New-Yorker-blog-karenrobbins

The word dacha means summer home and is pronounced with a soft ch sound. This summer home near Sochi is only one of many that Stalin had. It was built in 1937 and surrounded with imported California pines to disguise the location from prying eyes or offshore artillery. And yes, the whole thing was painted in the green you see in the picture. Almost perfect camouflage.

The buildings are set around a central courtyard with semi-tropical plants. A good part of the complex is now a hotel.

We exited the bus and walked up a slight grade through the gates and into the house that was his. We entered his office/movie theater and sure enough, there he was at his desk! In wax of course. In front of him were some documents purported to be in his own hand and a tea set said to be from Mao Zedong. Next to his desk was his bed and against the wall under a row of windows through which movies were projected was a couch stuffed with horsehair that he believed made it bullet proof. The sides and back were high so that no one could get a clear shot of his head when he was seated on it to watch the movies he loved.

In the next room was a huge pool table that practically filled the room. You wondered how they could keep the pool cue from hitting the wall when making a shot. Notice the lovely green color was continued inside.

Many of the rooms had balconies, a place for the smokers no less. In the second building we entered, there was an oval pool that had to be about 10 feet deep. There was barely space to walk around it but I'm guessing it wasn't the kind of place for sitting around the pool and sipping pina coladas. There were some beautiful mosaics on the walls.

Red carpeting flowed down the steps as we made our way to the second floor where we were ushered into the banquet hall. A wooden faced fireplace was along one wall with a portrait over it I assumed was Mr. Stalin. There were three tables set up with drinks and snacks including some caviar. I wondered how much caviar was eaten in that room in the old days?

The dacha was certainly not the opulence of the palaces of the czars but it wasn't a shack in the woods either. All in all a very interesting piece of history.

When we returned to the port we hesitated a moment wondering if we'd get in trouble if we wandered a bit and took a look at some of the nearby stores since we didn't have visas. Not feeling like we wanted to chance bucking the system, we went ahead and boarded our tender for the trip back to the ship. Maybe someday Russia will loosen up and allow cruise visitors a little more freedom and opportunity to spend some time and a little money.

If you look at a map of Russia, you will notice a tear-drop shaped area in the southwest that falls between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Sochi sits on the coast of the Black Sea on the very southwestern part of that teardrop. Because of its location, it has always been a sought after holiday destination. The area became a part of Russia in 1829 when it was ceded to them in the Russo-Turkish War. Sochi was established in 1838 as the "Alexandria settlement" but was renamed Sochi in 1896.

When Czar Nicholas II built a dacha (summer house) in neighboring Dagomys just north of Sochi, the Russian elite discovered the resort and followed his lead. The area continued to be popular among the Soviet leaders including Joseph Stalin who also built a dacha there.

When our private tour that we had contracted online was canceled, our only choice to see anything of Sochi was to book an excursion with the ship. In Russia, unless you are with a licensed tour guide or on a ship's excursion you cannot wander around on your own without a visa. We had no time or inclination to get a visa and so we chose one of the "less expensive excursions" that would get us out and about--Stalin's Summer Home.

Our tour began with an excruciatingly slow drive through town. Istanbul's traffic was nothing compared to this. And Sochi will burst at the seams with Olympic traffic in February os 2014 for the Winter Games. We all wondered what they will do to alleviate the bottlenecks.

First on our list of sights as the description read in the excursion brochure was to take a seaside stroll. Our bus let us off at some gardens that surrounded a bright yellow pillared structure that we figured to be a theater. It appeared to be under renovation. The gardens were colorful and well-kept. Busts of several Russian composers circled the building.

Our "seaside walk" consisted of walking down a sidewalk to the top of a small rise that dropped off to the Black Sea. We could look down on a handful of swimmers and sun bathers laying on a pebbled beach. No sand. We walked about 100 feet and then circled back to the bus so we could be on our way to the lookout tower on nearby Akhun Mountain.

The drive up the mountain was thrilling as is it is anywhere you drive to a lookout and have hairpin turns. The view promised to be good as we got higher. Once we arrived, we walked a short distance to the base of the tower passing by the vendors just beginning to set up shop. There were 222 steps to the top but a couple of places to stop along the way. One had a huge display of stuffed animals indigenous to the area.

Once at the top, the views were spectacular. You could see the city of Sochi and the mountains in the distance where, once snow covered, they will provide a great venue for the Olympics.

We didn't linger long on top. There must have been a nest of bees nearby and they weren't real happy with all of the visitors. Once I had some pictures, Bob and I walked down an perused the souvenir stands. As we waited for the others in our group, we were fascinated by two horses who were waiting for riders. Apparently you could rent the horses and ride the trails through the woods around the tower. The horses stood perfectly still in one place--untethered. Once in a while they would shift their weight slightly but if they began to drift a bit, the young woman who owned them would spout something sharply in Russian and they would regroup where they were supposed to stand. It was amazing. I wondered how well she would do training kids?

On the bus again, we wound our way down the mountain to the entrance of a road leading up slightly to the Stalin dacha. Finally. This was what I had truly wanted to see on this excursion.

The Black Sea is next on our travel itinerary. In doing some research before we leave, I found an interesting story posted by National Geographic about an expedition by Robert Ballard that hoped to find evidence of ancient civilization on the floor of the Black Sea.

The theory is that when the Ice Age ended and glaciers melted, it sent a surge of water through the Mediterranean Sea eastward cutting what is now Turkey in half and causing the Black Sea to rise six inches per day thereby causing a catastrophic flood. It is from that flood that the explorers surmise came the story of Noah and his ark. An interesting assumption. From what I could glean of their dispatches from the 1999-2000 expedition, they didn't quite find what they were looking for.

There are six different countries that surround the Black Sea: Turkey, Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Romania. The Black Sea area holds a lot of history. Biblical cities of Ephesus, newly discovered Laodicea,  Pergamum, Smyrna, Iconium, Lystra, and Tarsus (Paul's hometown) are among many in Turkey. Greek and Russian history date the area as well.

Culturally and historically it should be an interesting learning experience as well as an opportunity to see some beautiful scenery. And as always, I'll be posting our journey here.