Students Tour USSR

On Friday, March 28, 21 students, 2 chaperones, and 10 other adults from both Huron and Pioneer, left for the Soviet Union. We spent over 24 hours getting to our hotel in Kiev.

Kiev is the capital city of the Ukraine, which is one of 15 republics in the Soviet Union. We got about five hours of sleep and then started our first tour. We first took a general tour of the city and then in the afternoon visited a monastery and a church – St. Sofia. After dinner we had free time to walk around the streets which are extremely safe compared to ours. We were allowed to stay out as late as we wanted as long as we checked in at about 11 p.m. We left at 5 a.m. for Leningrad.

Leningrad is the second largest city in the Soviet Union and is located in the part of the country known as the Russian Federation. We spent our time visiting various churches and parks and the Hermitage. The Hermitage is one of the world’s largest art museums. It is made up of four buildings, one of which is the former Winter Palace of the Czars. One of the evenings that were there we went to the Leningrad circus. I thought it was one of the best circuses I had ever seen. Another evening about 18 of us went to one of Russia’s fanciest restaurants – the Arabat. This was a four course meal with everything from caviar and champagne to ice cream sundaes.

After four days in Leningrad, we went to Moscow. Our hotel, the National, is normally only for VIPs and is right across from the Kremlin. The Kremlin is the Russian equivalent of our Capitol and White House. Most of our touring was done in the Kremlin.

One evening we went to see the opera “Madame Butterfly.”

The two chaperones, Mrs. Carol Billings and Miss Jean Daniels said they felt the trip was a success and that most people along had a good time.

It probably seems silly to include a few pieces from my high school newspaper, but hey, it’s where I got my start writing, so why not?