russia: istra again

One of my most favourite church ceilings I've ever seen was in Istra, a small town not far from Moscow. Claire and I loved our half day trip to the city last year, and we kept talking about the church, so I figured Angela should see it too.

Angela and I figured out that for at least one week, we both had Wednesday afternoon off. I left work right at noon, and booked it to one of the train stations in Moscow. Angela raced out of school as well, it was more of an issue as to whether she would get there on time. (Angela works at the branch of school that is on the edge of Moscow.)

Fortunately Angela made it, and buying tickets was easy. We hopped on the next elektrichka going to Istra, and arrived about 90 minutes later.

I was excited to go back to Istra in better weather. Though Claire and I had enjoyed our visit, we had no enjoyed wading through snow and slush, without a clear path on a sidewalk. When Angela and I arrived we found clear streets and sidewalks, and lots of fall colour in the trees.

Since I'd already been there it was faster to get to where we were going. We walked up the main street, stopping twice: once for a team photo with the same giant pinecone, and once for the huge WW2 memorial of a plane taking off. Even though I'd taken the same photos before, they looked completely different this time because of weather and seasonal differences.

It didn't take us long to get to the New Jerusalem Monastery. Since we were visiting on a Tuesday afternoon, it wasn't at all crowded. In fact there were very few people around, which always makes me happy. I already knew the spots for the best views, hahahaha.

Angela liked the monastery as much as Claire and I had, though she isn't as obsessed with ceilings as much as I am. Even though I'd seen this ceiling before, I was thrilled to see it again, and still walked around with my head bent backward. Soooo beautiful, at least I thought so.

We walked around the walls, and I told Angela the story of dropping my mitten last time, thank goodness nothing like that happened during this visit.

After walking all over the property we headed back in the direction of the train station. Just like in my last visit, we stopped at another war memorial, it was actually visible this time. (Last time it was covered in snow.) We also stopped at the statue of Lenin, which is one of the smaller statues I've seen around the country.

By the time we got back to the train station we figured out our timing had been perfect: we only had to wait around 15 minutes for the next train. This ended up being a good thing in more ways than one, as the next train was a good couple hours later!

Yay for a half day trip in the middle of the week :)

russia: smolensk

Smolensk was added to our travel list for a couple reasons: one, it was listed in my travel guide, and two, because all three of us knew the name from WW2 history. None of us knew specifics at all in terms of the history, but we did know the name. By the end of our weekend there we realized we knew the name because Smolensk has been a sight of fighting between empires throughout much of the city's history.

Smolensk is a Russian city about 260 kilometers west-ish of Moscow, with a population of around 325,000. 

Smolensk has been a part of different empires, including Lithuania, Belorussia, and Russia. It was also part of the land invaded by the Golden Horde in 1240. When you name a major military action in Europe, Smolensk was probably involved in some way or another.

Smolensk is one of the oldest cities of Russia, it marks its founding in 865, only two years after the founding of Kyivan-Rus. It is also the sight of the largest kremlin in Russia. (A reminder: the word kremlin is not specific to Moscow, which is what most people – Americans – think. The word kremlin simply means fortress.)

The three of us met early on a Saturday morning, our train departed at 0710. Since it was a morning train, not a night train, we were in seats, not bunks. This particular train was set up in sets of six, with three seats facing three seats. The lady sitting next to Claire was not happy that the three of us were there, she was downright rude in her behaviour. I think it started because we decided to sit in the seats we had reserved, which meant someone she knew had to move, as they had been sitting in one of our seats. Anywho.

Our train arrived on time, which is always expected in Russia. I was excited to see that the train station in Smolensk was what I think of as a proper train station. That is, there was a large waiting room with a high ceiling and columns. It felt much more grand than what I'd seen so far around the country.

It didn't take us long to walk to our accomodation, though explaining that we didn't want to be officially registered did take a while. Bureaucracy, sigh.

We walked back out of the hotel, heading in the general direction of the kremlin walls. As I said earlier, Smolensk has the biggest kremlin in the country, so saying you're going to the kremlin doesn't narrow it down very much. We followed the road across the river, and up the hill.

On top of the hill was the most recognized sight in the city, the Cathedral of the Assumption. It is a bright dark sea green outside, and almost gothic inside. Frescoe painting everywhere, a gold iconostasis, and large icons everywhere. There were a fair number of people around, both people praying, and priests.

After the church we kept following the road, which basically took us to the city center. We found another church along the way, it was completely empty, and not nearly as fancy.

After we'd been going for a while I noticed a sign that said homemade ice cream. We love taking ice cream selfies, so this seemed like a good idea. We ended up ordering way too much ice cream, but it was worth it ;) We also ended up wasting a fair amount of time sitting in the cafe, but again, oh well.

From the cafe we walked to the platz in the middle of everything. We saw Lenin in the middle, he was surrounded by young'uns practicing snowboarding. Definitely fun to watch people live their normal lives.

Moving on we went toward a huge city garden. The garden had a small river where you could rent row boats, walk across a cute bridge, a memorial dedicated to the war in 1812, and some cute benches. We found a couple spots with nice city views too.

In another section of the garden we found a big city sign, which was perfect for a team photo. This one was in Russian, thank goodness. (I'm surprised at how often they're in English.)

As we were walking around the gardens I managed to roll my ankle, while doing nothing special. I took a step and fell down, sigh. I've done this enough times that the pain doesn't last too long, and I'm usually able to stand up and hobble around after a few minutes. That being said, it isn't fun and I wish my ankle tendons weren't so weak.

At that point it was sunset, which meant it was getting colder. We realized we hadn't had a proper meal yet that day, so it seemed like a good idea to go back to the cafe we'd visited earlier. The food we ordered was good, though we ordered way too much. Oh well.

The next morning we ate breakfast in our hotel, as it was included in the room rate, woo hoo. The breakfast room had fancy chandeliers and proper cups for tea. (For me, that meant the cups were too small, but oh well.)

Checking out was easy, and we were able to leave our bags in storage. We walked up the hill again, in the same direction as the day before. This time we went straight to the platz in the middle, and took a team photo with Lenin. There were far fewer people around, and no skateboards to be seen.

We basically walked all over the area inside and near the walls, which brought us to more memorials for the various wars that have taken place here over the centuries. One of the memorials had a soldier reaching for an eagle on top of a tall obelisk, which was particularly photogenic with fall leaves on the trees in the area.

Another memorial was particularly alarming in it's appearance. It honoured children who have died, and part of the memorial showed scrawny starving bodies of children. Not too far from the walls was a three sided obelisk, with each side marking one of the more major wars taking place in the area. (WW2, 1812, and I can't remember.)

More sights near the kremlin walls include an outdoor take on traditional matrioshka dolls. We found one of the still standing towers that is now a museum, but didn't feel the need to go in.

The weather was good, and we weren't in the mood to look at military history or arms.

At that point I saw a city tram, and it seemed like a good idea to follow the tram tracks to see where they went. So that's what we did for the next couple hours. We just walked.

Along the walk we found an abandoned Catholic church, mostly covered in scaffolding. We found a cemetery beautifully covered in falling leaves. We found several buildings also falling into disrepair, looking more photogenic with old school Soviet cars sitting in front.

By that point we were hungry again for a proper meal. We went back to the same cafe as yesterday, but it was full, and they didn't seem positive about space opening up soon. We ended up eating at a diner a block away. It was adequate, but not nearly as good as the cafe. Oh well.

After eating we walked back out of the kremlin, back down the hill, back to our hotel. We picked up our bags, then walked back to the train station. As expected, our train left on time, and arrived on time in Moscow. Another excellent weekend of traveling.

I liked Smolensk, but don't feel the need to return.

russia: moscow: weekly wanderings

Sometimes it feels like the weather on Wednesday afternoon is guaranteed to be overcast if not actually raining. This was another of those Wednesdays, argh. 

I still wanted to make progress toward my goal of seeing all the metro stations, so I decided to ride the southern half of the lime green and purple lines.

The lime green line is relatively new. Planning started in the early 1980s, and building started later. The first part of the line was first opened in 1995, with building still going. The last stations finally opened in 2016 and 2018.

The purple line is pretty busy, and not nearly as new. That being said, many of the trains running on this line are newer than trains on other lines.

As expected, each station was different, and all were clean. Some were boring, but all had something geometric or colourful to see. Some had benches, some had wall decorations, some had columns, some had tiles, etc...

I rode for a few hours, seeing about 20 stations in the day's tour.

On Friday I walked from school toward Moscow City, the business district of Moscow. I'd seen a few pretty pictures online with sunset, which is what I'd hoped to see.

I walked too slowly, and waited too late in the fall to get there in time for sunset. That and I didn't have quite the right angle for what I hoped to see. Oh well, it was a nice view anywho.

After putzing around for a bit, I walked back to the giant mall at Kievskaya. Since it was still September, the fountains in front were still running, and they were lit up too. Very pretty, with nice reflections on the fountain edge.

russia: tula

Tula is a city of half a million people, almost 200 kilometers south of Moscow. We added it to our travel calendar partly because it is listed in the travel guide for Russia.

Tula has been around a long time. Some historians say there is a written record dating back to the late 12^th century, but that record wasn't written until the 16^th century, no one knows for sure. The first confirmed date mentioning Tula is in 1382. Either way, it's an old city.

In 1712 Emperor Peter 1^st (sometimes known as Peter the Great,) visited Tula; during the visit he commissioned a few blacksmiths to build an armament factory. The city ended up being known for this factory and ironworks.

The arms produced by this factory helped the city fight off advancing Nazis in WW2. Some of the German tanks stopped their journeys just outside Tula city limits.

Our journey was supposed to start at 0700 on Saturday, so we met up at 0640. I figured this would be plenty of time to find our train.

Unfortunately, it wasn't. Kurskaya train station has a couple levels, it wasn't at all clear where we could buy tickets, and where to find the train we wanted. We ended up missing the 0700 train, argh. I was kicking myself for not having this sorted out ahead of time.

We ended up sitting around for three hours, it was easy enough to hop on a train at 10. The later train had us arriving in Tula at 1300, I was still kicking myself for 'wasting time.' Oh well. There was a crowd waiting at the train station, we pretended they were waiting for us. I'm not sure what or who they were waiting for.

We walked down the main street toward the city center, and our accomodation. Finding the accomodation was pretty easy, checking in was easy too. I'd been able to keep the landlady up to date on our arrival by text, which was awesome.

The flat we checked into was nice enough, though she seemed surprised that there were three of us. This was in our reservation, at least on my end, so I don't know why there was confusion. She brought in a cot as a third sleeping spot, so that was sorted out quickly.

There were a couple other rather unpleasant surprises with the flat: the smell of sewage in the stairwell and the huge number of mozzies. Though the lady was nice, we knew immediately that if we decided to return to Tula at any point in the future we would not being staying in the same flat again.

Due to the mozzies (and lack of wifi,) we went back out to start exploring faster than we normally do. 

It didn't take us long to get to our first sights: a government plaza with a giant Lenin statue in front of a giant government building. On the other side of the platz was a quirky monument, one dedicated to gingerbread. Apparently the city is known for gingerbread, though we didn't know this until we arrived in town. You can buy gingerbread all over the city, much of it in special shapes.

Next to the gingerbread monument we saw a red brick church. The onion domes were painted black, and I have to admit I didn't like the look of the outside of the church. 

The inside was a lot better, as the stairwells were painted and there were a couple small stained glass windows. You can always win me over with stained glass.

We walked a couple hundred meters to get to the walls of the kremlin. (a reminder: a kremlin is a fortress, and many Russian cities have one.) This particular kremlin has red brick walls, which are in great shape. I assume a renovation has been done at some point, though I don't know when.

Just outside the main gate into the kremlin was another quirky monument, called the Tula Alphabet. It was in the shape of a giant book.

We went through the gate into the kremlin, and were underwhelmed. There is a lavender purple church in the middle of the space, and another couple buildings, but that's about it. The church looked as if it had been painted recently, so it looked nice. One of the other buildings was supposed to be a museum, but it looked empty. Maybe we were missing something?

On the other side of the area we found a couple shops in the walls, one of them was supposed to be a gingerbread museum. 

As far as we could tell, it was just an overpriced shop selling specially shaped gingerbread. Disappointing, to say the least.

Not too far outside the walls of the kremlin we found yet another quirky monument, a hedgehog surrounded by mushrooms. Super cute, but I'm not sure what the point was.

Not too far away we found a playground for adults. I don't know if it was intended that way, but everything was adult sized, and much more fun for adults than kids.

At that point we were standing outside the walls of the other side of the kremlin, the area had been redeveloped as a nice place to hang out. 

It was pretty chilly while we were there, but I bet it's a good place in warmer weather.

From there we saw a small church, and decided to take a peek. Nothing exciting, but churches always catch my eyes. From there we wandered to a pedestrian street, which was still being developed. Cute, but empty since construction wasn't finished.

We kept walking, all the way to a bridge across the river from the arms museum. By that point it was too late to visit the museum, but we still enjoyed the reflection of the unique architecture in the river.

At that point we were tired, cold, and hungry. We found a place listed in a travel app, promising the usual menu of pizza, pasta, and sushi. It's entirely possible I ordered too much.....

The next morning we were up earlier than usual, partly because Claire and Angela were bit all night by mozzies. (The mozzies left me alone ;) We had told the landlady we planned to check out at 10, but it was 0800 and we were already ready to go, so we decided to go out, then come back at 10 to check out. 

We are never ready to go this early, but the mozzies and smell meant there was no way we wanted to hang out in the flat as would be our normal Sunday morning.

We walked to an old cemetery. The church on the property was still in good shape, but most of the cemetery looked as if it was slowly being reclaimed by nature. Trees were growing through some of the graves, and rust was doing a number on other graves. If we'd had the time, we could've wandered for at least another hour. I bet it looks stunning in winter.

On the way back to the flat we took a team photo by a big heart that said (in Russian,) I love Tula.

After giving the keys back to the landlady we headed toward our next sight: a museum. On the way we found a spot for another team photo: a giant stack of luggage. Claire (I think,) came up with the best caption for the photo: traveling light for the weekend.

The museum we wanted to see was a bit quirky: it was dedicated to samovars. A samovar is a traditional item in Russian homes, it's basically a giant tea pot. 

The museum was awesome. There were faces carved into the samovars, like that of Stalin. There were big samovars and tiny samovars, and everything in between. One of the informational posters said there used to be 50 companies producing samovars in Tula!! A few of those on display were from the last tsarist family, the Romanovs.

After the museum we found more churches as we made our way toward the arms museum. Nothing unique, but still pretty.

Outside the building of the arms museum we saw tanks and other military hardware, nothing I haven't seen before. Inside we explored three and a half floors, filled with a LOT of arms. We saw rifles and pistols and canons and more. There were flags and awards and full size dioramas. Everything was arranged chronologically, so it went back to the middle ages and moved forward. The top floor was just for programs of some kind, though the ceiling had a decoration worth looking up to see.

To get to our last sight we rode a bus toward the edge of town: we wanted to see a really big war memorial. It seems like every Russian town has one, but this one was bigger than normal. It was worth the bus ride, and easy to see. It had an eternal flame, a plane taking off and a plane crashing. The plane taking off was Soviet, the plane crashing was Nazi.

This memorial was specifically dedicated to the defenders of the motherland sky. There were plaques on the memorial, with many names of those who perished carved on the plaques. 

The plaques had multiple languages, which was unique to this memorial.

The bus we ended up taking back into the city was driven by the same bus driver as the bus we'd taken going out to the memorial. We took the bus to close to the same restaurant where we'd eaten dinner the night before, we intended to eat there again. Since we already knew the menu everything went faster this time around.

It didn't take long to walk back to the train station, even though we stopped to buy gingerbread on the way. 

Since we stopped at a regular store, it was half the price of what we'd seen in the 'museum,' so we were grateful we hadn't bought any earlier in our visit.

I did a terrible job in planning this trip in terms of the trains. When we got back to the train station we discovered the train I wanted didn't go every day. We ended up having to wait a couple hours, and taking a faster but more expensive train later on. Sigh.

Oh well, we got back to Moscow safe and sound. I'm pretty sure I don't feel the need to go back to Tula, but never say never :)