Sailing ship Pallada in Los Angeles (August 24-28, 2011)The end of summer 2011 in the life of the Russian community in Southern California will be remembered for a port visit by the famous sailing ship Pallada to the City of Angels. Reportedly, the handsome three-masted frigate that exceeds a speed of 18 knots is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the most high-speed sailing ship in the world in its class. Belonging to the Far Eastern State Technical Fisheries University, the vehicle is used for teaching maritime students during their practical trainings, for official purposes, and for participation in international regattas and festivals. For the last twenty years (the ship was built in 1989) it visited 101 port visits in 35 countries, made 109 voyages with over 12 thousand students and students, cadets and apprentices from all over Russia.
During this four-month long international trans-Pacific expedition, the crew of Pallada got acquainted with the lands of North America, which a few centuries ago were discovered and later mastered through hard work by Russian mariners and explorers. Pallada visited Kodiak and Sitka (Alaska), Canadian Victoria,
San Francisco, Los Angeles and Honolulu (plus stop by the coast of Japan before returning to Vladivostok).
At the request of the Consulate General of Russia in San Francisco, The California Russian Foundation took an active part in organizing the Southern Californian part of Pallada’s Pacific voyage. The foundation was able to quickly mobilize the local resources of Russian-American community in the counties of Los Angeles and Orange so that the crew and cadets felt that they are welcome to Southern California from their very arrival to departure four days later.
On sunny Friday evening August 25th the Foundation gave a gala reception on the deck of the ship inviting heads of city halls of Long Beach and Los Angeles, the Port of Los Angeles, and the Russian American community in Southern California. Vice Consul Igor Shaktar-ool conveyed greetings from the Consulate General of Russia in San Francisco.
Special gifts from the Russian America Society were brought the day before, directly from Moscow: the recreated historic flag of the Russian-American Company to fly over the ship during the Californian part of the voyage; a set of scientific and educational books on the Russian contribution to California and Alaskan pages in the history of both Russia and America were donated to the on-board library. This manifestation of a symbolic link with the historic Russia is especially important in the context of the voyage’s dedication to the 270-anniversary of the discovery of Russian America by Russian sailors.
The formal part of the reception was continued with party’s pleasures of socializing over specially chosen local Mexican cuisine, Californian wine, jazz music, Russian dancing. When it was already quite dark, the cadets themselves began to dance and sing – their performances were such a special highlight of the event!
The California Russian Foundation organized several professors and students from California State University, Long Beach to give lecture to the ship cadets next morning. The lecture was on the geographical features and urban problems of Los Angeles area, as well as the mutual influence of the Hollywood film industry and the city, and included screening fragments of films about Los Angeles as well as a discussion of the places around the ship, which were used in several famous American movies.
This Pallada voyage was also devoted to the 50th anniversary of space flight by Yuri Gagarin. In this regard, particularly significant was visit to the pride of American high-tech business, private company SpaceX, organized by the Foundation. Seamen led by Pallada’s captain Vassily Sviridenko were provided with a rare opportunity to visit the company and see the spacecraft Dragon capsule, designed to deliver payloads to space orbit.
On Sunday, August 27 representatives of the Foundation took part in a bus tour of Los Angeles, which included a walk along the famous boulevard of stars, and an overview of the beach in Santa Monica.
The Foundation hopes that these eventful four days will for long time remain memorable for Pallada crew and cadets who eventually departed from Los Angeles to Hawaii.
Please click here to see a full photo gallery of the event
