As mentioned in Cloggy's thread, these are a bunch of pictures I took when my ship went to Vladivostok, Russia. I was stationed on USS LASSEN (DDG 82) out of Yokosuka, Japan. It was possibly the best port visit we had in the two years I was there. Closest runner up being Hong Kong. Anyway, here are a ton of pictures.
I had duty the first day, so I couldn't leave the ship. These pics are just of the surroundings of where our ship was. We had to med-moor, which was the first time I had ever been on a ship that did it. Normally we moor to the pier with our lines going over the side to the pier. Med-mooring is basically backing into a parking spot and the lines all go out from the stern. It's pretty tricky, especially if you don't have bow thrusters but we did a great job and the Russians were surprised with how fast we did it. What they didn't know is that we practiced it twice in Yokosuka. Most of our ships never do it ever and most of the ones that did it in Vlad took a lot longer.
Look at those launchers!! They have some serious missiles.
My ship on the left.
Some rubles
Some torps
F734 is a French frigate that was also visiting for V-day.
The next day (we were there for 3 days.) I was able to get off the ship.
Kind of a bad pic but these were all part of a V-day parade. Someone there told us that there are two V-day parades in Russia that are televised across the country; one is in Moscow and the other is in Vladivostok. It was basically the parade you are probably already thinking of...lots of troops, missile launchers, etc parading down the streets. The French and our ship had a group of people take part in the parade also.
We had to wear our blues on liberty. It attracted a lot more attention to us. It wasn't bad though, everyone seemed to love us there and I can't even count how many pictures we were asked to take with people.
I had duty the first day, so I couldn't leave the ship. These pics are just of the surroundings of where our ship was. We had to med-moor, which was the first time I had ever been on a ship that did it. Normally we moor to the pier with our lines going over the side to the pier. Med-mooring is basically backing into a parking spot and the lines all go out from the stern. It's pretty tricky, especially if you don't have bow thrusters but we did a great job and the Russians were surprised with how fast we did it. What they didn't know is that we practiced it twice in Yokosuka. Most of our ships never do it ever and most of the ones that did it in Vlad took a lot longer.
Look at those launchers!! They have some serious missiles.
My ship on the left.
Some rubles
Some torps
F734 is a French frigate that was also visiting for V-day.
The next day (we were there for 3 days.) I was able to get off the ship.
Kind of a bad pic but these were all part of a V-day parade. Someone there told us that there are two V-day parades in Russia that are televised across the country; one is in Moscow and the other is in Vladivostok. It was basically the parade you are probably already thinking of...lots of troops, missile launchers, etc parading down the streets. The French and our ship had a group of people take part in the parade also.
We had to wear our blues on liberty. It attracted a lot more attention to us. It wasn't bad though, everyone seemed to love us there and I can't even count how many pictures we were asked to take with people.