This time we had a little more time for sightseeing. We started at the Rock Church--a church literally carved out of the rock. In some places they've added rock so there would be an even foundation for the large semi-glass dome on top. There is a balcony in it.
The entrance
Inside
A fountain by the harbor
We saw several human statues. This lady moved around from place to place. We were quite surprised when she took a break. She sat down on the stairs, took off her headdress including a mask, and revealed a very hairy face with a beard, and started smoking. When he was done, he put the headdress and mask back on and became a her again.
We took a boat tour around Helsinki. Lots of islands dot the bay. The pre-recorded message was given in 4 languages: we assume the first was Finnish, and then we recognized the other three--English, German and Russian.
Several of the islands are very close and connected by short bridges. Our tour boat was just barely able to pass underneath this one (see the next photo for how close we came to scraping the underside).
There are many summer homes right on the water, along with local transportation
And smaller boats
Down a canal between two islands
One of the islands is a zoo.
This is statue is in front of their big cathedral. We forgot the name on it. The stairs are very steep.
A view from the top of the stairs.
The statue is in the middle of a big plaza, and this next picture is just to the side. They
were preparing for their Midsummer Night Festival the next night. We would have like to
have stayed for it. We were told it's one of the biggest holidays of
the year.
The organ in the cathedral was beautiful.
It never got fully dark at night. Although cars did turn on their lights, the blue sky never completely faded to black. We did see one faint star on our last night, and the skies were clear.
The weather was delightful. It was about 30 degrees cooler in Helsinki than in Novokuznetsk. Yes, Siberia does get hot! The forecast for the next week shows high 80s, low 90s, with 35-55% humidity. We loved the air conditioner we had in one room in our apartment in Barnaul, and the temperatures there last year were even cooler than this year.
The longest day(light) of the year combined with our last visa trip makes us feel like we've passed our hump day--we actually passed it 6 months ago, but didn't even think about it then. This was our last visa trip. It was bittersweet, knowing we probably won't ever be back. Helsinki is beautiful, and we've loved our five visa trips there!
As the days get shorter, so does the time we have left. We don't know our exact release date yet, but we do know it's less than 90 days from now. The younger missionaries have pre-set transfer/release dates and know months in advance. Senior couples arrive and leave whenever it works out. We will be leaving on or before our visas expire on September 17, about the middle of normal transfers.
This week in Russia:
Today at church they started up a class for new members. Investigators and all those who had been in the Church less than a year were invited. More people attended that class than the regular Sunday School class. Novokuznetsk is growing!
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