Marina and Walter Unger on the ship in Ukraine - first cruise 1995     Paul Toews at lunch in Yalta overlooking the "Swallows Nest" 2007
The Mennonite Cruise leased the whole Dnieper Princess with a customized itinerary for each cruise

The last cruise in October 2010 was successfully completed with 180 passengers. This major roots adventure is now ended.

Press Release:  January 29, 2010

Marina and Walter Unger confirm that the 2010 October Mennonite Heritage Cruise will be the sixteenth and last annual cruise, saying:

"Our cruise has had a wonderful long run. We could not have wished for a more fulfilling roots travel project or more endearing pilgrims (passengers) from all over North America. We have enjoyed hosting some three thousand of them in Ukraine. Most of all we have learned to love Ukraine and Ukrainians!"

Historian Paul Toews of Fresno Pacific University, who has been with the Mennonite cruise since its inception, writes:

"The Ungers often refer to the passengers on the Mennonite Heritage cruise as pilgrims. And pilgrims many have been - pilgrims in search of their ancestral homeland, pilgrims seeking to understand a past that inhabits their present, pilgrims in search of reconciliation with the fractured and tragic dimensions of the Russian Mennonite story.

While pursuing their own journey the pilgrims have expanded friendships between Ukrainians and Mennonites, enlarged Mennonite social services in Ukraine, nurtured the scholarly and archival recovery of the Russian Mennonite story by both Ukrainians and Westerners, reinvigorated North American historical societies and assisted in emerging Slavic Mennonite congregations.

The Mennonite-Ukrainian landscape is different because of the Mennonite Heritage Cruise."

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