We were up early for what was for me to be hopefully the highlight of the trip, our visit to the USSR, as the main reason I chose this particular Sundowners itinerary was because most of them bypassed countries and made it straight from Athens to London. We made it the 30kms to the border by around 8am. Discharge from Romania took around 30 minutes and was no hassle. However, we werent so lucky on the Russian Immigration side, although that was not unexpected. Each person was individually searched, with the two main items of interest of Customs being a check of money and searching for subversive literature. I could have given them some grief on both counts, what with my substantial collection of Asian banknotes and about 8 Newsweeks that had been my base reading material. However, by the time they got to my suitcase, fortunately they had lost interest in me. We finally got away from the border just before midday after just over 3 hours, which Gary claimed was a record short stop for him.
Moldova SSR. The countryside continued to be primarily farming with little interest. At Kishinev, we picked up our Intourist guide who was to us for the next 11 days, the lovely Nina, a tall, attractive girl in her late twenties. We made it to the Hotel Strugurash, our only hotel of the stay. We were pleased to get twin rooms with hot showers, but giant hassles over our request for a late lunch were the order of the afternoon.
We had a night out at the restaurant attached to the hotel, with the meal taking a long time to arrive, but it was worth the wait. beef steak and veges, apple cider and chocolate ice cream, all for less than 2 roubles (Editors Note - A rouble was worth just a little less than a buck in those days. There are now over 70 roubles to the dollar!). Half a bottle of wine added another rouble to the tally. There was quite a good band in place there keeping the place alive, and it was a surprisingly sociable night till the late Soviet hour of 11.30pm.
of Kishinev next morning took about 30 minutes, which roughly coincides with the time it takes to drive through the city! Apart from the Arch of Victory, the only items of any real interest to us were the colourful propaganda notices that seem to adorn almost every building, which were otherwise pretty drab in appearance.
The drive through to Odessa took some 4 hours, and a further hour was lost with Intourist officials frigging us around when we got there. The countryside was par for the course – farming, with a particular specialty in vineyards. We passed the SSR border late in the trip. Odessa, which is situated on the Black Sea, looked a rather industrial city and similarly rather drab. The campsite Delphin was a bit out of town, and an hour spent walking along the gravelly beach and the road gave us nothing to get excited about. Heavy rain and lightning set in late afternoon, putting paid to any night activities.
We had a very late breakfast next morning due to our inability to get access to the tea room (another Communist plot?). The trip into Odessa city started, as always, with an intro to
our local guide for the day, Natasha. We first made it down to the ferry wharf for a walk along the Black Sea promenade. Further items on the itinerary were the Opera and Ballet Theatre, the War Memorial to the Russians persecuted by the Nazis in WW2, several churches (most of which had been converted to museums, gymnasiums, planetariums etc) and monuments. But the absolute highlight of the tour for us was the visit to the top seaside resort, Arcadia Beach – this was an incredible sight, with masses of women baring an absolute abundance of flubbery gut, best described by one writer as a collection of ‘white whales. As if that wasnt enough, they generally wore 1930 style costumes, with even a few on show in bra and petticoat.
