russia: shlisselburg and st petersburg

Even though we'd gone north the weekend before, we decided to do so again in the middle of December. Claire and I had both seen posts on social media showing Lake Ladoga, with pretty pictures, so we wanted to see it for ourselves. Looking at a map we saw that a small town called Shlisselburg is next to the lake, and isn't too far from St Petersburg.

Lake Ladoga is the largest lake located completely in Europe. It is Russia's second largest lake, after Lake Baikal in Siberia. The lake used to be a big part of shipping in the area, as there are rivers and canals leading all over.

There is an island in the lake, not too far from Shlisselburg, with an old fortress, which we wanted to see.

Shlisselburg itself isn't that exciting. It is 35 kilometers east of St Petersburg, and currently has less than 15,000 residents. Wikipedia tells me it was known as Petrokrepost (which translates to Peter's fortress,) from just after WW2 to just after the fall of the Soviet Union. The city doesn't seem to care about the former name, as we didn't see any mention of that.

Shlisselburg was occupied by the Germans during the seige of what was then Leningrad, though this is almost mostly ignored by the current city. 

The city has a couple shipyards, which seem to be the main industry of the city.

Instead of taking a train to St Petersburg as we usually did, the girls and I chose to fly. Though Russian trains are relatively cheap, sometimes flights are even cheaper. It was as easy to fly as it was to take a train.

From the airport we took a taxi to Shlisselburg. Since it is so close that was the fastest way to get there, and the taxi dropped us off really close to our accomodation, an apartment. Even though it was nearly midnight, it was easy to check in, the landlord was very nice. 

Even though we hadn't seen any of the city yet, we already knew we wouldn't ever need to stay the night during another visit, but this apartment was nice enough that we were tempted.

All three of us fell asleep quickly, and just like the previous weekend, it was really hard to wake up. Mid December is a rough time to travel in Russia, particularly in the north.

After finally waking up and getting moving, our first stop was a supermarket really close to the flat, all three of us were hungry. As Shlisselburg is pretty small, it wasn't hard to figure out how to get to the 'city center.'

Most of what we saw when we started walking was gray: the sky, the snow on the ground, and the apartment buildings. Sigh. The statues were all gray as well: Kirov, and Peter the Great.

At one point we passed a couple churches behind a fence. There was an open gate, which we walked through. One of the churches was clearly being renovated, though the outside looked mostly finished. The other church seemed like a replacement of sorts, though I don't really know. One was pink, one was blue.

A stop into another supermarket was a bit on the creepy side, as one of the security guards seemed to be following Angela as she moved around the store. Weird.

An entire series of locks was built back in the day, starting in Shlisselburg. Canals work with locks, which of course have nothing to do when all the water in the area is frozen. I was happy to climb on part of the locks, the girls thought I was crazy.

We finally got to the port from which ferries depart to go to the island. Even though the lake was frozen, this was when we really understood that the island/fortress are not open during winter. Sigh. 

Our main reason for coming to Shlisselburg was not going to happen. Argh.

The churches we had just passed were really close to the lake, which was currently full of people ice fishing. I was totally fascinated by the way each person set up their own little area. Again Angela and I were keen to take photos while standing on the frozen lake, and again Claire wanted nothing to do with us. Given Claire's experience the previous weekend, I can't say that I blamed her. I wonder if I'd feel different about ice if I'd fallen through it?

After playing around on the ice for a few minutes, my fingers were completely frozen. Well, not completely, but they were definitely feeling the cold. We saw a mall nearby, and opted to step inside. We found Dodo Pizza, which we'd never visited before.

The original intention was to have just a snack, but we ended up ordering a large pizza, which served as an early dinner. It was quite decent, and we loved the dodohead masks. I'm sure those masks are normally meant for kids, but we decided we are kids at heart. Hee hee.

The only other sight in town was a city history museum. The entry fee was dirt cheap, only 50 rubles. (Less than $1USD.) We had to put on shoe covers, and were able to store our snack bags in lockers.

At first we thought the museum was just one room, with sections organized and ordered by century. We ended up being pleasantly surprised by the museum. There was an upstairs room, which had a drop down screen with a video for visitors!

Both rooms had multiple drawers for visitors to open, which was a great way of exhibiting more items without taking up a lot of space. Very nice.

After the museum we went back to our flat and just hung out for the rest of the evening. Give us wifi, it's never hard to waste time.

The next morning we packed up and gave the key back to the landlord. We stopped one more time in the supermarket with the creepy security guy because we'd seen a brand of chocolate that we all liked. It didn't take long to walk to the bus stop and catch the next bus back to St Petersburg. The bus ride was only 40 minutes, and dropped us off at the end of another metro line.

We rode the metro all the way to Pushkinskaya, which is right next to Vitebsky train station. This train station was one of the first built in the city, (built in the early 20^th century,) and is the most 'classic' of all the stations. I'd seen photos of a set of stairs on social media, I wanted to see them for myself.

I was right, the stairs were quite grand, yay!! It was an exercise in patience to get a photo without other people walking through, but I've gotten better at that. We were excited to find vending machines with money, as I'd been looking for a special edition 100 ruble bill for my cousin. It had been produced for the World Cup, but I hadn't seen any in regular circulation.

Since this was Angela's second visit to the city, we figured she ought to see more of the most famous sights. We hopped back on the metro, and made our way to the Church on Spilled Blood. This is the one most people confuse with St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, as both of them have Disney like spires and domes on top.

The interiors of the two churches couldn't be more different. The Church on Spilled Blood is completely covered by mosaics inside, it's beautiful, and almost overwhelming. As always, it was busy inside, and I've seen it several times previously, but I still loved it.

After the church, we made our way to Namaste for yet another Indian dinner. The waiters remembered us from the previous weekend :)

After dinner we rode the metro then caught a bus to the airport. The flight landed a few minutes late, but since it was a domestic flight it didn't take us long to get out of the airport and into a taxi right into Moscow's city center.

russia: kronstadt and st petersburg

I'll always be happy to go to St. Petersburg. I'm pretty sure I've started another post with those same (or similar,) words, but they are true.

Since Claire and I had been to the city several times previously, we decided to do a day trip on Saturday, then stay in St. Petersburg on Sunday.

Kronstadt is a small city on the island of Kotlin, 30 kilometers west of St. Petersburg, right in the middle of the gulf of Finland. The island was originally Swedish, the Russians didn't gain possession until the beginning of the 18^th century.

The island was immediately used by the Russians as a fortification against the Swedes and anyone else who wanted to take over the area. It didn't take long to build the original fort, along with several mini forts.

These mini islands were made at the same time as the original fort. Stones were dropped through holes cut in the ice. Mini forts were then built on top of these mini islands. The construction of all these islands and forts left very little open water through which foreign boats could travel, in other words the water was completely under Russian control.

Unless I'm mistaken (which is always possible,) these islands no longer exist.

Kronstadt has been involved in a lot of fighting since the fortresses were built. It was seized by the Russians during the Great Northern War. Shipping markets were affected by the Crimean War. It was also part of WW1, the Russian Civil War, and WW2. There is still a military presence on the island, though I don't think there has been any need for it recently.

The population of the city has changed quite a bit in the last century or two, mostly depending on whether war was happening. 

Wikipedia tells me it is a little under 45,000 right now.

After arriving before dark on our train from Moscow, we hopped on the metro to the edge of St Petersburg, then took a bus the rest of the way to Kronstadt. When we got off the bus it was still dark, (sunrise in mid December in St Petersburg isn't until nearly 10am,) which was no fun at all.

We ended up walking almost all the way around the walls of the former fortress in an effort to get to the platz in the middle. During this walk we watched a bit of some kind of military ceremony. 

Everyone looked really young, so maybe it was a group of cadets?

We finally got to the platz, and found the reason people come to this island: to see the Naval Cathedral of St Nicholas. It's huge.

Walking into the cathedral was really impressive. It gets a lot of visitors, so there are plenty of head scarves available for women to borrow. There are also signs (in Russian, Chinese, and English,) reminding people to be quiet and be respectful.

From the outside you see several domes, but when you're inside it feels like one big ceiling with a bunch of rotundas, if that makes sense. The inside feels huge and airy, and the whole thing is decorated. There are a number of giant chandeliers, cleaning them must be tough.

We wandered around for a bit, deciding to leave just as a large group of Chinese tourists came in.

On another side of the platz is a war memorial, with an eternal flame. This particular memorial is built in a way that kinda protects the flame, as this area is nearly always windy. As we were there in early winter, this didn't feel so good. 

At that point we realized there was some sort of parade coming in front of the church. They were sailors, in uniform, some marching with flags, and some with instruments. Totally unexpected, and we had no idea what it was for, but it was really neat to watch.

After the parade we found a nearby cafe to eat breakfast, and warm up.

Before leaving Kronstadt we found the statue of Lenin and took a team photo.

The bus back toward St Petersburg was actually a marshrutka, which dropped us off at the end of one of the city metro lines. 

While on this marshrutka I realized I could see the big building that looks like the Shard, but I have no idea where one goes to get those Instagram worthy views of the building. As the marshrutka passed more closely to the building I could only see construction and dirt, which were not pretty, to say the least.

Instead of going to our accomodation we rode the metro closer to one of the university campuses in the city. Later research told me President Putin studied here! 

We didn't find a way into campus, but we could peek in through the fence around the area, it's quite pretty. We didn't walk the entire way around, so there is probably an open gate we didn't see.

While walking near the university I could see that the canal was frozen, so I wanted to take photos of me standing on the ice. Angela did the same, but Claire wasn't keen to do so. Since there is so much shipping through these waters, the frozen surface isn't smooth at all.

We crossed the water/ice on one of the many bridges of the city, watching some locals dancing in one area along the way. 

We kept going, ending up at the accomodation I'd booked for the night. It was easy enough to check in, though our room ended up being rather cold.

The next day, after checking out, I received a message from booking.com saying that the hotel hadn't checked us in, the site wanted to know if we'd shown up. I replied and said that yes, we had been there. I have a sneaking suspicion that the hotel was trying to get around declaring having us as guests by reporting us as no-shows. Anywho.

This was Angela's first trip to St Petersburg, but Claire and I gave her no choice in where we were going to eat dinner. We went to Namaste, one of my all time favourite Indian restaurants. Afterward we walked to a gelatto place for dessert, even though none of us actually had room in our bellies.

The next morning we packed up and checked out, after waking up pretty late. Since the sun comes up so late it's really easy to stay asleep later than usual. (And both Claire and Angela tend to sleep in much later than I do without an alarm.)

After packing up and checking out, we started walking. We walked along the canals, pointing our well known buildings to Angela. One of these was the Hermitage, which is probably one of the biggest and most famous museums in the world.

Claire finally said she was keen to take an ice photo, but that did not end well. The ice wasn't solid enough where she decided to step, she went into the water. We were able to get her out, but that accident definitely changed our plans for the rest of the day.

We walked immediately to a cafe, and found a way for Claire to put her jeans on a radiator to hopefully dry them out a bit. It took a while, but they were mostly dried out by the time we left. Angela or I had an extra pair of socks, so Claire's feet didn't have to stay so cold.

Eventually we went back outside, walking in the general direction of the Peter and Paul fortress. We actually walked around to the other side, and kept going. Not too far from the fortress is a large mosque. Someone told me it used to be one of the biggest in Europe.

It is in the same style as those I'd seen in Uzbekistan, which means the style of decoration was really eye catching. Blue mosaic tiling, absolutely beautiful.

After the mosque we walked back to the fortress. Claire and I already knew that the interior of the fortress wasn't all that interesting, but we thought Angela should see it. There is a church in the middle of the whole thing, many of the Romanov family members are entombed inside. We wanted to see the church, but when we got to the door we discovered it had an entrance fee, and we just weren't in the mood to pay.

It was basically dark by the time we left the fortress, so our last sight of the day was inside. It was an easy walk to the museum apartment of Sergei Kirov. Kirov was the leader of the communists in Leningrad, and a great friend of Stalin. He began his political career as a revolutionary, then rose through the ranks of the party relatively quickly. 

The apartment in which he lived is now a museum, all three of us were keen to see how one of the leaders lived. 

The apartment is huge. Leaders of the party most definitely didn't like like the masses. If I understand correctly, Kirov lived with just his wife in the flat, though there were multiple bedrooms and plenty of other spaces. Kirov liked to hunt, so some of his trophies were displayed. We also got to see an office, a library, and more. Impressive, and disgusting at the same time.

Kirov was shot and killed by a gunman in his office in the Smolny Institute in 1934. One of the items on display is a picture of the bullet hole in the back of his head. Hmmm. 

Though the official account doesn't say so, there is a strong suspicion that Stalin himself ordered the killing, which was then used as an excuse to start the great purge (of political leaders,) that followed.

After leavimg the museum we went back to Namaste for another Indian dinner. We also ordered food to go, so each of us would have yummy food for the next couple days in Moscow.

Our train back to Moscow was a double decker, which was awesome to show Angela. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the Russian train system is fantastic. Why don't other countries copy it?

russia: moscow: jewish museum of tolerance

Another edition of walkabout Wednesdays: this time a visit to the Jewish Museum of Tolerance in Moscow.

This museum is new, having only been open 5 years. Wikipedia tells me the building cost was equal to $50 million, in US dollars. Wikipedia also tells me President Putin donated a month of his salary toward the building cost.

Like most Jewish facilities and properties around the world, this one has a fair amount of security. There is a separate building on the edge of the property, they look through your bag and you walk through a metal detector just to enter the property.

There was another metal detector at the entry door of the building itself. The ticket desk and coat check were easy to find and sort out.

Every visit to the museum starts with a '4D' video. The video tells you about the entire history of Judaism and the Jewish people, in both English and Russian. At one point you're spritzed with water, and your seat moves. Even if religion is of no interest to you, the historical aspect of this introduction is pretty neat.

The museum itself has a lot to see. The displays are numbered, so you can go through everything in chronological order. About half the displays have English, but it's easy enough to figure out what is being shown.

There were a lot of photos and items of various aspects of Jewish history. Items relating to specific rituals, daily life, etc... The sections dealing with WW2 and after conveniently ignore the way the Soviet government wasn't particularly nice to Soviet Jews.

Though the displays were numbered, it wasn't always obvious to me where the next number was located, so I did get lost a couple times, oops.

Since there is so much information presented, and so many photos and items to see, the museum is pretty intense. By the time I left my head was tired, but I'm glad I visited.

russia: ryazan, and an ice cave in moscow

One of the 'perks' of working at my school is continuing training. Each year we have a specific day for a three hour training, and it is required that all the teachers from all three branches of the school attend. In order to make it possible for everyone to be there, the training is usually on a Sunday afternoon, as that is the only time no one is teaching. You can't have it during the week because evening classes go until 1915, and no one will stay for three hours if you don't start until 1930. You can't have it on Saturday, because the school has Saturday classes. I'm pretty sure it's obvious that none of us are thrilled to have to show up on a Sunday afternoon, but we do.

Since the training meant Claire, Angela, and I only had Saturday as an exploration day, we chose to do a day trip. I'm not sure how it came up, but Ryazan was our destination of the day.

Ryazan is about 125 miles southeast of Moscow, with half a million people living there. Like so many other Russian cities, Ryazan has a complicated history in regards to it's founding date. The first written mention of the city was in 1095, when it was known as Pereslavl. The kremlin might've been founded as early as 800, the area was attacked by a whole bunch of people during the next few centuries, including the Golden Horde of what is now Mongolia.

The Golden Horde did the most damage to Pereslavl, they completely destroyed it. So much so that the city itself was moved. The old location is now called Staraya Ryazan, and the new location was called Pereslavl-Ryazansky until 1776.

Though Ryazan was bombed by the Germans during WW2, after the war the city developed itself as an industrial, scientific, and military center. Most Americans would recognize the name of a scientist who came from Ryazan, even if they don't know where he came from. Pavlov, the guy who studied slobbering dogs ;)

We took an early morning train to Ryazan, arriving to a cold city under a bright blue sky. 

I was reminded almost immediately that touching anything metal in cold weather is not particularly fun, we ended up stepping into a cafe after only 30 minutes in the city, to warm up and prepare ourselves a bit better. We wanted to figure out specific places to visit while sitting inside instead of fumbling with our phones outside in the cold.

The first place we saw was a WW2 memorial, with an eternal flame. A group of cadets (based on how young they looked, I hope they're not fully fledged active duty military members just yet,) stood on guard. We ended up seeing the end of a changing of the guard, I wonder how often that happens?

Next we visited the family home of Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936,) the scientist who studied slobbering dogs. As we all know, when humans are hear the name of something they like, particularly a food, our saliva glands get active. Pavlov was the guy who figured this out. Obviously that wasn't all he studied, but that's all I knew about ahead of time. Pavlov won a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1904.

We had to take a tour to visit the home, of course the tour was in Russian. We didn't understand most of the details, but it wasn't hard to figure out what each room was, then take the photos we wanted. Like other house museums around the country, we were only able to look in each room from the doorway, we weren't able to go in.

Fun fact: Pavlov's dad was an Orthodox priest. The family had money, the house was pretty nice. Some of the kids in the family had their own rooms, which was pretty impressive for that time. (He had a lot of siblings, also typical of the time.)

We were also able to take a look around the backyard of the property, which was pretty big. There was a well back there, maybe you could still draw water with a bucket if you wanted to?

We walked through the pedestrian center of the city, lined with cafes and shops. A big statue of Lenin stood here, a city employee was busy shoveling snow as we took our team photo.

Our next sight was a random sculpture in a park. A giant mushroom. I'm not sure why it was there, or what it was supposed to represent (if anything,) but it was cute.

Continuing to walk we passed near the front of the circus, which had a neon orange blow up elephant in front of the building. When in Russia......

It didn't take long to get to the major sight of the city: the kremlin. We arrived at the entry point, which goes under a bright, dark yellow, bell tower. Very eye catching to say the least. I'd have loved to climb the bell tower, but that didn't seem to be an option.

Inside the walls of the kremlin (which did not go all the way around the property,) we found a couple museums, and a couple churches. The church most listed as a place to see was not open to visitors, I'm not sure if it is used at all. 

The other church was open, was a whole lot newer, and wasn't nearly as photogenic.

We chose not to go in any of the museums, as none of them sounded all that interesting. When I look back, we didn't stay in the kremlin all that long, it just wasn't very interesting. Or maybe we were cold, which was definitely on our minds all day long.

After leaving the kremlin we walked to the pedestrian area in the city center. We wanted to warm up again, it was easy to find a cafe in which to do so. After a little while we walked to a restaurant to eat a meal, then walked to the other train station in town to catch a train back to Moscow.

I'm not sure I want to come back to Ryazan itself, but after looking into the history a bit I'm okay with coming back to the area to see the ruins of Old Ryazan.

Since we had to go to training the next afternoon, I convinced the girls to get up early and do something fun before training. Zaryadye Park is the newest park in Moscow, one of the things to see/do in the park is a so-called Ice Cave. I'd heard about it on social media, and booked tickets for as soon as it opened Sunday morning.

We got there on time, and were ready to go at 10. To go inside you have to wear a hard hat, over a hair net. I was frustrated, of course, because none of the photos I'd seen online were with people wearing these things. Argh. In fact, those photos were of people with long, styled hair, wearing flowing dresses, and standing on or touching the ice. It turns out another rule is no touching the ice. Sigh. 

The 'cave' is kept at -5C, which at the time was warmer than it was outside. Since we arrived before anyone else, we had it to ourselves for most of our visit. (You buy tickets for a specific time period, about 20 minutes.)

You enter the 'cave' through an airlock, which keeps the temperature steady and cold in the cave. 

I'm not sure if it is always like we saw it, but wasn't all that icy. I don't know how it is made, but it looked as if the 'ice' was just the frost that builds up on air conditioner and refridgerator coils. The floor was a series of black rubber mats, sigh. 

I wonder if the 'ice' builds up over winter? 

Our entry fee was just 200 rubles, so it was fun to do, and cheap. If I have any friends come to visit, and they're keen to see this, I'm willing to go again, just for kicks. 

russia: moscow: the Kremlin and Bulgari jewels

Welcome to another walkabout Wednesday. 

Since there are a million and a half museums in Moscow, it makes sense that many of them have temporary exhibitions.

The Kremlin in central Moscow is a sight worth seeing all on its own, but but it is not just a bunch of churches and a small garden. 

It's a museum as well. 

I'm not sure when I heard about it, but I knew there was a temporary exhibition by Bulgari. 

The exhibit was showing lots of different pieces of jewelry in a couple rooms of different buildings in the Kremlin.

To see the jewels, I had to pay the regular entrance fee to the Kremlin, but nothing extra. I followed the signs, the exhibit wasn't hard to find.

Basically this post is the chance to show pictures of shiny sparkly colourful things.

I'm not a fan of the snake pieces, though I can appreciate the artistry involved in their making.

Another thing I can appreciate: the number of people allowed in each of the rooms at any given time was regulated, so it never got too crowded. 

Granted, it was a Wednesday afternoon so I don't think it ever would've gotten that crowded, but on weekends the regulation is probably awesome.