To Russia with Love - Germany, Russia, Finland, Sweden 1988
Frankfurt - Heidelberg - Berlin (East and West) - Moscow - Leningrad (St. Petersburg) - Kiev - Yerevan - Tbilisi - Baku - Helsinki - Stockholm
Dates: July 26 - August 16, 1988
Under the auspices of the Institute for Individual and World Peace, over 100 travelers joined JR and John for a voyage to Russia when it was still behind the iron curtain. The tour followed that year's PAT IV and started the introduction of JR's works into this part of the world.
List of Services
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Day 1 - July 26 - To AmsterdamList Item 1
Departures from LA and NY to Amsterdam for onward flight to Frankfurt.
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Day 2 - July 27 - HeidelbergList Item 2
Arrive into Amsterdam, continue on by air to Frankfurt and transfer to Heidelberg.
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Day 3 - July 28 - Heidelberg
Touring.
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Day 4 - July 29 - Rhine River CruiseList Item 3
Cruising on the Rhine River.
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Day 5 - July 30 - Berlin
Touring
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Day 6 - July 31 - BerlinList Item 4
Visits to East Berlin - including Checkpoint Charlie, Pergamom museum. Behind the Iron Curtain for the first time this trip. Later this afternoon we have an impromptu sharing session with JR and John where we first hear about the "worm" that was planted in the Berlin Wall.
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Day 7 - August 1 - Berlin
Final touring and free time to revisit the "worm" in the wall before we head onto the Soviet Union.
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Day 8 - August 2 - Moscow
We travel through the checkpoint into East Berlin to fly from the East German airport via Aeroflot to Moscow. After arriving in Moscow we head right out to the famous Red Square (see video below) where we visit the famous Gum department store, Lenin's tomb and St. Basil's church.
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Day 9 - August 3 - Leningrad
Touring in Moscow today, then off by night train to Leningrad to the north. One of the "special" experiences the group had during this tour was numerous nights on the night trains. The Russia tourist agency, Intrav, rarefly had groups so large, so their solution to get around hotel availability was to put the group on trains overnight. You'll see numerous references to the night trains in this recollection of our itinerary.
Accommodations: Night Train to Leningrad
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Day 10 - August 4 - Leningrad
Touring in Leningrad, including visits to the Hermitage and Petroverts Palace via hydrofoil.
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Day 11 - August 5 - Leningrad/Moscow
More touring in Leningrad, then back to Moscow by night train.
Accommodations: Night train to Moscow
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Day 12 - August 6 - Kiev
In one of our more unusual days, after a night train to Moscow each color group was assigned a two hotel rooms in a Moscow hotel where were were expected to freshen-up before taking another night train this evening. So the blue group women shared one room for showering and changing using our carry-on bags.
Overnight: Night Train to Kiev
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Day 13 - August 7 - Kiev
Touring in Kiev. We were in Kiev just after the Chernobyl disaster and radiation in dairy and assorted foods was still a problem. We visited a youth camp today (see video below). We also visited memorial sites in Kiev (see MOP Removing Fear with Loving, below).
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Day 14 - August 8 - Yerevan
Today we fly to Yeravan in Arrmenia. Our old hotel there, in the central square, was 9 stories high and featured non-working elevators.
Touring in the area included a visit to the site of a decades old massacre.
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Day 15 - August 9 - Tbilisi
Touring in the area included a visit to the site of a decades old massacre. Visits today included sites between Yeravan and Tbilisi.
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Day 16 - August 10 - Tbilisi
On arrival, group members split up to visit local families as part of the IIWP activities. (see video below from Georgia)
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Day 17 - August 11 - Baku
Travel by bus through the Caucasus mountains between Tbilisi and Baku.
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Day 18 - August 12 - Baku
Touring in the Baku area.
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Day 19 - August 13 - Leningrad
Today the group flies from Baku to Moscow and, surprise, surprise, takes the night train to Leningrad.
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Day 20 - August 14 - Helsinki
Taking the bus out of Russia and crossing the boarder to Finland. Arrived in Helsinki at the end of the day.
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Day 21 - August 15 - Helsinki/Stockholm
Touring in Finland, including a visit to the Sibelius monument outside of Helsinki. Overnight ferry from Helsinki to Stockholm.
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Day 22 - August 16 - Departure
Final touring in Stockholm and flights to Amsterdam for home.
Slide Show
Moments of Peace Videos:
First Person Accounts:
From Randy Garver:
On a lot of the trips, there were just these amazing experiences that would take place, often connected with clearing the karma of a country or region. One was the famous trip to Russia, going into East Berlin, when J-R put a “light worm” in the Berlin Wall and predicted that it would come down within a couple of years. And that happened. On this same trip we were going into Russia, in an area called Tbilisi, which was near the Armenian homeland. We had this tour guide who was Armenian, and she’s going on and on and on about the Turkish genocide of the Armenian people, and we’re all exhausted but she keeps going on dramatically about how the Armenian people were trying to purify their blood by just marrying other Armenians.
She’s is going on and on, and so J-R says something like, “How do you determine the bloodlines?” She says, “Well unlike the Jews where the bloodline is passed through the women, with the Armenians it’s passed through the man.” J-R said, “Let me get this straight. If an Armenian man had sex with a pig” (and he used a cruder word for sex) “then the offspring would be Armenian.” Well, the woman couldn’t believe what he just said. From that point on, she didn’t say anything else for the rest of the trip. I was looking at J-R and wondering why he would say something like that. What I saw taking place was that through the creation of them being special, it was equivalent of painting a big target on your back and setting yourself up for another genocide. Because people around somebody who feels that they are really special often are brought down to whatever the level of the group is. It was interesting to me that he would be willing to go to that level to, as I saw it, break an energy flow.
