Diary of ‘Days of
Members of the group
Elizabeth & Tom Clark
May McMaster
Helen Morrison
Hannah McIntyre
Reta Maley
John & Rita Montgomery
Ernest & Norma Bennie
Nellie Waddell
Jane Brown
Christine Howatson
Marjory MacKellar
Maureen Rocks-Moore
Morven & Peter Pringle
John & Irene Baird
Bob Muir
Donald Martin
Alasdair MacLeod
Lorna MacPherson
Eilidh McLaughlin
John & Rita first visited with Elizabeth & Tom in 1992
Ernest & Norma represented the medical profession and Norma in the incoming president of Paisley Rotary
Nellie was in the police force – now retired!
Jane & Christine are from Globe Inn in
Marjory was an English teacher and is now a writer
Maureen is a professional artist and teacher of Art at the
Morven & Peter are from Creative arts department – Reid Kerr
John & Irene are from Hospitality department – Reid Kerr
Bob & Donald are Lecturer/chefs at Reid Kerr
And Alasdair, Eilidh and Lorna are catering students from Reid Kerr
Saturday 2nd February
We awoke at 3am to several inches of snow but everyone managed to get to the airport – more or less on time – despite taxis not turning up.
For the first time ever the flights to
Our personal friends Natasha, Sergey and Irina were there to
welcome us, plus all our friends from the Association for International
Cooperation in the city – Margarita, Julia and Nina. As soon as Maureen’s
paintings had cleared customs we set off for the Hotel Moskva, which is
situated near Alexander Nevsky square – the south end of Nevsky prospect.
Having a bus at our disposal at all times makes movement around the city stress
free for the passengers but perhaps not for our driver Sergey, because
We had dinner in the Panorama restaurant in the hotel and most people retired early after a very long day.
Sunday 3rd February
The day began with a general sightseeing tour of the city with our wonderful guide and interpreter Frieda Zietseva. We have known Frieda for many years and have been on many excursions with her but we never fail to learn something new. Her knowledge of the city and every museum in it is 2nd to none. When we stopped near the Marinsky palace Tom ended up giving a TV interview wishing luck to group of Mongolians who were setting off on a world tour.
At noon we arrived at Orphanage 46 where the group were given a tour of the orphanage premises. We were delighted to see all the new curtains which we had donated earlier in the year. There are 70 resident orphans aged 7 – 16 years. Apart from a few of the older girls rooms there is an emptiness – lack of personal possessions – in each room – which normally sleeps 4. The orphanage is attached to a school with a roll of approx 540. The Forum funds a project ‘English in Action’ for the brighter orphans to give them a better chance of employment when they eventually have to leave the security of the orphanage.
The school has a wonderful theatre facility and this is
where we held our annual ‘Knowledge of
The winners were 1st
Maria Volkova – Clarinda – 2nd Konstantin Smolyak – Rob Roy – 3rd
– Anzhelika Murushkina – New Lanark
Our 2nd Competition – the Burns Essay competition awards were also presented. The winner was Youlia Nozdrachyova. The topic for this year’s essay – set by the Robert Burns Federation - was ‘Then Gently Scan your brother man’ a quote from Burns poem Address to the Unco Guid. Again the standard was extremely high.
Elizabeth & Julia coordinate the three school’s competitions run by the Forum in the months leading up to the trip.
On returning to the hotel we only had a very short time to
prepare for the party at the British Consulate. British Consul William Elliott
very generously hosted a party for the Scots, our former competition winners
and friends of St Petersburg Forum. This was the 11th year of the
‘Knowledge of
Director of School 61 - Tatiana Kazeeva
Russian Schools Director of the year
They are an extremely talented group of young people and their talents were very much in evidence when they performed their party pieces and entertained the guests.
It was one of our students Pasha Oboyantsev’s 21st birthday and after he had played his accordion for us (he is a world champion) we sang ‘happy Birthday’.
It was a very relaxed evening in
beautiful surroundings in what is a little bit of
Consul General William, his lovely wife Daria and their children, Sophia, Thomas, Christina and Clara (and Rasputin the cat) made us all feel welcome and the evening was a highlight of the trip. For us, seeing so many of ‘our’ students together gave us great pride and joy.
Left John Baird, Centre Consul General William Elliott and right Tom Clark
Monday 4th February
John & Irene and Chefs Bob & Donald along with the
three students Alasdair, Eilidh and Lorna spent Monday morning at the
12 of the group visited a school in Pushkin – 15 kilometres
from the centre of
The four Trustees of the Forum – Elizabeth, Tom, May &
Helen accompanied by Maureen – did not visit Pushkin. They were taken on a
visit to orphanage 11 where children with severe learning difficulties live.
Maureen is the art teacher at the
The Forum had been given a donation of £200 from an organisation associated with the Church of Scotland (Dove) and this was presented to the orphanage to allow them to purchase art equipment for the children.
We met up with the Pushkin group at the Russian National Library where we had lunch. The Director of the library Alexander Bukreev is a friend of the Forum and for the 3rd year he very kindly arranged for us to have the use of the exhibition hall of the library to exhibit our Scottish paintings and the St Petersburg students’ paintings from our 3rd school’s competition, the theme of which this year was Charles Rennie Macintosh and the MacDonald sisters. Again the standard of work was outstanding. Our two artist judges May and Maureen chose the winners and their prizes were presented after the official opening of the ‘Days of Scotland in St Petersburg’ by the British Consul General William Elliott.
There were various speeches prior to the presentation of the
art awards and the Scots were given a taste of Russian speech making. The young
people of
Arrangements had been made during months of consultation to
hold the Burns Supper in our hotel – the Moskva Hotel. John Baird had arranged
for the food for the supper to be supplied direct in
The Burns Supper was chaired by Tom. He is the only one who can handle all the last minute problems and changes that always occur during the St Petersburg Burns Supper. As usual he did an excellent job although he had to eventually give up on the timing of the evening!!
Various greetings were given by the Scottish group from the
Robert Burns Federation, Greenock Burns Club, Allanton Jolly Beggars,
Greetings were also given from the British Consul General and the Selkirk Grace was said in English by John & in Russian by Sergey.
One of the funniest moments of the supper was when Vladimir
(our Russian piper whom we have used for many years) marched into and around
the room supposedly piping in the haggis – but there was no haggis! Eventually
the haggis appeared from a different direction and the march around began
again! Anatoly – a final year student at the
During the meal we were entertained by Masha Povarkova, Mikhail Pavlov, Olesya Matakova, Andrei Filin, Grigory Ilyashenko and Alyona Blinova, 6 of our very talented past winners. It is difficult to describe their performances on paper sufficient to say that the audience was captivated by them. We are all looking forward to the day when Mikhail sings opera in the Marinsky Theatre and Olesya makes her fortune on the stage singing and acting. Grigory one day hopes to enter the Duma and Andrew will one day win Strictly Come dancing!
The Immortal memory was given, in verse, by Jane Brown, masterfully translated, in verse, by Professor Irina. Jane was dressed as Jean Armour and the Immortal memory was given from Jean’s perspective. It was wonderful and left us speechless – which is difficult for Scots and Russians!! Later in the evening Olesya performed her winning presentation, from last year’s competition, about Jean Armour and Jane presented her with ‘Jean’s’ white pinafore.
The Toast to the lassies was given by Peter Pringle and produced great hilarity – not always from the ladies!! Peter’s presentation and acting ability was appreciated by all – gentlemen and ladies. Helen gave the reply for the ladies in her usual capable and articulate manner. Peter should have known Helen wouldn’t pull any punches!
The chefs and students were brought from the kitchen and
thanked by the audience. Our young entertainers were also thanked and
After Tom had given the closing remarks the Scottish choir (well the Scottish group) surprised the Russian by singing their well rehearsed rendition of Katyusha, in Russian, followed by a roof raising Scots Wha Hae.
Not to be outdone the Russians then performed, conducted by Irina, 2 of their well known folk songs and the evening was rounded off by Auld Lang Syne.
The evening had also given many of the group an opportunity to catch up with old friends and to make new ones. We were delighted to meet Prof. Leonid Seleznev and Tatyana Emelyanova once more.
The Scottish ‘party’ continued in the seating area next to our bedrooms in the hotel. This was when we discovered what a funny lady Jane is. Many of the others tried to match her but I am afraid she outdid them all. Perhaps the wine we had brought from the tables at the supper helped the hilarity!
Tuesday 5th February
Our wonderful guide Frieda took us on two excursions during
the day – the
The grounds of the Peter & Paul fortress are under reconstruction and after an adventurous walk through the reparations we eventually reached the cathedral. Once again Frieda explained the history of the church which contains the tombs of the Tsars of Russia. There is a special room in the building where the remains of the last Tsar and his family were brought and finally laid to rest in the late ‘80’s when Yeltsin was president.
During Tuesday & Wednesday Peter & Morven followed
their own agenda and continued their discussion with the Theatre academy in
The evening event on the Tuesday was for members of the group to visit a Russian family for Dinner.
For Elizabeth, Tom, Irene, John, Peter Morven, Norma & Ernest
the home they visited was once more the Consulate and residence of British
Consul General William and his family. There were several Russian guest also
invited. However what was really special about the evening was that Reid Kerr
Chefs Bob & Donald assisted by Eilidh, Lorna and Alasdair prepared the Gala
Dinner. The dinner was served by students from the catering college in
Consul general William has been a tremendous supporter of the work of St Petersburg Forum and the students were greatly honoured to have prepared a meal for the consul and his guests in the residence. We were also honoured to be his guests. The atmosphere during the after meal drinks was extremely relaxed.
Wednesday 6th February
The visit to Orphanage 40 where at the moment there are 60
children 3-7yrs was probably the most harrowing one for the group. All the
children have eyesight problems. In addition most of them have other physical
and medical conditions. We visited 5 groups of children of various ages 
and abilities. We were able to
spend a little time with each.
St Petersburg Forum has supported this orphanage for several
years supplying, monthly, funds for necessary medicines. We donate spectacle
frames and this year, with great assistance from the group,
After lunch we were all so tired we nearly refused to visit
the
In the evening we went to the famous Marinsky theatre to see and hear Tchaikovsky’s opera ‘Eugene Onegin’. Frieda had explained the story before we arrived but we were helped by the words in subtitles in English. The scenery was modern and I think many of us were a little bit disappointed with the first scene. The fact that many couldn’t keep their eyes open didn’t help! However as the opera progressed it became stronger and after the final scene the Scots cheered and clapped with the rest of the audience. Students from the catering College joined Alasdair, Eilidh and Lorna at the opera and it was a great chance for them to socialise and get to know one another.
John & Irene, Bob & Donald were entertained for the evening by their colleagues from the catering college.
Thursday 7th February.
The group this year were very disciplined and
punctual!! All of the
luggage was packed and on the bus by 10.15 and we set off for our final meeting
with the Association for International Cooperation who assist with the work of
the Forum. We were welcomed in to the New House of Friendship by Natalie
Eleseeva Chairman of the Association. They have just moved to the new premises
after a year of planning. Margarita in her usual efficient way had arranged
contacts of interests for members of the group and it is hoped that old and new
links will blossom. Each member of the group with special interests was given
the opportunity to make comment on the trip, including Alasdair’s comments on
behalf of the students. Jane presented
Leaving
For the first time ever all flights were early – going and
coming – plus we did not lose any baggage and we had no problems with customs.
On arrival in