Moscow 2011

Today we woke up and left for Суздаль (Suzdal) and Владимир (Vladimir) two medieval Russian towns. The bus ride there was long and most everyone slept on the way there. I was awake for part of it and I saw some of the beautiful rural scenery that Russia has to offer. Although the scenery was beautiful some of the houses on the way were quite the contrary. The more of Russia I see the more that I am certain of the two words that i feel best describe it, "Beautiful" and "Bizarre". In front of some of these dilapidated houses were beautiful BMW's and other nice cars. I see where their priorities are. Lol. We stopped for a break at a rest stop. It was also an interesting place, there was a small wooden house for children to play and take pictures in (and of course I had to get a picture inside of it). After our break we hit the road again and when we reached Vladimir we stopped at a restaurant for a nice three course lunch. The first course was a type of egg salad thing with chicken and peas and mayonnaise (Russian food has a lot of mayonnaise sometimes). After lunch we continued on to the middle of Vladimir and that began our church/cathedral tour of medieval Rus. The town of Vladimir has been around since the 12th century and there were many cathedrals that have survived either wholly or partially. But most of them were partially restored. While we were there some of us had to use the bathroom. We happened to be at a convent dedicated to the Mother Mary, and they didn't exactly have the most up to date facilities. But I figured I'd get the full experience so I walked down the path to the wooden outhouses. The smell was already upon me. While I was draining the lizard I heard a dog start to bark and I wanted to make sure he was not right outside so I yelled through the door, "That Dog better be on the other side of the fence otherwise I'm not coming out of here!" He was on the other side, and I probably wouldn't have stayed in there even if he was, the smell was horrible.

After that we went to this small little church that was in the middle of a huge meadow. Apparently in the spring when it rains a lot the meadow floods (because it used to be the bottom of a river) and the church is completely surrounded by water, but it never gets high enough to reach the church. After that we went to Suzdal which is an even smaller medieval village in rural Russia. It's a very beautiful place, but it also has its share of ugly houses. The hotel we stayed at was in the middle of a neighborhood and it clearly stood out from it's surroundings. The hotel was very nice, the beds were very comfortable (of course anything is better than the beds we have at MSU), and they had toilet paper in the bathroom (you learn to bring your own wherever you go in Moscow). After we got settled in I went for a walk with Greg, Irina, and Dr. Efimov (the three leaders of our trip) we walked around the small village and saw many beautiful things. They had horses that you could rent, and some horse drawn carriages. There was a white kremlin there as well, and many more churches (3 or 4 if I remember correctly). We stopped before we went across the bridge to the museum of wooden architecture which we would visit the next day. We continued walking until we found the restaurant that the rest of the group was eating at. I stopped and ate there before we all headed back to the hotel for the private party and DJ that Dr. Efimov hired for us back at the hotel. The rest of that night we partied and danced in the hotel. It was nice to bond with the group.

The next morning we went for a tour of Suzdal with our tour guide who was with us around Vladimir. We rode the bus around to a convent (the russians apparently like convents because the orthodox church didn't have divorces, so the only way princes etc. could get married again was if their wife died or went into the church to become a nun, so they needed places to send their wives) which had many beautiful things to see. Most of the churches that we've been into have had beautiful fresco's painted all over the inside walls depicting different scenes from Christianity (the crucifixion, the judgement, etc.) and also iconostasis, the orthodox Christians really like their icons. (Icons are paintings depicting saints, or Jesus). Also the convent had bells, and a guy who was playing the bells. He had strings attached to his legs and his fingers in order to play as many bells as possible. I videoed him, so I'll put it on youtube or something and post a link on here to it. It was very, very cool. After that we went to see the white kremlin (all the medieval Russian towns had a kremlin, it was the center of the city and was used as a defensive post during attacks. 'kremlin' translates as fortress). After that we went to the museum of wooden architecture and saw an old wooden church that was built in the style of the old wooden churches (none of which survived because they had a habit of burning down. Being made of wood and all.) and two peasants houses, one 'well to do' and one not. The well to do peasants had it pretty nice. I learned that if the man of the house didn't like you, or if you came unexpectedly he would put away the salt. So if you like someone, make sure the salt is out for them! After that we got back on the bus and went to the hotel for lunch and then hit the souvenir stands and got on the road. Goodbye Suzdal!

written by

tdurante42489 on May 19, 2011 from Suzdal', Russia

from the travel blog: Moscow 2011

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a travel blog by tdurante42489

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