June 27, 2013 (Posted Aug 6)
During Silver Cloud's 15-hour voyage from Honnigsvag, Norway to Murmansk, Russia, we had to advance our clocks and watches two hours. The cruise director decided to do this in two steps; we left Honnigsvag at two pm and the time immediately changed to three pm. We advanced the clocks again at midnight. There is no good way for the body to adjust two hours in such a short time. It was good that we arrived at Murmansk at a rather late 9 am, Russian time, as it felt more like 7 am to us.
Murmansk is located halfway between Moscow and the North Pole and 120 miles north of the Arctic Circle. It was founded in 1916 to serve as an ice free port for British access to Russia during WW I. During WW II, the Allies sent convoys of supplies to support the Soviet war effort to Murmansk. It is ice-free year round due to the influence of the Gulf Stream. Murmansk is now the home port of Russia's nuclear icebreakers. At least five Russian military installations including a naval base that is headquarters to the Russian Northern Fleet are nearby. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the population of Murmansk has decreased by a third.
Russia being Russia, the officials delayed our going ashore by almost an hour while they examined all of our passports. I assume they were eventually offered a suitable bribe. While we waited on deck, we observed a man in a very well tailored suit get out of a very expensive looking car. He observed everything taking place near the ship and took notes. The current equivalent of the KGB? No ship's passengers would be allowed ashore except on an officially organized tour unless they had applied for and received a Russian visa ($500) before boarding the ship. Even then, I believe they would have to have an official escort. Russians are naturally suspicious of outsiders. Here they were especially careful because Murmansk only exists as a major city because of the nearby military bases. Of course, no one mentioned the military bases during our visit to the port. Our tour guide told us that Murmansk residents all make their living from the fishing industry. Really? OK, the fishing industry is real but not big enough to support a population of 300,000.
Our tour included the city sights, such as they were, and a visit to the "Oceanarium." The city seemed to be drab grey and not well maintained. Even the main streets had potholes. Ninety-nine percent of the people live in apartment blocks: decaying Stalinist apartment blocks had some pretension to style in a monolithic way; Khrushchev era apartments just looked cheap and small while Brezhnev era housing units are a bit larger but still ultra utilitarian. Many of the older units appeared to have been abandoned. The only new construction was a gleaming white Russian Orthodox church. We also visited a post WW II monument to the heroes of the war. It was a BIG monument, possibly the tallest structure in the city.
The Oceanarium had been advertised to us as a research center for studying seals that offered a demonstration of their skills. In reality, it was a charming, if run down, children's entertainment venue. Seven seals performed tricks in a small pool. The animals appeared well treated and their handlers clearly had great affection for them. There was no indication of any research done there unless one calls teaching trained seals tricks research. The Murmansk tourism officials were showing us the best that they had.
We waited for Silver Cloud's departure on deck aboard ship after the tour. Murmansk harbor was littered with rusting, abandoned ships. We docked next to a shipyard that did not seem to have anyone working although a number of ships needing repairs were parked there. There were some well-maintained red-hulled icebreakers painted with "Russian Atomic Fleet" in Cyrillic letters docked a short ways away. We watched the onshore watchers watching us.
The Silver Cloud cast off a bit early and moved down the river toward the open sea. Michael and I likened Murmansk to Petropavlovsk, on the Kamchatka peninsula in far eastern Russia, which we visited in 2010. It seems to have lost its spirit since the old USSR is gone.
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