Sergei Ysenin was a poet who ended up as a drunk. I guess his poetry was palatable enough to merit accolades by both the Communists and the post-Communists.
All the cabins on the boat were exactly the same size.  No hierarchy among passengers.  Getting on the boat in the first place was accomplishment enough, I guess.  The chair in the center of the room provides a reference point between the two photos. The Ysenin is the second from the dock.  At the various 'ports of call' on this river cruise, a boat would pull alongside, tie on to its neighbor, and the passengers would traipse through the lobbies of the other boats to debark.   Not the Ysenin, but several sister ships.   The ships were built for the 'party  elite" up through the eighties.  Some boats, like ours, had been refurbished.  All three of these ships have variations of the red star on the prow. dockside in Moscow.   The Moscow Passenger Ship Terminal     A fish they cooked for dinner one night.  I took a picture to be polite; somebody put a lot of work into sticking all that stuff on that fish.