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Published: September 11th 2009
Macdonalds
Interesting signage!!Russia cont’d
The Hermitage is a very impressive building - it just goes on and on… and inside is the largest collection of all sorts of art - Picasso by the rooms, Matisse, Gauguin, Rembrandt, etc. The rooms are gargantuan in height and length and the paintings seem to fill all available corners and more. And then there are Roman, Greek, Siberian and Egyptian antiquities to name a few…. The Winter palace was built by Katherine the Great to house her multitude of boyfriends… They were housed on the second level and the food was lifted up to their level without the servants coming in.
Palaces aplenty seemingly on every corner and many streets. We visited the Necropolis Tikhvin near the Alexandra Nevskego monastery which housed many famous artists including Tchaikovsky and Dostoyevsky and managed to work out how to get a wifi connection for a McDonald coffee, though the connection was very slow, and we didn’t read all our emails. I must mention that St P’s metro is one of the deepest in the world - being at least 100 metres underground. The escalators seem to go down forever!!!
Wed 9th Roman’s birthday spent doing last minute things in St
Hermitage
In the grounds of the Hermitage after spending a number of hours inside P and then we moved on to Novgorod by a circuitous route: we walked to the nearest metro, catching a train for one section, then walked for at least another 30 minutes to the bus station. Needless to say none of it was easy, but we managed. The bus to Novgorod took 3 ½ hours through fairly bland countryside. N itself is a rather pretty town and in its centre - on one side of a river - is the local Kremlin (walled castle) which we toured the following day. It had a really old cathedral in its midst - as I’m sure they all do!
That night we went to a special tea party at a typical Russian family’s apartment. We sang Happy Birthday for Roman and ate lots of cakes and fruit. Katherine, our tour leader sang for us - she is very good.
The highlight of our stay was going to the public banya (pronounced bunya). This has some similarities to the Finnish sauna. We split up, the men and women having their own area. First we stripped and some of us put bathers on though I didn’t bother as this is not new to me
any more. All the local ladies were rather stout, and none wore any attire, and were rather put out that we would want to. They moved around without any modesty and proceeded to tell us what we should do and how to do it, in a nice way. We stayed in the very hot sauna for a while, and then returned to a large area where there were jets of ice cold water for us to cool off. The next part involved returning to the sauna and beating each other with wetted birch branches (these had leaves on). One lady kindly daubed us with her own cream which contained sea salt granules and honey to cleanse the skin. After this, you are supposed to come out and soap down and have a shower - the idea is that the sauna brings out all the skin’s impurities and you wash them away at the end. We came out glowing and feeling pretty good! And ready for our next adventure - train to Moscow.
Catching the overnight train to Moscow was quite easy in comparison to getting to N, and the trip was quite uneventful. We had an open carriage - this
means that there were open compartments of 2 double bunks crosswise in the carriage, with another one along the wall and a passage between all the way through. All together about 50 people were crammed into the carriage with 2 toilets at the end. A samovar was at the other end for your convenience to make a hot drink if you brought your own makings. The bunks were hard as board, but we were provided with sheets and a very thin cotton t-towel for washing. Arriving at 5.30 am Moscow time, we didn’t look our best!! The next part involved getting the luggage off, and catching the metro to the closest station to the hotel. Luckily it wasn’t too far!! A lovely hotel - Gamma 3 star - 20 stories high and there was also Alpha, Beta, Delta of the same dimensions! They were once part of the Russian Olympic village. So, as you’ve probably realized we were way out on the outskirts of Moscow. We must have been at least 20 km out. Not too bad using the Metro - the trip into Moscow only takes about 20 minutes.
We left our luggage in our rooms - check in
Apartment blocks
On the way from St Petersburg to Novgorod at that time of the morning wasn’t too much of a problem for most of us, though 2 didn’t get a room until later. Facilities were kindly shared with the less fortunate!
Red Square was not as impressive as we had imagined as much of it was cordoned off with some festivities about to take place, though we saw the Changing of the Guard at the Eternal Flame, walked right around the Kremlin, visited the History Museum housed in an impressive Red church, took the standard pics of the St Basil’s Cathedral and strolled through GUM (the high class building which houses all the fancy fashionable stores) This was where the party cadres shopped in the Soviet times, and now the wealthy.
Moscow is a very very large city - in fact the largest in Europe having a population of at least 15 million. It is very spread out but its metro system is huge and copes very well with all the people. Some of the metro stations were completed in early soviet times and are quite ornate with lots of statues. One we took a photo of was a dog which apparently people going by always rub the nose,
Novgorod Tower dinner
OUr tour leader with the rest of the troupe and it is now very shiny… this is supposed to be for luck.
Tomorrow we are visiting the Kremlin and Lenin’s tomb before taking the next overnight train into the Ukraine - Kiev.
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Fran
non-member comment
Week 2
Good to hear from you again. Love the photos and the description of your doings. Not much new here. The weather continues to be cold, windy and showery. The Probus Rendezvous begins on Monday. A pity that the weather is so lousy. Meg hasn't come over as she has pneumonia and can't travel. Am quite disappointed but only three weeks until I go over anyway. Cathie and Paul are here now to take more of their stuff. Have delayed the garage sale until Nov 1 - can't rely on the weather to be ok next Sat. Am looking forward to your next update. Stay safe and well Fran