Hi All,
This is intended to be more of a photographic report than a written one, but knowing me I’ll probably waffle on like I usually do! The photos were all edited for posting and uplaoding in different places, so my apologies if the fact some have borders and some don’t is annoying! All taken using a combination of 350D and 30D bodies, Sigma 10-20, Canon EF-S 18-55 and 70-200L and the Canon A540 point and shoot.
Last weekend myself and the band had a concert in Severomorsk, Russia. This turned out to be the most interesting trip I’ve ever done, and certainly the most unique place I‘ve ever visited. We started by driving to Heathrow on Thursday, the evening before flying out, and staying at a hotel in Longford which is right next to LHR’s 09L. That meant only one thing… Yes… Despite not getting to the hotel until 3am and not getting to sleep until after 4, I was at the side of the runway by 06:15, cameras in hand…
07:45 came around and it was time to head back to the hotel (which was only 10 minutes walk away from the 09L field) and go to the airport to check in. We had a slight drama when despite the fact Aeroflot are a Skyteam airline, they didn’t want to give us the extra allowance our KLM cards should give us, and so we were stung for almost 500 quid’s worth of excess baggage. Not good!
Aboard Aeroflot’s A321 VP-BWN en-route to Moscow Sheremetyevo.
I didn’t quite know what to expect on landing at SVO. All I wanted to see was lots of Russian aircraft, and that’s exactly what I did see. Lots of them. Lots and lots of them. In fact I couldn’t quite take in the scale of what I was seeing. On pulling up to the gate the aircraft next to us was none other than an Aeroflot IL-96, which made me quite happy. Crap photo through the window, but what the hell!
At SVO there are two terminals, one domestic and one international, on opposite sides of the airfield; essentially like two separate airports using the same runways, so we had to get the bus from one to the other. After a bit of a farce waiting for passport control and a bus, we were on our way. This is where my jaw hit the floor. Row after row after row of TU-154’s, IL-86’s, IL-96’s, TU-134’s dotted all around the place… The odd IL-62… When we had the ‘Russian’ day at MAN on the 14th May I stood in awe as the TU-154’s came in, but in Moscow they were literally everywhere.
I screwed up on the bus because I didn’t get by the window, so these were taken on my 350D by holding it in up to the window and shooting blindly, hoping for the best.
Time to head for our next flight… Aeroflot Nord to Murmansk. As I was stood on the tarmac waiting to board, the Tartarstan TU-134 that was parked behind our 735 started to power away. The noise was absolutely unbelievable, but to be so close to such a rare aircraft taxiing by was simply awesome.
As we flew north from Moscow we started to see how much lighter it was at night. This was taken at around 23:40 shortly before landing…
We touched down on a runway that felt like someone had just thrown a bit of tarmac over some grass in the 1940‘s and it hadn‘t been touched since. Very, very rough and bumpy. So much so that it made landing at LBA seem perfectly normal. Good fun though!
There really isn’t much to the terminal at Murmansk, and on arrival you feel like you’re stepping into a place that’s several decades behind places in Europe.
This is the arrivals hall. Yup, that’s it! A simple and small concrete building housing a single, tiny baggage carousel.
The departures side of MMK looks a little better externally.
Although inside it’s just as basic as the arrivals part.
We collect our luggage, board our bus and head to the hotel in Murmansk. The day after we’re taken on a short sightseeing trip before heading to a restaurant for lunch, although I was a little unsure of some of the items on the menu. I found this in the ’cold collations’ section:
By: klingklang - 24th August 2008 at 19:37
stunning simply stunning
By: wannabe pilot - 20th August 2008 at 00:18
I’ve only just had the chance to fully read this thread, and needless to say Paul it is superb. Thanks for taking your time to show us this piece of the World that few of us will get to see, very interesting indeed and very impressive photography.
By: PMN - 19th August 2008 at 21:08
Paul,
Great thread and stunning shots…I am sure that all would agree that the image of the weather system you shot is award winning photography, absolutlety stunning work. Good to know that the Royal Navy appreciated you also, if I had known Exeter was alongside for the concert I could have arranged a visit for you guys, the Flight Commander is a mate (Jamie) and he has a link to this thread now!All the best
Si
Cheers, Si. Your kind words are always very much appreciated. In my stupidity I never actually thought to mention the trip to you! As I say, it was certainly a unique experience and one I was very happy to be a part of. It will be interesting to hear your friends thoughts! 🙂
Thankyou again to everyone else for looking. I’m glad you enjoyed it. 🙂
Paul
By: Si Jones - 19th August 2008 at 19:58
Paul,
Great thread and stunning shots…I am sure that all would agree that the image of the weather system you shot is award winning photography, absolutlety stunning work. Good to know that the Royal Navy appreciated you also, if I had known Exeter was alongside for the concert I could have arranged a visit for you guys, the Flight Commander is a mate (Jamie) and he has a link to this thread now!
All the best
Si
By: JetSet - 19th August 2008 at 18:46
excellent stuff, great report, loved it.
By: KabirT - 12th August 2008 at 06:58
damn PMN this absolutely made my day!
Thanks a bunch!
By: bring_it_on - 10th August 2008 at 20:09
Lovely Trip reports and great pictures as usual!!
By: G-PIK - 8th August 2008 at 16:42
Fantastic report Paul, I would do anything to have seen all that!
By: thr62 - 5th August 2008 at 21:12
Cracking photo’s especially the one’s of Murmansk
Tim
By: widmeister - 5th August 2008 at 09:56
Great report with some very nice photos. I like the coloured buildings of Murmansk. Must have been a good atmosphere.
That shot of the BA 747 has a great sky!
Not sure what might have been among the “Meat cuts of the butcher’s wife”
in that restaurant. Ha.
I was interested to read that Severomorsk is a closed town. I thought closed towns were a thing from the old days of the Soviet Union. Didn’t realise that they still exist. Oh well, you live and learn. I see the terminal at Murmansk still carries the title ГОРОД-ГЕРОЙ … Hero City.
Good work.
By: cal900 - 4th August 2008 at 16:03
Sounds great mate.
What kind of music is it? Website?
By: PMN - 4th August 2008 at 10:34
Thanks for your kind words, everyone! 🙂
Why were you playing a gig in Russia anyway?
We actually gig all over the place. Basically a promotor somewhere will book us via our management or representatives abroad and off we go. So far we’ve played maybe 100 concerts in France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal (including The Azores) and Russia, so we do get about a bit at times which is nice! 🙂
Thanks again, guys!
Paul
By: steve rowell - 1st August 2008 at 03:53
What terribly drab and depressing place Murmansk looks..great pictorial with good report though!!
By: cal900 - 1st August 2008 at 00:02
Great report.
Has made me want to go to Russia even more now.
I have already booked a trip to belgrade but that would be even better.
Why were you playing a gig in Russia anyway?
By: zoot horn rollo - 31st July 2008 at 23:16
Great pictures especially at Murmansk. How did you manage to pull that gig?
By: B77W - 31st July 2008 at 22:59
but knowing me I’ll probably waffle on like I usually do!
Really? I’ve never seen you write 5 paragraphs for a comment on JP…
Some cracking shots, which were definitely worth waiting for – i’m not sure 56K users will agree though. :p
😎
By: Conor Mc - 31st July 2008 at 16:23
Excellent images as usual Paul
By: heslop01 - 31st July 2008 at 14:35
Great report there! Love the pics too!
Gotta love Russia, I will visit it one day (я люблю русски! :D)
By: LBARULES - 31st July 2008 at 14:31
Fantastis report and photos, mate, really does look like a completely different world!
Didn’t know you were flying with Aeroflot, love that colour scheme, shame you didn’t get on any Russian types.
By: PMN - 31st July 2008 at 13:55
Right outside Sheremetyevo-1, the domestic side of the airport, an old IL-18 is parked right opposite the terminal. I had around 20 minutes to wander around this beautiful old aircraft. You could even turn the props. At least the one I could reach turned!
Having 9 hours to kill means we have time to wander into Moscow, which again was an experience in itself. This again is another world after where we’ve been. Much more like any other major city with the typical fast food outlets seen elsewhere, yet with a charm all of its own.
We spent a little time wandering around, had some food and wandered back to SVO to catch our flight to Heathrow. The international side of the airport is reasonably pleasant airside, with plenty of shops and bars dotted around the place.
Our flight back, Another Aeroflot A321 was very pleasant indeed. We were all extremely tired having hardly slept during our entire trip, but the three and a half hour flight back was a good opportunity to relax and reflect on where we’d just been and contemplate the fact we were heading back to normality. As we neared Heathrow there was a spectacular weather system just to the north; one of the most amazing I’ve ever seen from the air over the UK.
We land on 09L, where I’d spent a few hours the day this trip began, and shortly after the most amazing electrical storm and torrential rain hit. It was one of the most sudden and extreme storms I’ve seen here, so I’m guessing the huge stack of clouds we saw on the way in caught up with us, making it interesting on the drive back home.
Even now, sitting at home 3 days after returning, I still can’t quite find the words to describe this trip. It was a huge mixture of feelings. Excitement of going somewhere so different, a solemn sadness at seeing a place where people have so little and live in such unbelievably harsh conditions, uncertainty of exactly what we were letting ourselves in for and a deep contemplation of times gone by were all very strong elements of our journey. There were very mixed feelings amongst the 9 of us who went, ranging from mild depression at being in such a dull and run down place to a feeling of being uplifted by the whole experience. I leaned more towards being uplifted because literally everywhere I looked there was something I’d never seen before and something new to point my camera at. As a photographer it was a truly amazing experience to shoot somewhere like this. The people for the most part were fantastic. Even here where people possess so little, many went out of their way to make things easier for us and wandering around in Severomorsk we had random people coming up to us, shaking our hands and simply saying ’hello’. It was a tremendous honour for us to be invited to such a place for such an event, and one I’m very proud to have been given the opportunity to be a part of. It was certainly one of the most unique experiences of my life so far, and one that will stay with me for a very long time.
Just as a random point of interest, the Royal Navy has a small report on their website from the event, the reference to the Pink Floyd band being us, of course! Here’s the link:
http://www.royal-navy.mod.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.13423/changeNav/3533
If you read this far, thank you for sticking with it! I hope it made interesting reading.
Paul
P.S. Mods… The last long report I did was locked very shortly after I posted it. As I’ve spent a lot of time on this, if you feel it’s is too long and needs to be shortened may I respectfully request you drop me a PM first and I shall happily remove the less significant photos and text. 🙂
Sign In
July 31, 2008 at 1:48 pm