By Ted Kleine
“Not many seamens visit Chicago,” he notes. “These vessels should be specially designed.”
This is Mitirevs’s first call in Chicago. He prepared the crew by playing the Richard Gere film No Mercy in the TV lounge.
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“Those times in Russia, nobody could go abroad, but seaman had this privilege. A lot of people join just for this reason. When I was growing up, I read books about the sea, about pirates, sailing vessels of the 18th and 19th century. I’m never thinking about how much money I could make. I could see the world, go to different countries. The position here as master is pretty much what I imagined as a child. It’s still pretty romantic.”
“A lot of it’s used for construction, bridge building and all that,” says Ron Jasper, Great Lakes logistic manager for Ceres Terminal. “It’s going to go back east. It’s going to Canada.”
Anatoly Kucers sits at a stool in his galley, peeling potatoes. Kucers went to marine school so he could do this, cook for sailors 12 hours a day. The fare is Russian: one night at dinner, he serves a buffet of herring, cold beet soup, sliced onions, apples. Another night it’s smoked pork and cauliflower.
The provisions should last until Duluth, the ship’s next stop. Then the Neva Trader will buy enough food to make it to Montreal, the last great port before the open sea.
