The 100 Best Volunteer Vacations to Enrich Your Life Part 11

different cultures,

different generations,

different ideas and visions.

Besides renovating castles, Open Houses also offers volunteers the chance to learn rammed-earth construction (their volunteers helped build a simple clay Chapel of Reconciliation near the Berlin Wall), ecological farming, and theater. In 2008, volunteers at a three-week work camp held in the 11th-century Lohra Castle created an improvisational theater piece and then took it on the road. Open Houses believes that such performances help reconnect people with magic and the possibility of transformation. Volunteers have also made films, hosted concerts, and created art celebrating peace and justice.

Many of OH's work camps, art workshops, exhibitions, and concerts take place at the Lohra Castle, a complex of 20 buildings located next to a beautiful forest overlooking the Harz mountain range. The medieval fortification includes a tower from the 11th century, a 12th-century Romanesque chapel, a manor from the Renaissance period, and stables and granaries from the 19th century.

Partic.i.p.ation in two-to three-week work camps runs 25 to 40 euros ($30$50) per week and includes insurance, seminars, lodging, and meals-although everyone shares cooking duties.

HOW TO GET IN TOUCH.

Offene Hauser (Open Houses), Goetheplatz 9 B D, 99423 Weimar, Germany, 49 3643 502879, www.openhouses.de.

HEBRIDEAN WHALE AND DOLPHIN TRUST.

conduct surveys of dolphins and whales.

ARGYLL ISLANDS, HEBRIDES, SCOTLAND.

When we protect our oceans, we protect our future.

-Bill Clinton, former President of the United States.

39 If you're afraid of heights, you might want to turn the page. This eight-to eleven-day volunteer vacation in and around the 550 islands of Scotland's Hebrides asks partic.i.p.ants to look for dolphins, whales, and 22 other species of cetaceans from the crow's nest of a 53-foot schooner, the Silurian.

With a team of eight, you'll ply the waters off Scotland's west coast, enjoying spectacular scenery, honing your sailing skills, and recording the cetacean abundance (a third of the world's species) that make their way through these warm waters of the Gulf Stream. You're apt to spot anything from the blue whale to the tiny resident harbor porpoise-that is, if you're not too distracted by the area's sea lochs, towering mountains, and medieval clifftop castles.

The Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust (HWDT) uses volunteers each spring and summer to a.s.sist with its long-term studies into the distribution, behavior, and ecology of the area's cetaceans. The research collected since the trust was formed in 1994 is potent ammunition for area conservation efforts. The data help the trust with its goal to protect endangered whales and dolphins, which are under increasing threat from offsh.o.r.e oil exploration, marine pollution, drowning in gill nets, and uncontrolled tourism.

Volunteers, five of whom are used on each trip, are trained to observe and collect data, conduct acoustic monitoring, deploy hydrophones, and help run the research vessel.

HWDT also turns the Silurian into a floating cla.s.sroom two weeks a year, using volunteers to run the seven-day education programs at various Scottish ports in the area. If you choose to volunteer during those two weeks, you'll set up equipment, stock the touch tank, and perform necessary duties such as inflating life-size dolphin decoys as teaching tools.

TOM, d.i.c.k, OR HARRY WHALE.

For a mere 150 ($230), the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust will let you name your own minke whale-they've photographed 82 in Scottish waters over the past few years. You'll get an 8-by-6-inch mounted print, HWDT members.h.i.+p, a species fact sheet, and exclusive naming rights for one of the sleek, pointy-headed whales that circle the Silurian each summer. Though you won't have the privilege of naming new species, unlike naming record-holding scientist Charles Paul Alexander (he discovered 10,000 species of crane flies), perhaps these examples by scientists who did will provide inspiration: Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish scientist who came up with the cla.s.sification system, named an ugly, insignificant weed after a critic: Siegesbeckia.

Rousseau H. Flower discovered a worm he named Khruschevia ridicula, after former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

A colleague of Richard Fortey, senior paleontologist at the Natural History Museum, who loved the '70s punk band The s.e.x Pistols, named an ancient trilobite species Sid viciousi and Johnny rotteni after Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten.

G. W. Kirkaldy, a scholar Lothario, celebrated romantic conquests through naming, including a variety of plant insects for which he used the Greek suffix, chisme, p.r.o.nounced KISS-me. Thanks to Kirkaldy, there are now bugs called Polychisme, Marichisme, Dollichisme and on and on.

In 2005, Quentin Wheeler made a political statement by naming slime mold-eating beetles after then President George W. Bush and company: Agathidium bus.h.i.+, A. rumsfeldi, and A. cheneyi.

Either way, you'll live aboard the Silurian, sharing one of four cozy cabins and cooking and cleaning duties with the research vessel's three permanent staff.

And as for the crow's nest? Never fear. HWDT also offers volunteer opportunities at lower alt.i.tudes in the home office in Tobermoy on the Isle of Mull. Landlubbers can do everything from create teacher resource kits to clean and a.s.semble bones.

Eight to eleven days aboard the 53-foot ketch, including meals, your own berth, training, and equipment runs 750 to 950 ($1,150$1,450), depending on the month of travel. The seven-day educational tours run 585 ($700).

HOW TO GET IN TOUCH.

Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust, 28 Main Street, Tobermory, Isle of Mull, PA75 6NU, Scotland, 44 1688 302 620, www.whaledolphintrust.co.uk.

EARTHWATCH.

doc.u.ment a vital historic district in the cradle of christianity.

GYUMRI, ARMENIA.

Without an architecture of our own we have no soul of our own civilization.

-Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect and proponent of organic architecture.

40 A 1988 earthquake, the fifth in the 20th century alone, destroyed nearly 80 percent of the buildings in the ancient Armenian city of Gyumri, killing 25,000, injuring 12,000, and leaving a half million homeless.

After two decades of living in s.h.i.+pping containers turned into makes.h.i.+ft homes, the brave souls of Gyumri are slowly rebuilding their city. But in an age of h.o.m.ogenization, globalization, and cultures being stripped of their individuality, the Armenian people are smart enough to ask, "How can we stay true to our historic roots?"

To help out, American architect Jane Greenwood, a.s.sociate dean of the College of Architecture, Art, and Design at Mississippi State University, is busy developing what she calls an "Armenian pattern language," a prototype, if you will, that clearly spells out the country's unique architectural style. It refers to architect Christopher Alexander's seminal 1977 work, A Pattern Language, which espouses building in harmony with geography, climate, and culture. According to Armenian history professor Gevork Nazaryan, "beauty through simplicity [represents] one of the trademarks of Armenian architecture."

Greenwood is creating workshops, writing papers, and helping public officials develop design guidelines to preserve Gyumri's k.u.mayri Historic District, an open-air museum with more than a thousand 18th-and 19th-century homes, many built with indigenous red and black tuff (a form of volcanic rock), cla.s.sic churches, and plazas. It's the only place left where you can see an authentic Armenian village.

Armenia, the smallest of the former Soviet states and perhaps the most reluctant to claim independence after the U.S.S.R. collapsed in 1991, is a landlocked country of deep river gorges, mountainous steppes, and wild green pastures. It shares borders with Iran, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Having adopted Christianity as early as A.D. 301, Armenia has hundreds of temples, medieval monasteries, and churches.

International volunteers fly into Armenia and, after learning the historical, political, social, and cultural context of this country in the southern Caucasus mountains, work with Greenwood to create a one-of-a-kind architectural language. Last summer, Greenwood's volunteers adopted seven historic homes that survived the earthquakes and doc.u.mented them via drawings and photographs. They also spent time with Armenian families, recording oral histories, sketching, and measuring floor plans, all tools that will help Greenwood and her students at Mississippi State University create a historically accurate architectural syntax.

I'D LIKE TO MAKE AN ARMENIAN TOAST Armenians are rightfully proud of their brandy, considered to be the best in the world, and have a thing about making toasts. These tributes to every member of the family, from the grandfather to the smallest newborn, often start at breakfast and continue throughout the day. Following are several other little-known facts about Armenian brandy.

Armenia is the world's largest producer of brandy.

During the International Exhibition in Paris in 1900, Armenian brandy, in a blind taste test, received the Grand-Prix and the legal right to be called "cognac," not brandy.

The most famous Armenian brandy, Ararat, is named after the well-known biblical mountain where Noah finally hit land. (Although Mount Ararat used to be on Armenian soil, it is now located in Turkey.) The Yerevan Brandy Company (YBC) has been producing Ararat since 1887.

YBC was the official brandy purveyor of the imperial Russian court.

When the government sold its most well-known company in 1998 to the French company Pernod Ricard for $30 million (it's still produced in the capital city of Yerevan), protestors lined the streets.

During the Yalta Conference, Winston Churchill was so impressed with the Armenian brandy given to him by Joseph Stalin that he ordered 400 bottles to be sent to him every year.

Boris Yeltsin liked Yerevan brandy so much that he was honored with his own barrel in the factory's cellars.

Several brands (Erebuni, Kilikia, and Noah's Ark) are unavailable through retailers and can only be obtained by special order.

ETCHMIADZIN BY ANY OTHER NAME.

The cathedral and churches of Etchmiadzin, as well as the archaeological site at Zvartnots, were designated a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 2000. Architecture figures prominently in Armenian history, and these buildings "graphically ill.u.s.trate the evolution and development of the Armenian central-domed cross-hall type of church, which exerted a profound influence on architectural and artistic development in the region," according to UNESCO.

The cathedral of Etchmiadzin, which is considered Armenia's spiritual center and whose alternate spellings include Echmiadzin, Ejmiatsin, and Echmiatsin, is known by many names, including: The Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin.

Cathedral of Zvartnots.

The Etchmiadzin Cathedral of St. Gregory the Illuminator.

The Catholicosate of All Armenians.

Daily tasks include cataloging digital images, measuring and sketching architectural artifacts, writing field reports, and producing presentations and booklets. Volunteers who can translate Russian or Armenian into English are especially valuable for these projects.

Free time on this expedition includes exploring ancient monasteries, visiting outdoor markets, and an excursion to Etchmiadzin, the Armenian equivalent of the Vatican.

This 13-day Earthwatch expedition, including double lodging at the Berlin Art Hotel-an 11-room, European-style hotel filled with art by Armenian painters and sculptors-and three traditional Armenian meals a day, costs $2,440.

HOW TO GET IN TOUCH.

Earthwatch, 3 Clock Tower Place, Suite 100, Box 75, Maynard, MA 01754, 800-776-0188 or 978-461-0081, www.earthwatch.org.

CROSS-CULTURAL SOLUTIONS.

help russia's less fortunate in a historic city.

YAROSLAVL, RUSSIA.

I really just suddenly saw the world for what it is-so much bigger than me or my community, or even my country, and that was revealing.

-Trish, volunteer with Cross-Cultural Solutions 41 Many souvenirs from Russia feature a bear, said to represent the character and power of the Russian spirit. But it's in Yaroslavl, a picturesque city 155 miles north of Moscow, that the Russian bear first made his name. It was in 1010, in fact, that Kievian prince Yaroslav the Wise supposedly wrestled a bear and decided to mark the feat by building a fortress.

Today that city on the banks of the majestic Volga and Kotorosl Rivers is about to celebrate its thousand-year anniversary and has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. As the unofficial capital of Russia's Golden Ring, a symbolic circle of ancient towns with some of Russia's oldest architecture, Yaroslavl is one of the most beautiful and historically preserved cities. Home to the country's oldest and best public theaters, dozens of picturesque cathedrals, gilt-domed churches, and a vibrant artistic community, it is also the base for Cross-Cultural Solutions' (CCS) volunteers in Russia.

According to past volunteers, working in Yaroslavl with Russian CCS director Nadia Savelieva and her warm-hearted team of translators and other staff is a life-changing experience. As volunteer Andrew Navratil explains, "Working with the children was amazing-I felt like I had a real impact on their lives and I grew as a person...I wanted to learn more about Russian culture, about the political system, and about the orphanage system. I accomplished this through the guest lectures, Russian lessons, talking with the translators, and doing some independent travel on the weekends."

Volunteers, who live and eat in a comfortable hotel near the city center, choose between working with children, the elderly, or people with disabilities. They either spend their days in an orphanage, leading craft projects and teaching English, or at a hospital, where they befriend women with mental health challenges. Kam Santos, director of communications for CCS, says, "Volunteers work in orphanages or transition homes. Many of these are understaffed and under-resourced. Volunteers might paint a mural or help the kids put on a theater show. Local interpreters help the volunteers design a program, but volunteers run the show. One of the biggest tasks is serving as positive role models."

COLLECTING TIME AND TUNES.

Russia, the largest country in the world, spanning two continents, 11 time zones, and 6.5 million square miles, has hundreds of national museums. But it wasn't until its emergence from behind the 70-year-old Iron Curtain that private museums were allowed.

The first such museum, located in a fin de siecle merchant's house on the Volga in Yaroslavl, is the Museum of Music and Time. Owned and operated by professional magician John Grigoriyevich Mostoslavsky, the museum attracts hundreds of cruise pa.s.sengers from s.h.i.+ps trolling the Volga between Moscow and St. Petersburg. He began collecting small bells, gramophones, records, clocks, accordions, harmoniums, irons, and religious icons back when it was still illegal to ama.s.s a private collection, starting with a bell he received as a young man.

Mostoslavksy enjoys leading visitors around his museum, demonstrating the noises generated by his decades of secretive collecting by cranking the gramophones, playing the organs, ringing the bells, and pumping the pedals on a Story & Clark player piano.

Born in 1942 to Jewish parents who fled the n.a.z.is, Mostoslavsky spent his life performing magic on the road, all the while illegally collecting a reliquary of Russia's gentried past. And he admits that under the Soviets, he did spend some time in jail.

His museum has the Cupid-emblazoned gramophone he once used in his magic act, as well as German and French clocks, dozens of Swiss music boxes, and an Odessan street organ that, when cranked, emits a circus tune. Museum of Music and Time, 33a Volzhskaya Embankment, Yaroslavl 150000, Russia, 74 85 232 8637.