russia: veliky novgorod again

My second year in Russia, when I did most of my traveling with Claire and Angela, one of the cities we visited was Veliky Novgorod. We had a good weekend, and I remembered thinking at the time that I wouldn't mind returning at some random point in the future. I knew there were a few more things I wanted to see, and there was a cafe I really liked. (We liked it so much that we ate three meals there during that visit. Why mess with something that isn't broken.)

That random point in the future ended up being this summer. When we visited before, we came from Moscow, taking a night train. This time around I came from Saint Petersburg, taking an elektrichka. As always in Russia, my train arrived exactly when it was supposed to arrive.

I booked a different place to stay this time around, but it was just as easy to walk there as it was to the first place, partly because I knew the first 20 minutes of walking were along the same streets. As with Vologda and Petrozavodsk, the difference in Veliky Novgorod in various seasons is quite stark.

After checking in, I rested up for a while, longer than I should have, which unfortunately is my pattern. This is even easier to let happen during summer, when the days are long, and in the back of my head I know I have plenty of daylight to play with. Whoops.

I started walking, heading down the street in a new direction. At one point I walked along what I thought must've been older city fortifications, which now just look like horizontal hills covered in grass. Since the sky was all gray, it made for a great contrast. I followed the 'hill' to a church we'd glimpsed during the previous visit, when renovation was happening. 

Despite this visit being 18 months later, it looked just the same. A fence around the whole church, scaffolding in a couple places, etc...

I got back to the road, and followed it until I passed a park which had a war memorial. I've lost count of how many of these I've seen, but I still take a look every time I pass one. Russia always remembers its soldiers from wars going back centuries.

Eventually I got to the first sight I'd intended to see that day, a huge city sign. This one was at the edge of the city, where cars officially enter the city. A giant city sign, written in Russian, woo hoo!!

Not too far past the city sign was a bridge, which wasn't interesting in the slightest. What was interesting was the old bridge, which was right next to the new bridge. The old bridge had holes in a few places, with rust on some of the metal on the side. I could see grass growing in cracks in the cement, which always strikes me as photogenic. I wonder how long the old bridge has been out of service. I saw a guy standing near the other end, I think he was fishing; I wanted to walk on the bridge, but since there were a few huge holes near my side, I didn't have the confidence to do so. I love old abandoned stuff, but I also have a healthy fear of something collapsing while I'm looking around.

As the walk out to this area had taken quite a while, walking back took just as long. Actually, it took even longer, because it started raining at some point, so I took shelter. I hate walking in rain, and this wasn't rain I could ignore, it was quite heavy for a good 30 minutes. Argh.

On the way back I walked a couple new streets, enjoying some really huge grafitti along the way. Even though it was still relatively early in the evening, I decided to go eat. I went back to the cafe I'd enjoyed so much during the first visit, and was just as happy this time around.

Walking from the cafe back to my hostel happened at the early stages of sunset, I was thrilled to see the sky changing colours. After the rain had stopped earlier in the afternoon, it seemed like most of the clouds had left the sky. Those that were left perfectly accented the colours of sunset.

The next morning I took my sweet time getting moving, oh well. My first objective for the day was to go to the bus station to buy a ticket for the following morning. I was pretty sure I didn't need to buy the ticket ahead of time, but I didn't know what time a bus would be going to my next destination, and buying a ticket answered that question.

After the bus ticket I took a photo next to a big statue of Rachmaninoff, a well known Russian composer in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. He was so musically talented that he was able to start playing piano at the age of 4, and graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1892, after composing several orchestral and piano pieces. After reading his Wikipedia entry, I also learned he was born near Veliky Novgorod in March of 1873.

His statue was 'leaning' against the back of a giant park bench. The ratio of the size of the statue to the park bench look normal, so you don't realize quite how big both of them are until you try to pose with them. 

I ended up climbing onto the front bench side, then sitting on top of the bench, next to the statue. I still looked quite small. Since the bench wasn't made of wood, it was quite slippery, and I had some fear of falling off before the shutter clicked.

After this I had one more major sight on my list for the day, an open air museum of wooden architecture. It was pretty close to the monastery I'd visited with the girls, and getting there required a fairly long walk. This time around, I walked a little faster, partly because I knew where I was going.

When I got to the museum I discovered around half of it was closed for renovations, darnit. I got to the ticket desk and discovered this was yet another attraction in Veliky Novgorod that charges a higher price for foreign visitors than it does for locals. I paid the local price. I don't know if she didn't question me because I paid with exact change, or because no one expects foreign visitors during a pandemic, but she didn't even question me. Or maybe it was because I was by myself? Who knows. 

I enjoyed the museum. You have to wear a mask each time you walk into one of the buildings, and they made sure there weren't too many people inside anywhere at any given time. The buildings were all quite small, so this basically translated to one family at a time, or just me. Each building had an information sign out front, giving a few details of what was inside, and there was English on these signs. Yippee!

I got to take a peek inside homes they way they were in more rural areas back in the day, and in a church from a while back. There was also an example of an old well, and a farmhouse. All in all, a good place to visit. 

I imagine schoolkids are dragged here on field trips quite regularly for history lessons.

It started raining at one point while I was walking around, I ended up taking 'shelter' by standing on the steps of a church that were covered by an overhang. Thank goodness the rain didn't last long, and the clouds blew out just as quickly as they blew in. I hate rain. 

I took the bus back to the city center, I just wasn't in the mood for the long walk back. As I got off the bus I noticed a large mural on one side of an apartment building, but I could only see the top. 

After weaving through a couple streets I got close enough to see the whole thing, it was impressive. From there I noticed another such mural a little over a block away, also impressive.

While looking for the first mural I noticed an old bell tower/monastery gate. I rarely walk away from those without taking at least a little peek, so I ended up getting to see the grounds of a monastery. From what I saw, it seemed to be quite old, as there were ruins in the middle of the grounds, and newer buildings on the edges. Really really pretty, at least in a photogenic sense.

At that point I felt as if I'd seen everything I wanted to see, so I went back to the cafe for another dinner, then back to the hostel for another night of sleep.

Now that I've seen Veliky Novgorod in two different seasons, and seen the sights of interest, I don't think I need to return. But I know I should never say never.

russia: saransk

Saransk is not on most people's list of places to go in Russia. I'm pretty sure the only reason anyone outside of Russia has heard of the city is because it was one of the host cities for the World Cup in 2018. That's the reason I wanted to visit :)

Saransk is about 650 kilometers southeast of Moscow, with more than 300,000 residents. The city was first founded as a fortress, called Atemar, in 1641. At the time, this fortress represented the southeast border of the Russian Empire. It took all the way until 1780 for the town to be granted official status.

During WW2, Saransk was the furthest battle line of the Battle of Moscow, but the German Wehrmakt never got that far. That being said, a lot of the city was destroyed during the Great Patriotic War, so the city centre was rebuilt by Soviet planners during the 1960s and 1970s.

The rebuild was in Soviet style, meaning wide boulevards and big residential areas were added to the original city plan.

The train station in Saransk feels quite new, though the architecture reminded me of a grand train station like I've been lucky enough to see all over Russia. 

This particular station was painted red, which was a first for me.

My train arrived after daylight, so other than getting hot chocolate inside the station, I didn't stay inside. I wasn't able to walk out the front of the station, even though there was a door there. To get out of the property you walk out the back, then off to a gate on the side. Is it always like that? Why do you have to exit this way? I noticed an x-ray machine in a small shack of sorts, which made sense for security when entering, but why have everyone exit this way as well?

From there I followed the main street as I walked into the city center. Since this was Saturday morning it was pretty quiet. Only half the bakeries I walked past were open, those that opened at 0700. Those opening at 0900 nearly all looked better (as much as I could see through the windows,) but I had to go with what was open :)

I finally got to the end of the street, (Lenin street, this time,) where it meets up with a big square, and Lenin on the other side of the square. This particular Lenin was painted gold, which just looked odd. 

I've seen him painted gold before, and silver too, and I never think it looks right. Just leave the man alone.

I was there early enough that no one else was around, which was kinda awesome. I love it when cities are still asleep when I arrive.

Lenin was on one side of this square (actually a rectangle, but names of these are never rectangle, they're always square,) while the main government buildings were on the other sides. (I think they were the local parliament and the House of Soviets.) 

Even though the World Cup tournament took place in June of 2018, and it was now October of 2019, some of the decorations for that event were still on display around this square.

My favourite was a city sign that said I love Saransk, with the mascot reaching out for a high five. Hard to describe, but I'm better with a camera than I am with words.

More walking brought me to the war memorial area. There was a war memorial museum, not open yet, as well as several large memorials, each dedicated to specific aspects of the Great Patriotic War. 

The biggest memorial had an eternal flame, which is a pretty standard part of a WW2 memorial in Russia. Off one side of this area was a small statue of a guy, dedicated to WW1, a memorial that doesn't happen nearly as often in Russia.

Not too far from the memorials was a big cathedral. You can't miss the cathedral, as it is huge, with gold domes on top. It looked new to me, partly because the colours outside were so bright and clean. After going inside I was almost positive that it was new, as the gold iconostasis was bright and clean, but there weren't any frescoes on the walls or ceilings.

After the cathedral I wanted to find a coffee shop, but there weren't any nearby, so I gave up that idea pretty quickly. Argh. Instead, I headed down a hill, and made my way toward a big park. I'm not sure what the park was called, as the map wasn't very clear.

There was a pond on one side of the park, which gave me a fantastic reflection as I approached. A trout's belly sky, autumn trees, and a ferris wheel all combined for one of my favourite photos of the whole weekend.

Just inside the entry of the park was another Lenin statue, this one looked 'normal,' and tucked into a small area. At that point, instead of going further into the park, I cross the street, and headed toward some interesting looking buildings over there.

None of these buildings ended up being amazing, but it was fun to explore. I found an ice rink, a swimming pool, and another memorial of some kind. Clearly sports are a big thing in this city. 

After that I made my way back up to the cathedral, then walked on the other side of the church. It didn't take long to get to Saransk Arena, a big football arena and the platz around it. On one side of the arena was another city sign, in the same style as those I've seen in other World Cup host cities. Fun fun fun. I wonder who made the decisions for these sorts of decorations for that tournament.

I walked up another street, passing a nice looking theatre on one side. (Also painted red, it somehow reminded me of the train station.)

Eventually I got to a walkway in the middle of a street, it made me think of an alley of heroes. There were posters of different people all the way up the walkway, I think they were people involved in WW2.

From there I walked. And walked and walked and walked. Then walked some more. I walked all the way until I got to a church. The walk from the arena all the way to the church ended up being around 7 kilometers. Considering how far I'd already walked that day, I was starting to feel it.

Anywho, the Church of Our Lady of the Kazan Icon (or something like that, the names always confuse me,) was light blue and white outside, with dark blue and gold domes. There was a tall bell tower on the front side. The inside of the church wasn't nearly as big as I thought it would be, it was quite narrow. The iconostasis up front was a light wood colour, not as eye catching as I was expecting.

From there I walked another two kilometers, in the same direction from which I'd come. I wanted a photo with a really big city sign I'd seen along the way, just because I could. 

Who doesn't love a big city sign in the middle of a traffic circle? I'm pretty sure every driver going past gave me a funny look as I set up my tripod, oh well.

At that point I was done with walking, well, almost. I walked to the nearest bus station, then hopped on the bus that would get me the closest to the accomodation I'd booked. It took me a bit to find my hostel, so I was a bit grumpy, but once I checked in and was able to drop my bag I was a happy camper again.

After hanging out for an hour (mostly to charge my phone,) I started walking again, heading toward the park I'd barely entered earlier that day. When I entered from the back side I saw a sign labeling it as Pushkin Park, which was enough for me to use that name. There were some fun wooden sculptures throughout the park, I admired the artistry it took to create them.

Next up was a museum. The entry fee to the Museum of Mordovian Culture was only 100 rubles, woo hoo. 

There were no other visitors at the time, and the employees looked at me as if they were thinking 'why is she here?' It didn't take long to go through the museum, but I enjoyed what I saw.

The traditional clothing was what caught my eye the most, I wonder if those are ever worn these days. Do most people in the Republic of Mordovia (of which Saransk is the capital,) own traditional clothing anymore?

After the museum I went to a steak restaurant for dinner. This was one of the few times I did any advance research about where I was going to eat during a weekend trip. 

Called the Big Pig, they had an English menu, and the food was plated beautifully. I really liked the dessert, and decided I would go back the next night :)

Considering how far I'd walked that day, I was impressed when I left the hostel by 1040 the next day. The easiest way to get back to the city center was to walk through Pushkin Park again, this time I took a photo with the Lenin I'd barely seen the day before.

I walked up the hill from there, through the war memorial area, past the cathedral, and up another street. 

My first sight of the day was an art museum, named for a guy called Enzi. The entry fee was 200 rubles, and there was no foreigner fee.

The museum ended up being much bigger than I expected. The different sections seemed to be divided by type of art, rather than artist or chronology. There was a sculpture room, which included a wooden sculpture of Lenin's head. There was an area with paintings, I like those depicting traditional Mordovian life. There was also a Russian classical section, much more of the typical art museum exhibits I'm used to seeing. 

The last section of the museum was the biggest section, with contemporary art. I would've been happy to pay my entry fee just for this area. For some reason, I really liked a lot of the exhibits in the part of the museum. (That being said, by the time I left, I was completed arted out.)

From there I walked back to the war memorial area, so I could go to the museum. The architecture is quirky, to say the least. There was no entry fee, which was awesome. That told me they were keen to educate people who visit, and that money wasn't the focus of the museum.

Awesome. This museum wasn't big, and the focus is a sculpture and stained glass window you see as soon as you walk in.

The second floor is filled with momentos from the Great Patriotic War. Medals and photos and pipes and shoes and uniforms and permits and just about anything else you can think of that soldiers had during the war. One of the docents tried to give me a mini tour, but I admit I didn't pay as much attention as I should have.

After leaving the memorial museum, I kept walking. Eventually I got to theatre square, basically just a small platz in front of a theatre, with a fountain in the middle. 

The fountain was across the street from a plane that had been mounted as a memorial; this was the other end of the alley of heroes I'd seen the day before.

I kept going, crossing a bridge to get to another church. The church was sea green outside, and the inside was quite boring because it was under renovation. I like that people were still coming to pray, even though the main area was being redone.

At that point I felt like I'd seen most of the city, and I was ready to eat. 

I'd really enjoyed my dinner the night before, and had been dreaming of my next dinner all day; I felt as if I'd seen enough to justify calling it a day and going to dinner.

I ordered different food, and while it wasn't as good as the first night, it was still really good. I also got myself a dessert to go, just because I could. Hee hee. I ate too much, but since I had a long-ish walk to get back to the train station, I didn't care.

Getting back to the train station was easy, and the rest of the night went as expected. 

I doubt I'll come back to Saransk, as I don't think it would be noticeably different in another season, but I've learned never say never. Maybe there are other areas of Mordovia that I should explore. That being said, I was happily surprised with how much I'd been able to see, how much there was to see, and how much I'd enjoyed the weekend. 

russia: tver

Another weekend, another trip. Tver was originally on the calendar for another weekend, but due to my laziness we switched the plan.

Getting to Tver was easy, fast, and cheap. We took an express suburban train, called a lastochka. The price worked out to about $8USD, the ride was about 90 minutes.

It was snowing when we arrived, which we weren't ready for mentally. All three of us had been checking the weather all week, and hadn't seen word one about snow. Oh well.

After a bit of hanging out inside, we walked into the center of town. I'd booked us a place to stay, but we couldn't check in until 1400, so we had some time to kill. Right around then we saw a giant mosaic mural on a wall near a school, which was really eye catching.

Also nearby was a Baskin Robbins ice cream store. We figured we hadn't taken an ice cream selfie in a while, and we had the time, so why not.

After ice cream we walked through a park. We saw people cross country skiing on several paths of the park, which looked fun. I've always wanted to try it, but I bet on the first try I'd last only about ten minutes. Anywho.

In the middle of the park is what is called the Veterans Pantheon, a war memorial. There was an 'eternal flame' in the middle of it all, but in this case it wasn't eternal. The spot where the flame would normally be was completely covered by snow.

After going through the park we were back on the closest main road, conveniently only a block or so from our accomodation. Checking in took about 3 minutes, after which we relaxed in our flat for a while.

Upon walking back outside we headed in the direction of our first real sight of the day: a statue of Lenin. This one was a little different from many of the others we've seen in that his name was written near the bottom of the pedestal. 

Most of the time I guess the people who put up the Lenin statue in a town assume you know who he was.

After taking a team photo at the statue we walked up a pedestrian street to our next sight, a goat museum. A goat museum!!!

The museum was small, only 3 rooms in total. It was basically a really really big collection of all things goat. There were some kitchen tools with goat legs as the handles, glass goats, stuffed goats, etc...

There was a giant display case with a fake mountain in the middle, with small goats all around. One of the docents told us we could count all the goats and enter a contest, but we didn't take the time to do so.

We learned a bit about the way goats are part of many cultures around the world. According to this museum, (the docent, anywho,) the people of Tver are nicknamed goats. I've never heard that before, but since I'm not a Russian speaker that wouldn't be random knowledge that simply gets absorbed.

It didn't take us long to see the entire museum, we were in there only 30 minutes or so. After the museum we walked back in the general direction of our flat, picking up sushi and breakfast food along the way.

The next morning we were pretty proud of ourselves for checking out and leaving the flat before 1100. A long walk took us back along the pedestrian street from the day before, over to a main artery through town, and over a bridge.

While crossing the bridge we spent a lot of time looking at the river below. It was covered in snow, and looked frozen, but we also noticed spots that looked rather melted. As we watched, we saw a couple people ice fishing, and three others crossing the river on foot. I have no idea how people had the confidence to do that, since the air temperature was over freezing, and we could see soft and completely melted spots.

Anywho, on the other side of the river we climbed down stairs to the embankment and walked along it for a while. The path was a mix of soft snow, hard pack, and ice, so it wasn't always easy to walk. We weren't the only people out, but the path wasn't exactly crowded.

Eventually we got to a corner of sorts. There was a big city name sign at this corner, perfect for a team photo.

After the team photo we walked back along the embankment. We walked under the bridge and continued along the other side, staying near the river. This side looked the same as the other, in that there were some soft spots, but it also looked frozen. Either way, we stayed on the embankment, not going anywhere near the river/ice.

We eventually came to another bridge, the modern version of the first bridge tying together the two sides of the river. 

The sign said the first bridge was several centuries ago, and had originally been a pontoon bridge.

Back over on the first side of the river we came followed the road to the entrance of the Imperial Palace. The palace was built in the 18^th century as a place for Catherine to Great to rest during her travels from St. Petersburg to Moscow. It is now a beautiful art museum.

We checked our coats and bags, and put on our shoe covers. I hate the sound these shoe covers make, but it wasn't an option. When we went to the ticket counter we read the price list and got our money ready, only to be told that the price was twice as high as we thought.

The ticket lady said 'foreign price.' We took a closer look at the price list, and over on one side of the paper, written in Russian, it did indeed list a price for foreign citizens.

Since we've been through this before we immediately pulled out our passports and registrations to prove that we live in Russia, and didn't want to pay the fee for foreign citizens.

The lady let us pay the 'local' fee, though this left a bad taste in our mouths. I hate when foreigners are charged more to enter a place, and it was even worse that it was only written in Russian. It's so sneaky. We only knew because we looked carefully, how often are other visitors surprised?

The museum turned out to be awesome. We didn't go through the entire thing, but we enjoyed the part we did see quite a bit. Each room was well organized and looked slightly different. There was a docent in every other room or so. A few of the rooms were very very grand, to the point that I whispered 'whoa' while walking in. Beautiful rooms, absolutely beautiful. I should also mention that Angela notcied a marble sculpture titled "Eva." Of course I took a photo with myself.

From the palace we walked back toward the pedestrian street, stopping to pick up food along the way. We also got more ice cream, just because we wanted to, and had the time to do so. From there we hopped a bus to the train station.

Buying tickets to get back to Moscow was easy, as was finding and boarding our train. 90 minutes after departure we were back in Moscow. Here's to another successful weekend.