Amur River, Khabarovsk

This is sunset over the frozen Amur river at Khabarovsk. It has special significance for us as Wally's father walked across the river somewhere near here to escape to China during Stalin's purges in the late 1930s. Like many Russians he fled to Harbin, where he was later joined by his wife and and elder son. They eventually made their way to Australia where Wally was born. Wally's mother died when he was 6 months old, and he was taken in by a loving foster family, also Russian, as his father was finding it difficult to cope. He grew up speaking Russian and maintained contact with both his families until his foster mother died in 2012, the day before her 105th birthday. Wally first visited Russia with us in 2012 and on that trip we took a cruise on this river on a warm autumn day, enjoying a cold beer. By the way, those large bumps in the river are big chunks of ice which must have been floating in the water when it froze.

Khabarovsk is a large and beautiful city. There are very few English speaking tourists here. In all the other Russian cities we have been able to arrange a English speaking guide for the day, but not in Khabarovsk. Although it hasn't fallen for a while, and none forecast, there is thick snow on the ground every where and wonderful ice sculptures in the streets. One of most striking features are the elegant women dressed in magnificent fur coats and hats, just going about their business. Fur was declared socially unacceptable for animal rights reasons in Australia in the 1980s, but such sensitives don't apply when it's -30C.