Severomorsk, Russia

Hello all,

We arrived in “Mother Russia” yesterday morning to a Navy band and great fanfare. I believe we’re the first US Navy ship ever to visit this city in Russia. Severomorsk is home to Russia’s Northern Fleet. There are many warships here…not quiet at big as Norfolk, maybe half the size. It is still a closed city, which means, noone leaves or enters Severomorsk w/o express consent from the government. I suppose it’s for military secrecy, but it was just plain weird to me. Last night the Officers and Chiefs of ELROD attended a party on the Norwegian Coast Guard vessel SENYA. The Norwegians were very gracious hosts and had great beer, liquor (hadn’t seen rum in a couple months ;) and beautifully interesting appetizers. I took a picture of the appetizers…my favorite was the marinated “reindeer” meat w/ blueberry cream sauce on top of a small piece of bread. Very tasty!!! We ended the night by heading back to the British ship EXETER’s wardroom for a “night-cap”. All in all, it was a fun night and good to get to hang out w/ others that spoke English.

We were here in Severomorsk for their Russian Navy Days celebration. The weather’s been rotten since arriving, around 40 degrees, very windy, and overcast, with rain off and on. I had to conduct tours all day today. It was quite chaotic really, imagine having 1000 people on your ship that don’t speak English and because of that, decide to act foolish and ignore your pleas for them to move along! I was exhausted by the end of the day…but decided to head out in town at least for a few minutes to see what it was like. I went out w/ our Disbursing Officer (Carl), who hails from Jamaica. Evidently there are very few Black people in Russia, so as we walked through the crowds, we were accosted by crazed fans asking to have pictures taken w/ them and the children wanted our autographs, very odd all around. To make matters even more bizarre, everyone around us seemed to be BLITZED. So add to the novelty of a black man, the fact that we are also Americans, their former enemies, and it made us very popular. We didn’t make it more than 30 minutes from the ship and we’d already been in around 500 photographs.

My impressions of the city were that it seemed like a depressing place to live. It was dungy and dirty and very plain. Overall, the city was very dull. I didn’t see any stores or restaurants open for business, only vodka stores and local street venders… There was a big statue of a Russian Soldier at the entrance to the harbor. I was told it represented the soldiers that fought to liberate the city from the Nazi’s at the end of WWII. It looked very Russian…I’ve attached a bunch of pictures so that you can form your own opinions…

Well, that’s all for my Russian travels, I can honestly say, I have no desire to return to this place…

- J.R