories before and said that was enough. By the way two of those three had been done by his father. Anyway, he persevered and now has done 22 more whale stories for Nat Geo. Re the  narwhals he told me he spent 4 1/2 months trying to get photos and the only good ones he got occurred within one 7 hour period of one day.

Jan 27- Repositioning day. We are now leaving the Bahia Magdelena area and Boca de Soledad, heading back thru the Hull Canal on to La Entrada, the entrance to the bay at sunset. Tomorrow we run down to Cabo San Lucas.

This morning we went for one last gray whale expedition and stayed with one mom and calf pretty much all of the time we were out. This mom was known to the local guide as a splasher. True to form, while she came close many times and let us touch the calf, when she was tired of us she gave us a pretty good drenching with her tail.

As we were going down the canal, I saw a very large, very chubby coyote on the sand flats just walking along.

Lunch today was a barbecue on the deck. Very nice.

One of the reasons we like these Lindblad Nat Geo trips is the way the tour organization works with the communities it visits. Here we have a local pilot although the boat has all the navigation equipment in the world. Also instead of taking business away from local whale guides, who are fishermen in the non whaling season, Lindblad hires them to guide the zodiacs. Last night we had some local fishermen on board to play Mexican music during dinner.

Jan 28- last night was a night at sea with moderate chop and wind maybe 20 mph.

This morning we came to the Friars marking Cabo San Lucas at about sunrise. We went right by the town of Cabo, which is a little bit of Southern California right here in Mexico. The ship went on to San Jose del Cabo. This whole area was hit hard by two hurricanes this fall and did not have power for a month. Our guide said it was like being thrown back to the Stone Age. However everyone pitched in doing everything and helped to get it back up and running. He cut a lot of trees with a machete because there was no gas for a chain saw. We saw a lot of storm damage- the big hotel hasn't reopened and the windows are still out. Lots of piles of debris and trees down still. 

Our activity here was a birding walk along a stream which comes down from the local mountains, running mostly underground. I saw about 20 species of birds which I'll list later.

At the time I write this we just finished lunch and are slowly cruising the Gorda Banks by Point Gorda looking for humpback whales. Because we will only see them at a distance I am now spoiled and really only interested in touching them. The wind is up and we have to cruise all night so things may get a little bouncy.

I need to change my opinion on looking out for whales. This afternoon we saw probably 15 or 20 humpbacks from long distance. We saw perhaps 10 or so bodies and tails rather than just spouting. However at the very end we got very close (50 yards) to a threesome which was showing tails, bodies, spouts and probably 10 or 12 full and partial breaches. It was quite a display.

Jan 29- it was the second night at sea and both were quite rough. Luckily for all the expedition leader decided to cut the trip north short at about 2 am and pulled into the bay at Punta Dispensa on Espritu Sanctu Island. We finally got some good sleep starting about 4.

In the morning Connie and I went ashore for a long walk on the beach and then on the desert and then up a hillock on the island. There was a lot of ocean debris- rocks, shells of many types, fish skeletons, and hollowed out pieces of dead cactus. Connie saw a black tailed jack rabbit. We also saw some American oystercatchers. 

Back on the ship at lunch we had a Mexican lunch of make it yourself stew (posole). Then we had a choppy but brief ride to Isla San Francisco. This was one of the most interesting excursions of the trip so far- we went wading in a tidal pool just like John Steinbeck and Doc in the Log from the Sea of Cortez which I am about half way thru now. We saw urchins, brittle stars of at least two kinds, some relatives of blood worms, hermit crabs and other unnamed, unclassified, by me anyway, animals. It was a perfect activity for a 12 year old boy. After that we went for a brief kayak ride and then had a barbecue on the beach.

Jan 30- Los Islotes and Espiritu Santo. This morning the first activity was a zodiac ride around these small islets that have roosting areas for blue footed boobies and sea lions. The coyotes on the larger islands can't get them here. An added bonus was a display of jumping and flopping back into the water by mobula rays (they look like little manta rays).

Connie snorkeled with the sea lions. Then we made a small move to another part of the island and closed out the trip with a long hike on a beach bounded by a cactus desert inside. The evening lecture was about John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts, the real life role model for Doc in Cannery Row.

In reviewing the Lindblad daily expedition report I found out the next trip does not repeat what we did. Instead it moves further north on the Sea of Cortez side and immediately they were seeing blue whales.

As for us we went to LA on Jan 31after a brief side trip to a very interesting serpentarium.

We  landed in time to watch the Duke UVA game and then go to dinner at Akasha in Culver City with Richie and Darla. It reminded me a lot of Matt's restaurant Southbound here. 

The quote of the trip was "it never rains in Baja California" but it did while we were there- not bad but it did happen about 3 times.

The next day we got home just in time for the Super Bowl. Ugh, poor Russell.

 A salute to Nat Geo Lindblad's great staff of naturalists and photographers-

Bird list-

Pacific side- magnificent frigate; sanderling; brown pelican; double crested cormorant; great blue heron; great and snowy egret; brant; osprey; white ibis; whimbrel.

Sea of Cortez side- Cassin's finch; white wing dove; Cassin's kingbird; common snipe; American coot; white faced ibis; tricolor heron; little blue heron; long billed dowitcher;  black neck stilt; yellow rump warbler; hooded oriole; pie bill grebe; gila woodpecker; ruddy duck; spotted sandpiper; red bill merganser; blue wing teal; belted kingfisher; red billed tropicbird.

Punta Dispensa and Isla San Francisco- eared grebe; yellow foot gull; brown booby.

Los Islotes- blue footed booby.

On the trail of the Atlantic Sturgeon

A short addition to the Fishing Journal- 9/20/2014

My Dad got me interested in work being done at VCU by Matt Balazik on Atlantic Sturgeon. I contacted Matt, helped him out a little, and basically pestered him to take me out one time when he is netting and tagging the sturgeon.
This day was a beautiful late summer day, clear, 70s- low 80s, with a nice 10 mph breeze. We left from VCU's Rice Center in King Charles County Va on the James and proceeded upstream just past Hopewell and right at the entrance to the Presqu'ile cutoff. That's where Matt set his nets. His cute wife came along to help him with the boat driving and the record keeping.
Late September is getting to the end of the season and the males are waiting around in low salt water for ovulating females. This year we haven't had any rain so the fish have pushed far up river and even been seen where I shad fish at 14th Street in Richmond.
Before setting the net Matt put his hydrophone in the water to listen to fish which had been tagged earlier. We could hear lots, some more clearly than others. When the numbers would show on the screen, I was amazed that Matt knew the numbers and tag history by heart. We did not find any of my tagged and named fish from the last couple of years.
We caught and tagged 3 in a short day and worked in a little outreach with folks who were visiting the nature preserve.

These males were about 5 feet 6-10 inches long. With these 3 Matt has tagged about 470 fish in all and about 75 or so this year. An excellent day.