russia: nizhny novgorod and bor again

During my first year in Moscow, Claire and I went to Nizhny Novgorod for a weekend, for two reasons. First, it was home to another branch of the school we work for in Moscow. Second, it was going to be one of the host cities for the 2018 World Cup.

That trip was at the very end of March, beginning of April, and when we left, we were not big fans of the city. We knew that part of it was because we visited at an ugly time of year. Winter was over, but the city hadn't yet been cleaned up, and all the beauty of spring hadn't yet arrived.

I couldn't help but wonder if the reason we didn't like the city was because of circumstances that could change, so I decided to go back this fall.

My train arrived on time, of course, at the ridiculously annoying hour of 0430. That's too early to wake up, but too late to stay awake all night, argh. Anywho, I sat in the train station for around three hours, because walking at that hour did not sound fun.

I don't know if any renovations had been done on the train station in the past two years, but it didn't feel like the interior of the station was the same as when Claire and I visited. There was a giant Lenin mosaic on one wall in a large hall, which seems like something I would've noticed last time. 

Maybe we just missed that hall last time, I've been known to be really close to something and completely miss it.

The view upon leaving the train station was the same, just at a warmer time of year. When I turned my head around, the outside of the train station looked the same as I remembered, not very interesting.

Since I was traveling by myself in a place I remembered not liking very much, I'd made a tentative itinerary for the day. I decided to start my trip by returning to Bor, the town on the other side of the river. Claire and I had gone to Bor out of curiosity about riding on the cable car, more than a desire to see the town. 

I wanted to find out if there was anything we'd missed seeing.

The walk to get to the cable car station from the train station was long, especially because I stopped regularly to take photos. The weather in Nizhny had already started to change, so there were plenty of orange and yellow trees, everything was beautiful. Walking over the main bridge was still really windy, but it was worth stopping to take a few photos.

I got off course even before getting to the bridge, I went to see a church Claire and I had skipped. The Alexander Nevsky Cathedral sits on the right bank of the river, not too far from the new football stadium. The outside was yellow and had a typical orthodox 'look' to it. The inside was awesome, I'm glad I went inside. The entire interior was painted with frescoes, and the iconostasis up front was wood with colourful icons. The side iconostases were also wood, and also awesome. There were quite a few people inside the church, so I didn't get to take all the photos I wanted, but I definitely appreciated what I was seeing.

After crossing the river I walked partway on the boardwalk, which had been finished since Claire and I were there. Just about anything looks better than a construction zone, but the finished product really does look nice. That being said, it's still pretty windy, that wasn't any different.

I also stepped off the walking route to see another tree, this one had also been under renovation when Claire and I had seen it. The inside of this church was really boring, and not worth seeing, but the onion domes outside were really colourful. Almost like a baker had been able to play with ganache to create different patterns.

When I finally got to the cable car station I'd already walked well over seven kilometers, in a bit over two hours. The ride still cost just 100 rubles each way, which is a great price for a 15 minute ride.

Lenin was still where I remembered him being in Bor, as was the WW2 memorial. Instead of going straight back to the cable car, I walked a bit further in town, just to see what was there. I found a small monastery with bright gold domes on the main church, and back roads that looked like they'd been paved a loooong time ago with no upkeep since.

I also found the main intersection in the middle of town. There was a local market on one side, with plenty of produce, dairy, shoes, plants, etc... available. Anything I might've wanted, but I didn't need anything.

Except some of the baked goods I found in a small bakery. I definitely needed those. ;)

There was also a church on that intersection, and a big supermarket. Overall, it was a great place to stand around and just watch people.

After that intersection I found my way back to the cable car and headed back over the river. From there I walked to my hostel and checked in, another long-ish walk. 

I guess I hadn't paid enough attention to the map when I made the booking, but oh well.

After resting up for a while I walked back out to see at least one more museum. I headed to one of several Gorky related museums in town, only to discover that it was under renovation, argh. There was a sign on the door pointing me to another museum, one that I ended up liking probably better than what I'd intended to see in the first place.

The museum I did see was an apartment in which Russian writer Maxim Gorky had lived with his family for a while. 

It was neat to see the different rooms, their furniture and interior decoration. Again with the awful wallpaper, yuck. Women did not get to wear comfortable clothing. There were also informational signs all around, which were conveniently in several languages.

After leaving the apartment museum, I realized I had time for yet another museum, this one a history museum. Officially called the Nizhny Novgorod State Museum of History and Architecture, this one was in a renovated mansion.

I wouldn't say mansion, I'd say former palace, but I'm not the one who decides the specific wording used.

This museum required visitors to wear shoe covers, something I find incredibly wasteful. The weather was good, so no one was going to track in dirt, and these plastic shoe covers don't prevent the damage done by women wearing heels on a wooden floor.

The museum had a fair number of grand rooms with amazing ceilings and chandeliers, as well as intricate wooden floors. 

I liked the rooms with old school furniture, I did not like the old school wallpaper. I loved the old school pajamas, I did not love the fake fruit on one of the tables.

After leaving the museum I made my way to the main pedestrian street in the city. I went back to a burger restaurant I remembered from my last visit, which was good, and so much cheaper than it would've been in Moscow. I also went back to the cafe I remembered from our last visit, because of my memory of a really good chocolate cheesecake. 

Why mess with something that wasn't broken?

The next morning I woke up to rain. Argh. I packed up and waited around for it to get better, but it didn't. Because of the lousy weather (hard rain, cold wind, dark clouds,) I didn't do much during the second day of this visit. I kept finding ways to take cover: in supermarkets, churches, archways into courtyards, etc... The rain finally let up after dark, go figure.

Instead of wandering around the city like I'd wanted to do, I killed a lot of time in the burger place from the night before, then more time in the coffee place. 

Is there such a thing as too much chocolate cheesecake? I don't think so ;)

I finally left the cafe, and made my way to the metro, riding the entire length of one of the two lines Nizhny Novgorod has. Just like Moscow, all of the stations were clean. Just like Moscow, a few of the stations were really well decorated and designed, and the others were boring but still nice. The biggest difference I noticed was in the time of how often trains came through each station, as it wasn't nearly as often in Nizhny Novgorod as it was in the other three cities I'd seen. 

Since I've seen the metro systems in St Petersburg and Moscow and Novosibirsk, so it was neat to have another comparison to add to the list. Russia does metro systems really really well.

My train back to Moscow went as expected. Will I return to Nizhny? Probably not. Even so, the dream of a full weekend with good weather is going to stick in my mind for a while, hahaha.

russia: astrakhan

I'm not sure if there was a specific reason we chose to go to Astrakhan. Maybe we liked the name, I really don't know. It was a holiday weekend because of a Russian holiday, (defender of the fatherland day, which generally honours men, especially veterans,) so we wanted to go a bit further than a normal weekend trip.

Astrakhan is nearly 1400 kilometers southeast of Moscow, of course we flew. Our flight landed in the middle of the night, so we found some seats in the airport and tried to sleep, or at least rest a little.

The first mention of Astrakhan was way back in the 13^th century, when it was known by another name I can't pronounce. 

Like so many other parts of western and southern Russia, Astrakhan has a lot of fighting in its history. Tamerlane burnt the city to the ground when the Golden Horde tried to take over the world.

(What is now) Russia first took control of Astrakhan when Ivan the Terrible was in charge, in the mid 16^th century. Soon after he took over he ordered a kremlin to be built on top of the hill; Wikipedia tells me this is considered the founding date of the modern city. There was no interruption in habitation in the area, so I don't know why the founding date isn't earlier. 

Peter the Great had shipyards built in the city, because the location of the city on the Volga made it quite important to shipping and transportation in the area. Catherine the Great increased the industrial aspects of the city as well. In other words, the leaders of Russia recognized the geopolitical importantance of Astrakhan from the very beginning.

When morning rolled around and we decided to find public transport into the city we were thrilled to find a giant city sign right outside the airport. We never turn down a team photo at a city sign.

It was easy to find the bus stop, then take a marshrutka right into the city. We hopped off next to one side of the kremlin, then started walking in the direction of our accomodation. The kremlin of Astrakhan is probably the most identifiable place in the city, and its appearance hasn't changed much throughout history. Long white stone walls.

We passed a Lenin statue, next to another side of the kremlin. Even though Lenin statues around the country (even around the world,) generally look the same, we're still fascinated and still usually take a photo.

We found the hotel we booked easily enough, though our request/insistence that we not be registered wasn't so easy for the hotel to deal with. Since all three of us are foreigners, we are supposed to be registered everywhere we go, and we're supposed to be registered where each of us lives in Moscow.

My landlady in Moscow won't register me, I have to pay someone else to register me somewhere in the city. If I am registered in another city, it means I have to re-register when I get back to Moscow, meaning I have to pay again. As much as I'm traveling this year, I can't afford to get registered each time I come back to Moscow.

Howeva, I could also see where the hotel was coming from, as the law says they are supposed to register everyone who comes through, especially foreigners. A little creativity and the problem was solved with money, and we were able to check in.

After relaxing for a bit, we started walking again, following one of the canals running through the city. Most of it was frozen, which was awesome. It was even more awesome when we came across a group playing ice hockey. Very fun to watch for a few minutes. As Angela is from Canada, and is a hockey fan in general, she loved it even more than Claire and I did.

From the canal we walked up the hill, to the entrance gate of the kremlin. Entrance to the property was free, woo hoo. The interior of the kremlin was somewhat standard, with a couple churches and other buildings that are now museums.

We wanted to go in one of the churches, but discovered the main level was closed. Only the lower level was open, but it was still pretty nice. We could see that the upper level had a lot of windows, which means it is probably beautiful inside, but who knows.

We wanted to see a few of the museums, but when we tried to buy tickets we discovered that not all of them were open, argh. We ended up buying tickets for what was open, only two museums.

One of the open museums was called the guardhouse museum, which had some dioramas of daily life at various points in the history of the area. We got to see some of the uniforms worn by soldiers who had fought for different groups, and items they used.

The other museum was in the cellar of a building, I'm not all that sure what it was supposed to be about. Oh well.

Our next sight ended up on our list because I saw it on a magnet and asked the lady selling the magnet where it was located. Russia is full of victory arches, commemorating the many battles in the history of the country.

A minute after we arrived at the arch, a wedding party arrived as well. We were able to take a team photo before they took over the area. (They recognized what we wanted to do, and that it wouldn't take long.) There was a fountain on one side of the arch, but since it was the end of February the fountain wasn't running.

Behind the arch was a heroes alley, with busts of local heroes lined up on pedestals. As always, I didn't recognize the names, and told myself I'd look them up later, but (as always,) that didn't happen.

At the other end of the 'alley' was a statue of Peter the 1^st. I think the statue generally marks the beginning of the riverfront esplanade along the Volga River. The boardwalk has been developed quite nicely, with quirky statues at various points, and nice views of the river.

At the other end of the riverwalk was a sushi place where we opted to have dinner. 

Even though it was only 1800 or so, we were exhausted, and struggled not to fall asleep at dinner.

The room rate we'd paid included breakfast, but it wasn't much. I only had oatmeal, sigh.

We started our day by walking to Victory Square, though part of the Muslim Quarter. We walked past a couple markets, and over a couple canals too.

Our arrival at Victory Square was not at all impressive. A thick level of dirt covered everything, it was not pretty at all. I'm hoping that's just because it was the end of February and the city hadn't done any spring cleaning yet.

From the square (which wasn't a square, it was just an area in the middle of the road,) we could see onion domes, so that's where we went next. St John the Baptist monastery had a red brick exterior with gold and maroon domes. I thought it was super ugly outside, but the inside was absolutely lovely. A dark wood iconostasis, with walls and ceilings of sea green. One part of the ceiling was covered by a painting of a double headed eagle.

Quite a bit more walking brought us to another 'park.' I put that in quotes because it was basically a small square with some benches and trees, and a big memorial. 

The memorial honours those who fought from 1919-1921.

Not far from this 'park' we saw more walls that made us think of a kremlin or monastery. We finally found an open entrance, but weren't able to go very far in. I couldn't tell if it was abandoned, or protected, as looked empty, but there was a security gate too. Weird.

We kept going to get to our last sight: the frog and toad museum. Add this one to the quirky museums of Russia list you didn't know you had. (Like the fairytale museum in Rostov Veliky.) 

It wasn't much of anything, basically just a collection of all things frog and toad. Heaps and heaps of figurines, and some games in the last room.

This museum wasn't far from the sushi place at which we'd eaten dinner the night before, and the food had been decent, so we decided to go back for another dinner. The food was fine, and we didn't have to wait too long.

The bus stop for a bus to take us back to the airport wasn't too far from the restaurant, we were already at the bus stop when I realized I'd left my backpack at the restaurant. Eeeek. Thankfully the bus to the airport came every 15 minutes or so, so I had time to run back and get my backpack, and still be able to catch the next bus. Phew.

Our flight back to Moscow was easy, as was getting back home for each of us. I don't think I need to come back to Astrakhan, but it was a nice weekend.

low country

one of my best friends during uni was a girl named mel...i met her my second year of uni, we've been close ever since...our lives have gone in totally different directions, but that's how long term friendships work, and i still love her...i was lucky enough to see her in korea when her job sent her to seoul for a conference, but that was back in 2006 or 2007...since then she'd left that job, worked another job, met and married her husband, and had two kids...i've continued living in different countries, traveling around even more countries...mel's family is small and tight, i travel everywhere independently...
mel now lives in a very small town in GA...the town is called ludowici, and it is not possible to get there by public transport...i took advantage of this situation to hire a car, and planned to drive to her house...two things made this a particularly adventurous decision...one, i didn't have a map, and two, mel's house is in such a newly developed area that it does not yet show up on GPS, or google maps...hmmm...
i figured out how to get to her house, and took off from the airport in atlanta...the first part of the drive went really well...i got to the right highways, singing along to country music on the radio...at one point the directions i'd printed out said to exit onto a smaller, state highway...i never saw the exit...(later on, i figured out where the exit should've been, and i think it was marked with another number, since that particular road was actually 2 different roads that joined up for a while)...ooops...missing that exit meant i ended up driving all the way to savannah, which wasn't my intention...
this actually ended up being a good thing though, as i drove into savannah, and saw a sign directing me to tourist information...i figured they would have people who could answer my questions, and, more importantly, i hoped they would have georgia state maps...and they did...it turned out the little old lady i talked to knew exactly where ludowici was located, she'd even lived there...the map i picked up made it much easier to get to where i was going...easier, but not quite easy...
i finally made it to mel's house, though it took me a couple hours longer than expected...(and without a phone, there was no way i could call or text mel to let her know where i was)...mel was in the same group in uni with the two saras i got to see in DC...mel and i sat around and talked until her husband came home from work...he'd been texting throughout the day, asking if i had arrived, he was wondering where i was as much as i was while i was driving...
a few years ago, mel got married to a guy named eric...they married quickly, but it's easy to see the relationship is a good one, and they're both happy...he's in the army, hence the reason they live where they do...they'd just moved from one base to another, so the house wasn't completely organized, and they didn't have their kids with them...(they didn't want to live in a hotel with the kids until the house was bought, moved into and set up, paperwork arranged for everything in the area, etc)...the kids were up in indiana, with mel's parents...her parents were going to drive down sometime in the next couple days with the kids, mel and eric were both really happy for the upcoming reunion...
dinner the first night was one of eric's favourite meals...chicken something i think? i'm terrible at remembering specific meals...it was nice to have a proper, homecooked meal...i helped with cleanup afterward, i try not to be a total mooch when i'm visiting someone:)...
the next day mel and i decided to drive to savannah...since i'd already been there, the highways entering the city seemed familiar, but i didn't know anything else about the area...savannah is a typical "old south" city that somehow escaped being destroyed during the civil war...
you get to see the riverfront area, which is now covered by restaurants and touristy shops...it's a nice walk, and at the end of that area is a statue of the girl who is said to have waited there every day for the sailor boy she loved...(he never came back, but she was greeted by many people on the ships that sailed the area)...
we also walked bull street, the other famous area of the city...lunch was at a cafe, mel chose the place...since she'd been in the area a few weeks already, she'd explored savannah a bit before i got there...i expect she'll know the city really really well by the time she and her husband move to his next posting...

many of the houses and other buildings on the street are now museums that give you a good idea what life was like back during the days of antebellum living...we didn't go in any of the museums, i know i'd have wanted to see more than one, and the entry fees aren't the cheapest, as well as adding up quickly...it's fun to soak up the atmosphere, and see the old styles of architecture...driving on bull street would drive me crazy, as every other intersection is actually a square, with a big memorial/statue/park in the middle...constantly stopping, turning, etc would be soooo annoying...
we visited a nice fountain, and a cemetary...both of which are supposed to be known, neither of which do i remember the names...whoops...
the next day mel and i just hung out in the house...as much as i love traveling, i love doing a whole lot of nothing, just catching up with a good friend i haven't seen in a long while...
the next day, i left...it was easier to get back to atlanta this time:)