We were docked at Astrakhan when we woke the next day. Gateway to Asia, the people were very mixed - Mongols (or Tatars), Slavs; Moslems, Eastern Orthodox - all rubbing along seemingly very happily and proud of their ability to do so. It was very refreshing. We visited a mosque and the cathedral (and, of course, the Kremlin).

The Kremlin

The mosque

The cathedral

After the city tour, we were taken on the same coach for what felt like a fairly long distance on a somewhat rough road towards the shores of the Caspian Sea. The standard of the coaches we had used so far during this trip had not been good, but this coach hit a new low! Some way along the journey we had to cross a river using a temporary bridge, where the coach got stuck. The only way to get moving again was for everybody to get off the coach and push!

 

People were fishing for sturgeon and beluga and were all set up to prepare caviar.
This time, there was no sturgeon caught unfortunately, but one of the men did catch a very large carp.

Our local guide, Olga, was lovely. She could speak English as well as German for the tourists and had brought her teenage daughter along to assist her. She regaled us with story after story and completely lost track of time in the process. The group was equally oblivious to the time, as we all were enjoying the experience so much and didn't know what time we needed to be back at the ship anyway. (By this stage of the trip, we were used to obeying orders and following anybody in authority like sheep!). Suddenly Olga realised that we were late and that darkness would soon be upon us. There was a bit of panic on her face, because we still had to face the "get out and push" ditch on the way back, potentially in the dark. The group too, was by now becoming uneasy. Some members thought that the ship should have sailed already! We also looked around and noticed that nobody in authority from the ship had accompanied us. When we did eventually get back to the river station, we all heaved a sigh of relief to see that the ship was still there. We were in fact two hours late and the crew had suspected the worst; kidnapped by Chechens or involved in a coach crash, to name but two of their fears. As one of them put it, the paperwork they would have had to go through in the aftermath would have been horrendous... yes, well, thanks! Our poor guide took a verbal beating from the cruise director... poor lady, I suspect it will be some time before she is employed again.