Day 14 -- Korsakov

Korsakov is a small town on the tip of the Sakhalin island (part of Russia). We had to go through Russian immigration (on the ship) then take a tender to the port. From there a bus took us to town. Quite a bit different from Japan. We had to walk to Lenin’s statue and a gift store. The town is pretty drab with communist era blocks of flats and crumbling sidewalks, but people seem well dressed, well fed and not lacking anything. We broke from the group and walked on our own. We went into several stores and finally found one that had vodka. Fortunately, they accepted Visa (most stores only accepted rubles) so we bought a small bottle and poured its contents into a plastic water bottle so we can smuggle it on board. We found a pastry shop that took a $1 bill for a pastry. We walked through several other stores, including two toy stores and were surprised how high the prices were. A container of Pantene conditioner was almost $10 and prices of toys were about the same as in the US and the assortment was similar too with most “made in China” toys. In town we met a Polish couple from California and upon return to the ship we spent 3 hours chatting with them.