September 2006
(by Yasomatinandana das)

Dear Godbrothers & Godsisters,
PAMHO AGTM AGTSP

Guru Maharaja told me to write some diaries about his recent trip in South Russia. I was fortunate to accompany him during that trip as his secretary. Guru Maharaja is very kind and he knows how to encourage any useless person and engage him or her in devotional service of Lord Sri Krishna.

Guru Maharaja came to Moscow on September 6th from Delhi. He was accompanied by Aniruddha prabhu, our senior Moscow Godbrother. When he was in Russia one month before in S. Petersburg Guru Maharaja fell on a staircase and hit his hip. Thanks Krishna it proved not very serious but still to be on the safe side he did not want to fly to India alone and requested Aniruddha prabhu to accompany him. Now he was flying back.

Guru Maharaja came in the morning and in the evening he was already giving a class at the Moscow temple. In the morning we sent a message on our SMS-list (in Moscow we organized this service for devotees and already over 600
devotees get fresh short news on their mobiles about different programs in the temple) and there was a crowd of 150-200 people, despite the working day. Guru Maharaja was lecturing on the past day's events - that is Bhaktivinode Thakura and Haridas Thakur's appearance days. (All the lectures are recorded. In MP3 they are 7-11 Mbytes each. Total, with few kirtanas - 200 Mbytes. Dravida was going to take them from me and hopefully he will be able to make them available). Then he gave darshanas till 10 pm and then we went home. As usual for the past many years, he stayed at Sadhupirya prabhu's flat.

During this trip Guru Maharaja had two assistants traveling with him. One was myself and another was Acyutagraja prabhu, a wonderful brahmacari from S.Petersburg who was his servant. He is simply amazing - his humility, dedication and service attitude! He always comes to Moscow whenever Guru Maharaja comes here - to serve him. He helps Guru Maharaja to do his puja, takes care of his prasadam and clothes and does other menial services. "He is simply amazing" are Guru Maharaja's words about him. So with him I only had a service of translating, playing harmonium during kirtanas and helping with E-mail and phones.

During this trip Guru Maharaja managed to attend to other important problems. One of them was arranging India's quota for the Youth Fund - to save American temples from being sold out. Spending hours on email and phone he organized everything in a two-weeks' time. American GBCs thank him for this service and he was also very happy to be useful for Srila Prabhupada. As Badrinarayan prabhu wrote to him, in the beginning America collected laxmi to build ISKCON temples in India, and now India is helping to save American temples. Also, as always, he was handling different urgent issues in the Delhi temple, solving problems and guiding the Delhi management.

The next morning, the 7th September we flew to Anapa (Black Sea coast) from where Dhristadyumna prabhu, another senior Godbrother from Sochi drove us to Novorossiys, our first stop during this South Russia trip. Guru Maharaja is
a co-GBC in South Russia with HH Prabhavisnu Swami with whom he has very old, deep, warm friendly relationship. So as a GBC at least once a year he travels around different ISKCON centers in this area. This time he visited
practically all of the except for Stavropol. And that was also only because by the 18th we had to finish this trip to be in time for the Russian GBC meeting.

In Novorossiysk devotees built a nice temple by selling paintings. Of course it is not as big as the Delhi one. This is a small city and yatra where about 70 devotees come for the Sunday program and about  200-300 come for Janmastami. But still, the temple is very nice and it has the Deities of Gaura-Nitai, Nrisimhadev and Jagannath. Aditi-dukhaha prabhu, Novorossiysk Temple president and one of the Regional Secretaries in South Russia is one of the greatest kirtan-leaders in Russia. He is simply fantastic and can sing for hours and hours and hours putting everybody in trance by his kirtanas.

In the evening Guru Mahara gave a lecture and then met all the disciples and other devotees who had questions. He gave time to everybody asking for those who by some reason were not there. He was very concerned about disciples who did not take the opportunity to associate with the Guru when he comes once a year.

The next morning he gave a Bhagavatam class and in the afternoon we drove to Krasnodar. It is a big and developed city. It is Krasnodar devotees headed by Suddha prabhu (also our Godbrother) who for the past 6 years have been
organizing these already world-famous Black Sea Festivals. At the end of September the weather here is still warm and the sea is also warm to swim in.  So every year 2000-3000 devotees from all over Russia come here for
this Sadhu Sanga festival. Usually 10-20 senior Prabhupada disciples come to give different seminars and presentations. It is here that many devotees can meet their spiritual masters, take initiation and see each other. This South Russia is led by mature devotees and Guru Maharaja even complained that he did not have much to do here as a GBC.

Guru Maharaja gave four programs here in Krasnodar - 8th evening, 9th morning and evening. On the 10th he gave a Bhagavatam class after which we drove to Kurjinovo. On the way we stopped for three hours in Maikop where
Guru Maharaja gave another class in the local Namahatta. In the evening we arrived to Kurjinovo. (3 programs in 3 cities in one day! Each program means one hour kirtan, one and a half hour lecture and at darsanas)

Kurjinovo is a village where Russian devotees used to have been settling since the times of Communist persecution - the middle 80ths. By now there is a nice community there with over 150 devotees. This is a cheap place but at the same time there are no jobs. So mostly there are elderly devotees who are staying there. They have two small temples in two nearby villages. In the evening Guru Maharaja gave a program in one of them and the next morning, the 11th - in the other one.

The next day we drove to Cherkessk (it is all Caucasian area). In Cherkessk there is a milk factory which is owned by devotees. It is not a big one - about 60 people staff. They process milk, produce curd and other milk products (with no-rennet and other nasty things) offer and sell to the retail stores. Guru Maharaja likes this factory very much.

There was an evening program in Cherkessk and the next morning we drove down to Essentuki (another Caucasian city famous for its healing mineral water springs). There the devotees are also building a small temple. These are all
small yatras whith few dozens of devotees. In Essentuki Guru Maharaja gave morning and evening programs and the next day we drove down to Vladikavkaz via Nalchik (280 kms). It was a hassle as at 5 pm we had to catch a train
from Vladikavkaz to Rostov. One of the problems was that these are all different semi-autonomous republics. They don't require separate visas but they have border control where you usually get stuck for hours and greedy policemen are always ready to give you hard time to get their "bakshish". This was what usually happened previously. They used to find some faults with Guru Maharaja's registration and give us hard time.

This time devotees organized somebody from Vladikavkaz police to take Guru Maharaja through the border. That policeman appeared to be a husband of one Vladikavkaz devotee. First they wanted to organize a special patrol police
car with escorting motorcycles but the local devotees requested them to keep a little lower profile. So at the border Guru Maharaja and myself changed into a red sports car. The car 'took off' and then 'flew' to Vladikavkaz at the speed of 160 km/hour - through all the police posts without even slowing down. It really saved the program in Vladikavkaz. Guru Maharaja came right in time and gave a full program. The other car with Acyutagraja and the luggage came 1.5 hours later.

So we took a night train to Rostov, the biggest city in the South Russian area. There were three programs. And on 16th morning we drove down another 550 kms to Volgograd. Volgograd is a city on the Volga river and it is famous as a place where in 1943 during the World War II there was a great tank battle with Germans and from this place the Germans started to be driven away. There is a temple and a yatra of about 100 devotees there.

The next day Guru Maharaja gave a morning and Sunday programs in Volgograd and then we took a night train back to Krasnodar from where Dhristadyumna prabhu again drove us to Krinitsa, the place of the GBC meetings and the would-be Sadhu Sanga Festival. Then there were Russian GBC and RGB meetings for three days. Guru Maharaja was the Chairman and everybody liked his chairing very much. I participated in these meetings and then had to rush to Moscow to oversee the Moscow temple why the other members of our management team went for the Festival. Ananda Kirtan prabhu from Ukraine was assisting Guru Maharaja during the Festival time.

On the 28th we received Guru Maharaja in Moscow at the airport. Then he spent two hours in Akincana Krishna prabhu's house and then flew to India.

That's about all. Guru Maharaja is wonderfully sweet and transcendental. While catering to so many urgent management problems his mind never budges an inch from Lord Krishna's lotus feet. He never lets himself be taken away by all these so-called superficial 'problems' of the material world. He is always very kind to all his disciples and devotees and, to this end, all living entities down to a little ant. His main instructions which reiterate through all his lectures and darsanas are:

1) ATTENTIVE CHANTING,

2) READING SRILA PRABHUPADA'S BOOKS. These two are the must. And then

3) as far as possible, PREACHING & BOOK DISTRIBUTION

Please think why he is repeating them again and again. Think of it and take advantage of them. There is no other way!

Thank you for your attention!

Your humble servant,
Yasomatinadana das