Blogs from Russia, Europe - page 24

Geo: 59.8685, 38.2509Goritsy is a small river village whose main feature is a 15th century convent. As is common in rural Russia, this is complemented by a monastery in the nearby town of Kirillov. The monastery was founded in 1397 and is one of the largest in Russia. These institutions (especially convents) were favourite places for the exiling of widowed or divorced nobles, where they often lived out their days in prison conditions.We visited the monastery in cold and slightly rainy weather. Ludmilla gave another great talk, on Russian arts this time. Our team won the Pick the Liar competition after dinner.... read more

Geo: 57.636, 39.8928We had a long tour of Yaroslavl this morning. An industrial city of some 600,000 people. The Russian Federation has 13 cities with a population of more than 1M, in its total of 146M. Women outnumber men by a large margin: 78M to 68M. What was the USSR became 15 countries in 1991.... read more

R: The next day brought spaghetti and sticky pastries on the hotel breakfast. We decided to split up this day, Cate and myself going to look at a royal palace outside of town, while Clare and Richard took a boat trip on the river. Our trip started with a subway journey to Moscovskaya metro station. Most people have heard about the Moscow metro system but I can confirm that parts of the St. Petersburg metro are just as pretty, though maybe not on quite as grand a scale. St. Petersburg, and in specific, the station we got on at, had recently had a terrorist attack just before we visited. There was no sign of this, however the level of policing was fairly high. This turned out to be the norm in Russia, as I will comment ... read more

Geo: 55.7497, 37.6135We started the day with an exclusive, pre-opening visit to the Kremlin museums, followed by viewing several of the churches and palaces in the 28 hectare, triangular-shaped complex. After another fine lunch at the National Hotel we spent most of the afternoon (too long) at the Museum of Cosmonautics.What a shame that no photos were allowed inside any of the Kremlin buildings. Our first stop at the so-called Armoury Chamber was truly awesome. The vast museum had only a small section of military regalia, but included an AMAZING collection of garments, crowns and royal accoutrements, religious items, ten Faberge Imperial Eggs, etc. Excepting maybe in the Vienna Museum of Fine Art, these were the most wonderful exhibits we have seen. For example, on display was a distinctive, richly decorated 13th century church robe in ... read more

Geo: 55.7598, 37.6212What an eye-opener! Moscow is a magnificent European city; right up there with London, Paris and Rome. The streets and architecture around the city centre are imposing and impressive. The traffic alternates between free-flowing on 12-lane boulevards, to severely congested around choke points. The current Mayor is undertaking a program of widening footpaths and reducing parking to enhance the ambiance of the city and encourage more walking (and the many small electric Razor scooters that look sensible and fun). The population of the greater city is about 18 million. As Napoleon advanced in 1812 it is believed that Russians fired their city, causing it to be mostly rebuilt in the 19th century. So, no ancient marble and stone buildings that become impossible to keep clean.Today the 14 of us in our tour program did ... read more