The Fortress of Porkhov and Nikandrova Pustyn's Saint Springs

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The visit to Porkhov seems to crown my exploration of fortresses in the Russian Northwest (starting point always being St. Petersburg). There is still Narva to be visited (on the Russian-Estonian border), I think I will go there in November or December while my visa is still valid. I am always thinking about completing a certain list of interesting places in a certain area of Russia, but new interesting ones are popping up like mushrooms after a long rain.

I bought the excursion to Porkhov with Pervye Linii Company on the very day I got my salary. I was then in St. Petersburg and my wife was glad to join me on this excursion. This was an exhausting excursion from 7-30 in the morning till 22-30 in the evening.

I had ‘fun’ getting to St. Petersburg on the day of the excursion. I had to go via Tver, because direct tickets were either rather expensive or the arrival time did not suit me. I took an express commuter train from Moscow to Tver (two hours, those express trains are pure pleasure) and then spent an hour waiting for the train to St. Petersburg. Tver station is arranged in a somewhat puzzling and inconvenient way but I managed to find out how to get on the required platform. See my 2011 entry on Tver if you are interested. I had trouble falling asleep and that considerably spoilt my spirits during the excursion.

I stayed at the Moskovsky Station till 6 o’clock in the morning. This time I had with me the Soviet-published book, a short collection of excerpts from writers of American Age of Reason (Franklin, Jefferson and Paine). I read the whole section of Franklin, but just glanced through the other writers because those passages on politics are too sophisticated for me. At six sharp I took metro to Zvenigorodskaya Station and went to the McDonalds near the Vitebsky Station to have hot tea. At seven sharp Luda came and the bus was already waiting for us. There were fewer people than usually, I guess it’s because of the autumn and maybe people find Porkhov less interesting than other offers. We also paid 150 roubles for the lunch.

I felt bad during most of the trip, but I was glad to see and talk to Luda. We rarely go on trips together but I hope to change that pattern soon (what we need is getting her out of work and me earning enough for two by freelance). I couldn’t fall asleep on the bus because it was inconvenient. We made a stop, as usual, at a petrol station near Luga where dozens of tourists always stop for peeing. There were perhaps several hundred of persons. Men pee quicker than women, that’s almost a law. Lots of people simply went in the nearby forest.

Out guide delivered an uninterrupted story of … I was listening to the music. We soon arrived in Porkhov and were taken to the town’s little museum.

The town’s name is derived from the word ‘porkh’ meaning white stone (limestone). It is situated on Shelon River, 88 km from Pskov, and is known since 1239. The town was withstood a couple of sieges by Lithuanian princes back in the days. In 1478, the town was annexed to the Moscow Principality.

After the museum, we drove a very short distance to the Porkhov Fortress. An old man was to be our guide, and he did his job well, though there arose a small conflict between him and our ‘boss’ – the girl liable for organizational issues. She asked him to be quicker because we had limited time, in order to return to Petersburg before the closure of metro.

Porkhov fortress was built in 1387 of dark limestone in place of the old timber fortress. It had four towers, with walls up to 2 meters thick, and up to 7 m high. Towers were up to 17 meters high. Nowadays, the fortress is not in perfect condition but nevertheless impressive. It is located in a superb place and its outline follows the river. It stands in a peaceful setting with trees on all sides and Shelon River flowing along it. Inside the fortress is an orchard with Nikolskaya Church, a Regional Study Museum, and Museum of Porkhov Post Office, an a monument to B.P. Kalachev – the leader of Porkhov underground during the Second World War.

After the fortress, we went to another small museum of household items and handicrafts. We saw a 100-year old ironing press which is still in proper working order. I even saw two sewing items the likes of which were possessed by my two grandmothers! One was a sewing machine, the other an arrangement of two boards for spinning… I rarely experience such nostalgia. The second room was filled with old Russian household items and presented a typical living area with a male and female ‘section’, a stove with ‘polati’ (a sleeping area above the stove), icons in the corner.

After this museum, we rode 35 kilometers from Porkhov to Nikandrova Pustyn (Hermitage) where we saw nice churches, had a lunch of simple monastery-cooked food (soup with macaroni and boiled rice), and visited three springs of saint water. Nikandrova Pustyn is an Orthodox Monastery founded in 1584. In the forest surrounding it are three springs: one located rather far away where a basin of radon water is arranged for bathing, and two drinking water springs located closer. Me and Luda delightedly walked the two-kilometer footpath in the forest and she liked the site immensely, in particular the peculiar blue colour of the water. If it was not cold we would bathe there.

On our way back, we watched a man feed cows and goats with cabbage leaves and some other vegetables, and heard them bleat and moo. On the way back, I felt horrible and could not sleep again; there was a 50-minute traffic jam. But, nevertheless, we managed to reach home as early as 23-15.

If all is well, we'll hear from two Russian cities on this Saturday, and from Finland on the next weekend.

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