The last month I've had has been filled with some of the most blog-worthy moments of my time in Russia, but life on the road isn't conducive to blogging (at least in Russia, without Internet access). I recall thinking many time, oh I can't wait to blog about this, only to have that moment replaced by a new experience the next day. All I had along with me to record my trip was my camera. So, hopefully with the help of some photos, I'll be able to piece together some of my more interesting moments traveling through this unfathomably large country.
When I last posted, I was sitting in a hostel in Moscow, having just flown back to this country that I will be calling for another 5 months. Upon finishing that blog post, I embarked on one of my first major adventures of my Trans-Siberian travels. I convinced one of my Moscow friends with a car to drive me, another girl from Moscow, and another visiting friend from the States out to Sergiev Posad, the site of arguably the holiest monastery in all of Russian orthodox, the Trinity Lavra. The Trinity Lavra was founded by St. Sergius of Radonezh, one of the most venerated saints in orthodox history and the subject of one of my favorite paintings by Nesterov, and still contains his relics. The day we went to the monastery happened to be Russian Christmas Eve, so it was packed with pilgrims from all over Russia. We stood in line outside of the Trinity Cathedral (which contains the relics) for nearly an hour. Upon entering, it still took us nearly an hour to circle around the icons and get to the relics. While observing how people would light candles in front of the relics, cross themselves, and bow (because I soon would have to copy what I had seen as well as I could), I watched a man stumble up the altar. He stopped in front of the relics and managed to cross himself once before collapsing into a wailing, sobbing heap. A man who accompanied him attempted to get him to his feet, but to no avail. The main continued sobbing and clawing at the base of the gold-covered container that held St. Sergius' relics. After a few more minutes, several monks rushed in and carried the man away with extremely annoyed expressions on their faces. My two Russian Orthodox friends said that he was likely just too weak from the fasting that pious Orthodox believers often do before Christmas. My own candle lighting was much less attention-grabbing. I awkwardly crossed myself, bowed, and then waited while woman who had just cut in front me lit upwards of 10 candles.
Fast forward a few days. After my day wandering around Vladimir (which was completely non-eventful), I met an British English teacher who was taking his holidays by traveling the Golden Ring. We found out that we were both planning on traveling to Suzdal the next morning, so we agreed to band together. We hopped on the bus to Suzdal and rode through the flat, snow-covered Russian countryside for about 45 minutes. Suzdal is one of the only towns in Russia that was not Sovietized. It is filled with churches, monasteries, and old wooden cottages. It takes about 30 minutes to walk from one edge of town to the other. Very little out of the ordinary occurred during my time in Suzdal. It was really just like hopping into a time machine and seeing what Russia was like 100 years ago. Suzdal was where I began wandering places that I probably shouldn't have wandered, but I got great pictures thanks to it. For example, I wandered along the side of the small cliff that the St. Euthymius Monastery is one and ended up next to the gates of a huge, brand-new mansion with absolutely no houses near it for several hundred meters. The view from the mansion looked something like this:
I don't know much about Russian property value, but I'm pretty sure someone payed at least 10 million dollars for a place like this. My practice of wandering where I shouldn't continued in Nizhny Novgorod.
Nizhny Novgorod is the 5th largest city in Russia. It was renamed to Gorky during the Soviet era, but its original name was returned after the fall of the Soviet Union. Nizhny Novgorod is geographical interesting due to its location on the T-Intersection of two rivers: the Volga (the Russian Mississippi) and the Oka. The Oka divides the city into what I call the old side and the Soviet side. The Volga divides the city into what I call "city" and "wasteland."
One of the most frustrating things about public transportation in the city is that only two bridges connect Old City to Soviet City (one of these bridges was finished only a year or two ago, I'm so glad I came after that). The Nizhny Novgorod metro has "two" lines, but right now the two ends are connected. It currently only runs on the Soviet Side. Nearly everything that I wanted to see was on the Old side. I was informed that the first metro station in the Old City will open this November. That will make getting around the city much much easier.
One of my first major concerns during my entire trip was making sure that the Gorky Train Station was actually the Nizhny Novgorod-Moscow Train Station. When your ticket says one thing and Google Maps another, it makes things worrisome. Fortunately, this trip convinced me once and for all the Google Maps is not a fit travel companion in Russia. Upon my arrival, I had little to guide me to my hostel except for my utterly worthless map from Google. So, I hopped in a cab. Upon arrival at the hostel, the hostess annoyedly informed me that I should have reserved ahead. When I showed her my receipt and reservation number, she shut up. I was the only person in the hostel.
After unpacking, I asked which places I should check out. She could only come up with the Kremlin.
Well, duh. So, I made my way to the Kremlin, stopped in the museums (which were very bland) and picked up a few maps and tour booklets. The first museum to catch my eye was the Maxim Gorky house museum. For those of you who aren't familiar with Russian literature, Gorky was extremely influential in both the late pre-Soviet era and the early years of Socialist Realism (so much so that he is considered the father of Socialist Realism). So I headed to the museum. When I walked in, it was quickly obvious that I was one of the first non-child visitors in quite some time. The fact that I was a Russian-speaking American raised the level of excitement to an even higher notch. After first eyeing me with suspicion after I requested a Russian guidebook, the museum workers quickly warmed up to me, inviting me to enter roped off areas and telling me that I was marvelous and should marry their grand-daughters. The museum itself was fantastic, filled with Gorky's library and art collection. There was even a signed picture of Chekhov on Gorky's desk. I bought all of my Nizhny Novgorod souvenirs from the museum (I have a special spot in my heart after working at a Russian museum).
Upon leaving the museum, I decided that I wanted to see the main monastery before the sun went down. This proved to be more difficult than I expected, but once again resulted in me going to somewhere off the beaten path and great picture opportunities. According to the map, the monastery was on the cliff on the Oka River, so I walked over there. Upon my arrival at the cliff, I realized that there was no path down the cliff to the monastery, but ridiculously great views of the city.
My other favorite part of Nizhny Novgorod was the Chkalov Staircase. It is the largest staircase on the Volga River (what does that mean?) and was built in honor of World War II. According to one booklet I read (I have not managed to find other information confirming this), the architect was given a blank check by Stalin to build the monument. However, once it was built, Stalin decided that the architect had actually spent too much and sent him to the GULAG. At least the staircase is actually pretty sweet.
After 2 days, I hopped on the overnight train to Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan and the home to the most Fulbrights of any other city in Russia. After a non-eventful train ride, I arrived in Kazan. I spent most of the first day sleeping and relaxing after two weeks of constant awareness of where all of my belongings were. After that, I began exploring. Kazan is super wealthy. Tatarstan has a lot of oil, and that oil money goes towards building new buildings, renovating museums, ice hockey arenas, and more. Therefore, much of Kazan is absolutely beautiful. It also has a mosque in its Kremlin.
When I last posted, I was sitting in a hostel in Moscow, having just flown back to this country that I will be calling for another 5 months. Upon finishing that blog post, I embarked on one of my first major adventures of my Trans-Siberian travels. I convinced one of my Moscow friends with a car to drive me, another girl from Moscow, and another visiting friend from the States out to Sergiev Posad, the site of arguably the holiest monastery in all of Russian orthodox, the Trinity Lavra. The Trinity Lavra was founded by St. Sergius of Radonezh, one of the most venerated saints in orthodox history and the subject of one of my favorite paintings by Nesterov, and still contains his relics. The day we went to the monastery happened to be Russian Christmas Eve, so it was packed with pilgrims from all over Russia. We stood in line outside of the Trinity Cathedral (which contains the relics) for nearly an hour. Upon entering, it still took us nearly an hour to circle around the icons and get to the relics. While observing how people would light candles in front of the relics, cross themselves, and bow (because I soon would have to copy what I had seen as well as I could), I watched a man stumble up the altar. He stopped in front of the relics and managed to cross himself once before collapsing into a wailing, sobbing heap. A man who accompanied him attempted to get him to his feet, but to no avail. The main continued sobbing and clawing at the base of the gold-covered container that held St. Sergius' relics. After a few more minutes, several monks rushed in and carried the man away with extremely annoyed expressions on their faces. My two Russian Orthodox friends said that he was likely just too weak from the fasting that pious Orthodox believers often do before Christmas. My own candle lighting was much less attention-grabbing. I awkwardly crossed myself, bowed, and then waited while woman who had just cut in front me lit upwards of 10 candles.
Fast forward a few days. After my day wandering around Vladimir (which was completely non-eventful), I met an British English teacher who was taking his holidays by traveling the Golden Ring. We found out that we were both planning on traveling to Suzdal the next morning, so we agreed to band together. We hopped on the bus to Suzdal and rode through the flat, snow-covered Russian countryside for about 45 minutes. Suzdal is one of the only towns in Russia that was not Sovietized. It is filled with churches, monasteries, and old wooden cottages. It takes about 30 minutes to walk from one edge of town to the other. Very little out of the ordinary occurred during my time in Suzdal. It was really just like hopping into a time machine and seeing what Russia was like 100 years ago. Suzdal was where I began wandering places that I probably shouldn't have wandered, but I got great pictures thanks to it. For example, I wandered along the side of the small cliff that the St. Euthymius Monastery is one and ended up next to the gates of a huge, brand-new mansion with absolutely no houses near it for several hundred meters. The view from the mansion looked something like this:
I don't know much about Russian property value, but I'm pretty sure someone payed at least 10 million dollars for a place like this. My practice of wandering where I shouldn't continued in Nizhny Novgorod.
Nizhny Novgorod is the 5th largest city in Russia. It was renamed to Gorky during the Soviet era, but its original name was returned after the fall of the Soviet Union. Nizhny Novgorod is geographical interesting due to its location on the T-Intersection of two rivers: the Volga (the Russian Mississippi) and the Oka. The Oka divides the city into what I call the old side and the Soviet side. The Volga divides the city into what I call "city" and "wasteland."
 |
| Tank firing across the Volga at "Wasteland" |
One of my first major concerns during my entire trip was making sure that the Gorky Train Station was actually the Nizhny Novgorod-Moscow Train Station. When your ticket says one thing and Google Maps another, it makes things worrisome. Fortunately, this trip convinced me once and for all the Google Maps is not a fit travel companion in Russia. Upon my arrival, I had little to guide me to my hostel except for my utterly worthless map from Google. So, I hopped in a cab. Upon arrival at the hostel, the hostess annoyedly informed me that I should have reserved ahead. When I showed her my receipt and reservation number, she shut up. I was the only person in the hostel.
After unpacking, I asked which places I should check out. She could only come up with the Kremlin.
Well, duh. So, I made my way to the Kremlin, stopped in the museums (which were very bland) and picked up a few maps and tour booklets. The first museum to catch my eye was the Maxim Gorky house museum. For those of you who aren't familiar with Russian literature, Gorky was extremely influential in both the late pre-Soviet era and the early years of Socialist Realism (so much so that he is considered the father of Socialist Realism). So I headed to the museum. When I walked in, it was quickly obvious that I was one of the first non-child visitors in quite some time. The fact that I was a Russian-speaking American raised the level of excitement to an even higher notch. After first eyeing me with suspicion after I requested a Russian guidebook, the museum workers quickly warmed up to me, inviting me to enter roped off areas and telling me that I was marvelous and should marry their grand-daughters. The museum itself was fantastic, filled with Gorky's library and art collection. There was even a signed picture of Chekhov on Gorky's desk. I bought all of my Nizhny Novgorod souvenirs from the museum (I have a special spot in my heart after working at a Russian museum).
Upon leaving the museum, I decided that I wanted to see the main monastery before the sun went down. This proved to be more difficult than I expected, but once again resulted in me going to somewhere off the beaten path and great picture opportunities. According to the map, the monastery was on the cliff on the Oka River, so I walked over there. Upon my arrival at the cliff, I realized that there was no path down the cliff to the monastery, but ridiculously great views of the city.
My other favorite part of Nizhny Novgorod was the Chkalov Staircase. It is the largest staircase on the Volga River (what does that mean?) and was built in honor of World War II. According to one booklet I read (I have not managed to find other information confirming this), the architect was given a blank check by Stalin to build the monument. However, once it was built, Stalin decided that the architect had actually spent too much and sent him to the GULAG. At least the staircase is actually pretty sweet.
After 2 days, I hopped on the overnight train to Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan and the home to the most Fulbrights of any other city in Russia. After a non-eventful train ride, I arrived in Kazan. I spent most of the first day sleeping and relaxing after two weeks of constant awareness of where all of my belongings were. After that, I began exploring. Kazan is super wealthy. Tatarstan has a lot of oil, and that oil money goes towards building new buildings, renovating museums, ice hockey arenas, and more. Therefore, much of Kazan is absolutely beautiful. It also has a mosque in its Kremlin.
Kazan has the nicest grocery stores I've been in in Russia as well (just throwing that out there). I spent most of my time with the other Fulbrights, just seeing how they live. In terms of actual style of life and workload, they live very much like me. But in terms of social circles, the existence of other Fulbrights in close proximity is difficult to resist. While they all have Russian friends, they also see each other fairly regularly. It doesn't help that all Fulbright fellows are awesome by definition (at least in terms of how easily we all get along with each other). Kazan gave me a good opportunity to compare my experience with that of multiple other Fellows. My quality of life might be lower here. It might be way colder out here. But I have no temptations to hang out with other Americans because there really aren't any. It's an interesting little exchange that I was only superficially aware of when I chose Ulan-Ude, but my travels have made it much more visible.
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