Victor Rybin and his wife, singer Natalia Senchukova

And some of the country house are selling and buying a motor ship. We had a dacha in Spain, but we wanted to have something near our house in Dolgoprudny and bought a motor ship.

Vitya is a military submariner by training. Before entering the school, he walked along the river on tourist ships as a sailor. He really liked it. And then music became the main thing, and ships became a hobby. It all started with one rubber boat that we brought from Spain. Then they bought a boat, and only then began the purchase of iron motor ships, which looked unimportant. A few years later we sold our first restored motor ship to a friend. Now we have one restored motor ship “M.V. Lomonosov “and another in the process of construction.

For 11 years already. It took 22 months to restore it. Now the crew (au pair) or, when necessary, hired specialists keep it in excellent condition. It’s like a house, only “hemorrhoids” are bigger. Imagine: a four-entrance Khrushchev building with 80 apartments and 80 meters in length is floating. Someone acquires several country houses or furnishes them with chairs for 15 thousand euros, and we invest here. They have one expensive chair, and we have 293. I remember the exact number! And the chairs are not simple: made of oak with horsehair and coconut flakes. At first we wanted to buy new chairs, but experts looked at them and said: “What are you, these are antiques!” Then we just dragged them over. The motor ship is 52 years old, it belonged to the Northern Shipping Company, sailed along the Dvina River and the White Sea. Imagine what his story is. We have an old piano used by our Soviet composers. Pictures, figurines, a collection of sailing ships, bells – we all brought this from home. They give a lot to artists, and friends know what presents to make for us: everything for the ship.

We can wave for 3000 kilometers

Son Vasya, he is now 15 years old, always asks when we will go here. He has been on this ship since he was six years old and, as a little boy, was running around it with a company.

We can just come on our weekends, sit, drink beer, eat delicious pies. Our chef makes awesome saury soup! Trips start in May and last year ended on November 3rd. We have a favorite place. There is a forest, a clearing. We are supporters of outdoor activities. On the shore we play football, volleyball, badminton. If we dock in the city, then we walk with an excursion. We, like snails, will sail, stick with our house and live on it. On a motor ship, you can go huge distances along the Volga, Dnieper, Don, Dvina, and go to the Baltic. Our longest trip is to Rostov-on-Don, it is more than three thousand kilometers. We walked there for 15 days, with feeling, with stops. So the main thing is to have time and money.

Any water recreation is not cheap. The maintenance of water transport is several times more expensive than a hotel, and a little cheaper than an airplane. Fuel is consumed not in liters, but in tons! And also the costs of the crew, security, parking. This is not a trip to Turkey. Here you have to spend money.

We can give a ship to a corporate office of a small company, and then to people who have been carried out, so that they are not smashed on the shelves. We know how people behave on a motor ship. As in the “Golden Calf”, where Kozlevich asked before driving a car: “Will you dance naked in the moonlight?” We don’t need that. We’d better let our friends ride. Soon our friend has an anniversary, and he lives outside the city and near the water. Many friends will come to him. He asked: “Vit, let’s drive the ship, put it like a hotel, and we will take people to it in boats.” No matter how big his house is, he will not accommodate 50-60 people, but we will put them to bed. Both the friend will be good, and the guests will be pleased.

We had some acquaintances whom Natasha and I invited here, but they did not come, and we stopped maintaining relations with them. People who are too hungry and do not want to ride on such a ship, not our circle. The motor ship is a sieve. Whoever comes here is a friend. We have few real friends, three couples. The rest are good buddies. Here they gather in our families, in large companies.

We dragged several friends and acquaintances to our hobby club. They bought ships, they are constantly remodeling them and dream of large ships. Shopping for motor ships is very addictive.