russia: leningrad on its birthday

When we came back from Suzdal, Tyra and I went back to my flat where she picked up her full pack, then we went straight to another train station in Moscow. I made sure she got on the right night train to St Petersburg, and said I'd see her there the next weekend.

As I said in the previous post, Tyra put a lot of thought into the scheduling of her Russian trip. She ended up spending about a week in Moscow and the surrounding area, then another week in St Petersburg and the surrounding area. 

She stayed with me in Moscow, then went up to St Petersburg. Claire and I arranged to meet up with Tyra for her last weekend in the country. It is never a bad weekend if I'm going up to St Petersburg.

After running to catch our train, we arrived in St Petersburg on time, bright and early at 0450. We'd already arranged to meet up with Tyra around 0630, so we killed time in the train station until then. Tyra's hostel wasn't far from the train station, I used the stairwell of her building to change clothes.

Claire and I left our bags with Tyra's stuff, then all three of us headed to a metro station. We rode the metro to another train station and caught an express train to start a day trip. Our destination was Peterhof.

The train station we pulled into was quite nice, though it didn't look like it got very much traffic. We left the station and started walking, heading into a park straightaway. We were following the crowds, it wasn't hard to figure out where to go.

In the middle of a park was a pond, with a church on the other side of the pond. 

The church was a listed sight in town, but it was completely closed for renovation. Unfortunately it was closed AND completely covered with scaffolding and other stuff, so there was no possibility for a decent photo. Argh.

We walked through the gates to the upper gardens of Peterhof Palace, there was no entry fee to this section of the gardens. Even though we thought we'd arrived fairly early in the morning, there were already plenty of people wandering around, most of them trying to take the perfect instagram photo. The area looked recently landscaped, the flowers were quite pretty.

After wandering a bit, we found the ticket machines. Trust me when I say Peterhof is not a cheap place to visit. We bought tickets to the lower gardens, which were 900 rubles!! That's more than I've paid for anything else I've seen in Russia. We decided to wait on anything else, and see how the day went.

The gardens were crowded, even at that hour of the morning. We started our visit by looking down at the gardens from the patio area on the back side of the palace. There is a waterfall type of fountain here, with a number of layers. 

Quite a few people were waiting around, not moving on, so we decided to wait too.

The wait was worth it. At some point the fountain water started flowing, and we realized the water was flowing in time to music. Pretty cool. We didn't go in the fountain museum, which had been one of the other options on the ticket machine. After a while, we started walking again, aimlessly wandering and hoping we'd see the whole gardens.

We ended up wandering for a few hours. Throughout the gardens there are fountains, some big and some small. 

There are statues too, some bigger than others. There are plenty of trails, none of which were too crowded. The back side of the gardens leads onto a waterway, which was pretty.

We thought about getting food at one of the cafes/food points in the gardens, but the prices were way higher than we wanted to pay.

Instead of paying for food, we chose to pay for a ticket to ride the hydrofoil back to the center of St Petersburg. I think the ride was about 30 minutes, but I'm not sure since I fell asleep. 

Tyra and Claire were kind enough to remind me that I look amazing when I'm sleeping by taking selfies with me. Sigh ;)

The boat dropped us off really close to the Hermitage, which was a great location. From there we walked through the platz in front of the Hermitage, which is normally a great place for people watching. On this particular Saturday a stage was being set up for a concert, which meant the platz was filled with temporary construction.

The sun made it feel like it was still just mid or early afternoon, but our watches said it was a little later than that. We wandered for a little bit, just soaking up the atmosphere of the city. Not only was the weather fantastic, but the city was celebrating it's birthday, so there were people everywhere.

As we walked we accidentally walked into an outdoor exhibit of the transportation museum. It was neat to see the old buses and trams, even if they were somewhat overrun by kids and parents. I love old school stuff.

We went to our favourite restaurant in the city (Namaste,) for dinner, and walked out totally stuffed. Even though we were stuffed we went for the second half of our eating habits in St Petersburg by going to a specific cafe for gelato.

From there we walked back to Tyra's hostel to pick up our bags. At that point we looked at our pedometers and realized we had walked quite a bit that day. It was all worth it, but we could also feel the sunburns from being out in the direct sun all day.

It took Claire and I a while to find the entry to our hostel, but once we were inside, we crashed fast. I'm pretty sure I slept like a rock that night.

The next morning we were up slowly, as usual. We'd arranged to meet up with Tyra again, so we packed up and checked out, left our bags behind, then went to the metro. We found Tyra again at the House of Soviets. Since it was the city birthday weekend, there was a whole lot of decoration all over the platz in front of the building.

The statue of Lenin was surrounded by the decorations and festival stuff, so we weren't able to get close. The fountain was big and actually turned on, yippee!! I love fountains, especially when they run in time to music, as this one did for a little while.

We watched people and took in the fun, then started walking. We didn't have to go far to get to one of the most moving WW2 memorials I've ever seen. This one was in the middle of a big traffic circle, and honoured the city as it fought through just short of three years of seige during the war. For nearly 1000 days, the citizens struggled, but they won. 

The monument is a nearly completed circle, with an obelisk off to one side.

There was a museum under the street as well, which was also fantastic. Surprisingly, the entry fee for foreigners was less than that for Russians, I've never seen anything like that before. The museum had photos and information and items, all related to Soviet life, with the war being the main focus. (Of course.)

After leaving the museum we walked to a church. This one was unusual on the outside, in that it was dark pink, with thin white vertical stripes. 

The inside wasn't as neat as the outside, but not every church can be amazing.

The metro took us back to the city center, then we walked to St Isaacs. Claire had seen it before, but this time we wanted to go up to the walkway around the rotunda, hoping to see the views over the city. With the amazing weather, we couldn't resist. The views were indeed really nice, but we didn't love all the people trying to take selfies. The walkway around the rotunda is big enough for 1.5 people, so if someone is taking a photo, or having a photo taken, there isn't enough room for people to go around. 

From there we went back to our hostel to pick up our packs, then head to dinner. We went back to the same place as the night before, because we love it that much. We also got some of their dishes to go, we really do love it that much.

We ate gelato on the way to the train station, where we found souvenirs for the upcoming World Cup tournament. As usual, we boarded on time, departed on time, and arrived back in Moscow on time.

I will always be happy to return to St Petersburg.

russia: suzdal

When cousin Tyra planned her Russian trip, she also planned around weekends, and the chance to see more than Moscow. She actually read her guidebook ahead of time (something I really ought to do more often,) and figured out an itinerary that was both relaxing and ambitious. (I hope that makes sense.) Claire and I convinced her that we could all travel together, and go to a town called Suzdal.

Around Moscow is a series of towns sometimes referred to as the Golden Circle. Most of them are cute, and at one point were geopolitically strong, or important in the history of Russia in some way. 

Most of them have at least a little of the architectural styles from when they came into existance, or from their heyday in importance.

Suzdal is one of these Golden Circle towns, and is probably one of the most visited of the entire circle. Quite often Suzdal is visited over the same weekend as nearby Vladimir, but we opted to make it a full weekend.

Suzdal is one of the oldest Russian towns, it's history dates back to at least 1024. Wikipedia tells me Suzdal functioned as a capital city when Moscow was 'a cluster of cowsheds.' As things go with history at that time, alliances changed, Mongols came through and overran everyone, Moscow grew in power, etc...

The reason Suzdal is so popular to visitors is because it is cute. It was a religious center at one point in history, so there were heaps of churches, many of which still stand. There is no direct connection by public transport from Moscow, so you have to make an effort to get there.

The lack of a direct connection has also 'saved' the city from modern urbanization. The current population is just 10,000 people, it looks and feels like a small town. 

I'd be willing to guess than many of the current citizens are involved in tourism in some way, as there doesn't seem to be much else going on there.

To get to Suzdal we had to get up early, and catch a train to Vladimir. Then we walked across the street, and caught a bus for another hour. The bus station in Suzdal is on the edge of town, so the bus that brings you there then asks for another 17 rubles to bring you to the city center. We paid because we didn't know any better, but if we'd known, we would've gotten out and walked. Oh well.

We hopped off the bus near the Lenin statue, thereby making us feel as if we'd already checked one sight off the list. While standing there I called the contact number of our accomodation to say we had arrived in town, and would soon be ready to check in.

I typed the address into Google maps, and we started walking. When we got to the address there was nothing there that looked remotely like accomodation. I called the lady again, she asked me to describe where we were. I tried, but all we could see were houses, there was absolutely nothing unique.

The lady on the phone sent a taxi to pick us up and bring us to the right place. It turned out Google maps doesn't recognize the address as the right place. Obviously this has happened before, so I'm not sure why the problem hasn't been fixed. She originally asked if we had the right address, of course I said yes because it was listed on the booking. She didn't ever send any other way for us to know the right place to go. Argh.

That being said, the flat itself was lovely, all three of us would've been happy to live in such a flat. As has become our habit, we relaxed for a bit too long, but oh well.

We left the flat and started walking. We could see the kremlin in the distance, across a field and river. Really photogenic, especially with the gray clouds rolling through. The first sight we entered was a convent, though in Russian the name is monastery for women. The walls around the property (white,) were impressive, but the interior of the main church was not.

Our next sight was also a monastery, one dedicated to St Euthymius. (This would not be a popular name, then or now.) The monastery was much more impressive than the name. 

To get there we crossed a wooden pedestrian bridge over a small river, then went up a small hill. The walls of this monastery were red brick, and had a few towers.

Entering the monastery was easy, though we had to pay an entrance fee. Argh. We were able to go up to the second level of the walls, which is something I always love to do. We chose not to get too close to the beehives in the middle of the area, hee hee.

We walked past a beautiful clock tower, taking a few moments to appreciate the shape of the tower. It wasn't just a 'single' tower, it was kindof long, if that makes sense. 

When we walked out of the church we were treated to a 'concert' of sorts by the bells. Awesome.

The interior of this church was nice, but a good portion of it was under renovation. I loved the frescoes on the walls and ceiling we could see. While in the church there was a mini concert by some of the monks, their voices were beautiful, and the harmonies were lovely.

At the back side of the monastery one of the buildings had been turned into a small museum. There were pictures of Stalin and Lenin in what used to be the hospital of the monastery! There were also other pictures of life back in the day.

After the museum we left the monastery, just in time for the rain to start. Rain is my least appreciated type of weather, it is sooo annoying. Even if you have a good umbrella, rain coat, and hat, you're going to get wet. Plus rain makes puddles on sidewalks, and creates mud.

We next went inside the walls of another monastery, though there wasn't much inside. We could've paid to go up the bell tower of this one, but we didn't think the skyline of Suzdal would be worth seeing from up high.

This monastery was really close to the statue of Lenin, so we went back there to take photos. 

There was also a supermarket nearby, which provided us with snacks we really wanted at that point.

More walking brought us all the way to the kremlin. This one was surrounded by white walls, and didn't seem very big. The entry fee into the kremlin was cheaper than that of the monastery we'd seen earlier.

Inside the kremlin we visited a church, and a museum. Some of the frescoes in the church had been redone recently, others looked centuries old. I think I preferred the older scenes. 

The museum had exhibits of the history of the area, and was the perfect size; not too big, not too small. There were also displays including religious artifacts like crosses and icons.

In the fields surrounding the kremlin was a small wooden church. It wasn't open, but was still really really photogenic. We weren't the only people wanting to take photos, and for once I was able to be patient. Not only was the church photogenic, the fields were filled with blooming flowers, which made it even better. While tromping around the field I stepped on stinging nettle, which was not fun. 

Claire found some leaves of a nearby plant that took away almost all of the sting. How have I never known about this plant before? Despite getting a lot of tourists throughout the year, Suzdal does not have a huge restaurant scene. The three of us found a place, but didn't love it.

The next morning we took our time getting moving, another bad habit we've developed. When we left the flat we went to the same viewpoint of the kremlin behind the fields. Even though the view was the same as the day before, it was still pretty.

We walked in a different direction, part of the route was through a residential section of town. The houses were old, and made of wood.

Our first sight of the day was a museum dedicated to wooden architecture, this was the cheapest entry fee of the entire visit, though I liked it better than the other places we visited. The museum was an open air reserve, so we were able to wander all over. We saw another wooden church, a couple windmills, a couple homes, and more. All of them very picturesque, and we learned a bit about life in previous centuries.

After leaving this museum, we started walking in the general direction of the bus station. This walk took us over a bridge, and through another residential section of town. All three of us loved the windows on the wooden houses, they were really pretty.

We caught the next bus back to Vladimir. Once we got there, we had a couple hours to kill before our train to Moscow was scheduled to leave, so we decided to explore just a little. We ended up walking up the hill and seeing a church inside white walls. Very pretty, and made us interested in spending a full weekend in Vladimir at some time in the future.

Our train back to Moscow departed on time, and arrived on time, yay. I might return to Suzdal another time, but if I do, it will be in another season, maybe in winter?

russia: abramtsevo

As long as I live in Russia I want to continue exploring the country, especially the areas near where I'm living. I asked my traveling girls who was up for a day trip to Abramtsevo, Claire and Caroline were happy to come along.

We met on a metro platform and made our way up to the commuter train area of one of the main train stations in Moscow. When we bought our tickets we double and triple checked to make sure they were round trip as we didn't want to make the same mistake we'd made when going to Sergiev Posad.

Our electrichka train arrived about 90 minutes later at Abramtsevo. There is no town here, it's just an old estate that later became an artists colony, and is now an open air museum reserve. The stopping point for the train was more of a platform than a station.

The train platform is basically in the middle of nowhere, it wasn't immediately obvious how to get to the museum area. Fortunately we found a couple signs with maps geared toward visitors, showing us where to go. (Thank goodness, as Google maps wasn't at all helpful either.)

We followed the path through the trees, it was lovely. At one point we heard piped in elevator music, which seemed a bit odd and very out of place. At another point we heard a woodpecker, which was a lot neater to hear.

We crossed water, and noticed an area of the water that was FULL of tadpoles. I've never seen that many all in one place at one time. Squirming around, ick.

Not too much later we got to the entry gates of Abramtsevo. Figuring out which entry ticket to buy wasn't completely straightforward. There was no ticket that covered everything, at least not so far as we could tell. 

One option allowed us onto the property, but nothing else. Another allowed us into the grand house if we joined a tour. A third allowed us into five buildings on the property, but not the grand house. Another option was a photography ticket, if we wanted to take photos inside. Since the tour of the grand house was in russian, we opted to skip that, and just look into five buildings. We also opted not to buy the photography ticket.

Have I ever mentioned how much I dislike extra tickets for photography permission? It's just an excuse to charge more money, why not just put it in the basic ticket and add another 5-10% to the entry fee? 

In some Asian countries they do this and the only people checked to see if they have the extra photography ticket are obvious foreigners, argh.

The first building we entered had originally been the kitchen of the main house. I don't remember why it was separate. The next building had a display of art, most of which was under glass/plastic covers, standing on columns. Even so, the docent in this building asked us to put our purses in lockers so we didn't accidentally knock anything over. (Sometimes I think Russians assume that any foreigner is an idiot.)

Just outside this building was a bench, covered in mosaic design. Very very pretty. Unfortunately we couldn't sit on the bench, as the whole thing was surrounded by a glass case. I suppose that's one way to protect it, but it was originally there so people could sit and enjoy the view; I wish we could've done the same.

We walked down a hill, enjoying the views back up the hill toward the main house. At the bottom of the hill was a big pond, which was still very quiet, and free of other visitors. Obviously, the perfect place to take a team photo. We noticed that one of the trees around the pond had been chewed on by a beaver, to the point that it was getting close to falling over. 

I didn't see other evidence of a beaver, but there must have been something.

After a bit we went back up the hill, to what had originally been a bathhouse for the estate. I would never have guessed this, based on how it was decorated, but the decor was quite nice. There was a lot of carved wood inside, as well as around the gable on the roof. Beautiful artisanship. I think it was all supposed to be typical middle class decoration?

The next building we saw wasn't anything that had been used regularly, at least not that we could tell. 

Called the house on chicken legs, it was a small building on stilts. It didn't really look like chicken legs, but we could see where the name had come from. It wasn't open, and was surrounded by a fence. I'm not sure what the purpose was for this building, if there even was one.

Not far from the house on chicken legs was a church. Since the estate was quite old, it wasn't surprising that a church was on the property. During Communist times I imagine the church wasn't used for religious purposes, but I don't know. 

They gave us an information sheet telling information on each painting in the iconostasis, but it was too much for me to read all at once.

After the church, we realized we'd seen everything there was to see on the property, except the main house. We sat on a bench for a while, having a snack and appreciating being out in nature. On the way out we spotted a small shop selling souvenirs, which was the perfect place to buy a magnet.

We exited the property and walked down the street, but didn't find anything other than a hotel.

I can't imagine booking a room in this hotel, as there was nothing in the area other than this museum reserve. Oh well.

We walked back down the elevator music path back to the train platform, another train came along within 20 minutes. You can't get better than Russian public transport for day trips :)

russia: victory day in Moscow

8 May 1945 is an important day in history. Many countries consider this to be VE day, that is, victory in Europe day. This is the day WW2 officially ended in Europe, when the Nazis signed a surrender document in the evening. (Though I think there was a little fighting for the next couple days until everyone got the official memo.)

Russia celebrates the next day, on 9 May. This is because Stalin made the announcement to the country on 9 May. Technically the document was signed after midnight Soviet time, so I suppose 9 May is the correct date in Russian history.

For many Russians, the first two weeks of May are holidays, due to the bigger number of national/official holidays. My school had just the first week of May off, so I was in Moscow when 9 May rolled around. It was a Wednesday, which is sortof annoying as far as holidays go, it meant we just got the one day off, in the middle of the week.

Claire and Caroline and I decided to get together, to watch an iconic event in Moscow, a military parade of tanks!! Claire happens to live in a flat that has a fantastic view of part of the parade route, Caroline and I were more than happy to hang out in her flat for a few hours.

We were all up early, because we were afraid the metro stations would completely close during the parade, I think we were at Claire's flat more than an hour before the parade started. I think the parade officially starts somewhere near Red Square, then keeps going heading out of the city.

If you're one of the high and mighty people of the city, or are friends with those people, you might be lucky enough to score a ticket to watch the event in Red Square. The parade in Red Square also involves soldiers, which has to be neat to watch. They don't follow the entire tank route, that would take them all day. I doubt I'm ever going to know the right people in order to get that ticket, but I can dream.

Once the tanks started rolling I was surprised at how fast they moved. There were different styles and colours of tanks, I have no idea what the technical differences are. Some of the soldiers were visible, some were not. Those who were visible smiled and occasionally waved at the crowd. It's a VERY patriotic event, to say the least.

From Claire's balcony we watched the whole thing, it was great not to be smushed by the crowds of people lined up on the street. Still, if that had been my only option for watching, I probably would've done it. 

After people started clearing out we cooked breakfast. Good food, and a way to wait until pedestrian and vehicular traffic were back to normal. Then we went out, heading to Victory Park. The metro station there was insanely crowded, it wasn't easy to figure out how to get out and up to street level. (This happens to be the deepest metro station in the city, and some entrances were designated entry or exit only.)

We got up to street level near the Victory Arch, which resembles the arc de triomphe in Paris. Not surprisingly, there were decorations put up for the holiday, and gabillions of people trying to take photos.

The park was going to host a big fireworks display, which I'd thought would be fun to join. As soon as I saw the massive numbers of people already there, (5+ hours early!) I knew I would not enjoy myself.

After people watching for a little while all three of us went home. Figuring out which entrance we needed to get into the metro station was just as crazy as figuring out which exit we'd needed earlier in the day. Madness I tell you, we were out with every Muscovite, and visitor to the city. 

I got lucky that night when I realized the view from the window of my bedroom showed me the entire fireworks show, YAHOO!! It didn't last long, only 10 minutes or so. In that sense, I was glad we hadn't stayed in the park. I got my own private show instead, a perfect way to end the day.

russia: rostov on don

I had no major reason for choosing Rostov on Don as our last city for this trip other than I knew a couple people who had been there previously. It was also going to be one of the host cities for the upcoming World Cup football tournament, so hey, why not?

Rostov on Don (this Rostov is different from Rostov Veliky in both geographic location and the city is on the banks of the Don River,) doesn't have a specific point in history when it was established, at least not that I can find. 

It seems the area was used to control trade between Turkey and the empire, and was built up over time. The current city seems to be an amalgamation of a few villages/towns/a fortress in the area.

We took a night train from Volgograd, arriving in Rostov in the morning, right on time. The train station in Rostov wasn't anything spectacular, much to my disappointment.

We'd booked accomodation in the city center, so we started walking. The weather was good, though we were sweating while carrying our packs. It wasn't the best of times for Google maps to stop working, whoops.

The entrance was around the back of the building, which wasn't immediately obvious. Thankfully I've lived in Russia long enough to think that might be the case.

It was easy to check in, we only had to wait about 20 minutes for our room to be ready. We used the time to get ourselves sorted, and charge electronic gadgets. Since Rostov on Don doesn't have any well known sights, we took some time to go through the guidebook suggestions to figure out a plan for the day.

We started walking, and kept going for quite a while. We saw a Lenin statue along the way, de rigeur for a Russian city. Most of our path was heading slightly up, plus the sun and heat made us sweat like nobody's business. We were following a trail on a travel app, which didn't keep us on main roads. At a couple points we weren't sure if we were going in the right direction, and we got cranky from dehydration.

Finally we got to the end of the walking, the top of the hill. Finally we got to our first intended sight of the day: a church/monastery. 

A cute little blue and white gate stood open, there was no entry fee. The first building we saw was the main church, but it wasn't open. It looked quite new, I wonder what the decoration was like inside.

I was able to go into a small church, at the back of the property; it was painted blue and people were praying inside. I got the feeling this wasn't a touristy monastery, so it was nice to 'hear' the silence. Plus we enjoyed the breeze, and the views of this part of the city.

On our way back toward the city center we crossed a rickety bridge over a creek, said hello to a dog, guzzled water ate an ice cream, etc... I don't think water has ever tasted that good, we really needed it.

During this part of the walk we came to a huge traffic circle with a park of sorts in the middle. This park was covered with decorations for two important events: Victory Day, which takes place on 9 May every year in Russia, and the World Cup football tournament.

I took photos of both sets of decorations, it was an adventure figuring out how to cross traffic both ways, as there were no zebra crossings that we could see.

Dinner was a bit of a challenge that night. We ended up settling for a vegetarian something or another, which wasn't all that great. Hmmm.

After dinner we walked more along the pedestrian section of Pushkin street. The city has done a really nice job of making the middle of the street walker friendly, with statues and benches galore. 

The part we walked had a 'lantern' of sorts with pictures that were lit up for the evening, which I loved.

There were a couple stops with musicians playing, and food like cotton candy being sold. I also really liked the church we came to, though I can't for the life of me remember the name.

The next morning our first goal was to find a grocery store to get breakfast food. That proved to be harder to do than we expected. Proper grocery stores aren't always everywhere in a city center.

After breakfast we started our day by repeating how we had finished the evening before: walking along the pedestrian part of Pushkin street. Since we were now in daylight, we saw a bunch more statues, sculptures and benches. At the very end of the street was a small platz with a series of stars, designed to look like a tunnel of stars. I used them to practice hair flipping for photos, hee hee.

We followed streets according to nothing in particular, eventually getting to what was labeled as a monument to veterinarians. Cute.

We kept going, heading back toward the city center along a different street. (Why repeat a street if you don't need to?)

On this other street we found a park with a small war memorial, and a big sculpture of a crocodile. It was also filled with shade, which felt really good at that point. As we got closer to the main areas of the city we saw more and more decorations for 9 May, which was coming in less than a week. The corner of another park was covered in the decorations, I loved the colour.

One of the sights listed in the guidebook was a really really tall memorial. It is an obelisk of sorts, with a different shape at the top. There is also a statue of a woman up there. The whole thing is dedicated to the liberators of the city. (In WW2, I imagine.) We weren't able to get close to the obelisk, as the platz in which it was located was being set up with a stage for the upcoming holiday.

We kept going, eventually at a small park with a statue of Empress Catherine the Great in front of a church. Impressive statue. 

Somewhere around now, we stopped at a bakery, it was surprisingly good. Or maybe I just have low standards for Russian bakeries.

We were really close to our hostel when we found another big memorial. It is dedicated to the soldiers of the 1^st cavalry unit, I don't remember the years listed. The reproductive organs of the horse are interesting, leading to a nickname from locals, something about eggs.

This platz was also covered on one side with decorations for 9 May. I know I keep mentioning these, but it is a HUGE holiday, celebrated in every town in the country, often with a military parade of some type.

We went under the street here, and found a series of mosaic decorations on the walls, really neat to see. If I understand correctly, these were supported by the government, so they show different aspects of Soviet life. Men and women were shown equally, except that the women were often wearing high heels. Who picks fruit from trees while wearing heels???

We kept going, back at street level. We found the park where Lenin stands, because you're not in a Russian town if you haven't seen the man at least once. 

From this statue we could see a church down another street, so that's where we went next.

Unfortunately, the church was closed for renovation, so we weren't able to go inside. I wonder when the renovations will be finished. Either way, the shiny big dome was eye catching. We picked up sushi for dinner, then headed home.

The next morning we decided to walk in a new direction, toward a bridge going over the river on which the town is located. As we got close to the bridge we could see it was blocked off by policemen. Argh.  

I don't speak nearly enough Russian to be able to ask the question why, then understand the answer.  We could also see crowds gathering down by the water, though we didn't know what was happening.

A bit of searching online led us to information that some sort of flotilla and flyover was going to happen, something about the birthday of a particular military unit. We staked out our places too, and waited. And waited and waited and waited. I got sunburnt, Bo took shelter.

The event itself wasn't very impressive, at least not the flotilla. The flyover was cool though, a few helicopters had flags, and there were some people jumping out of planes. Neat. The whole thing didn't last long, we definitely waited longer. Still, I'm glad we got to see it. Random fun experiences while traveling.

When the crowd started clearing out we realized police were letting people walk across the bridge again, so that's where we went. We ended up walking less than halfway across the bridge, it was really windy. The view down the river was nice, but I felt like I was going to be blown off the bridge. 

We took the stairs back down, all the way to the embankment, and walked along there for a bit. The city of Rostov on Don did a good job in building the embankment, making it a nice place to take a walk. Good shade, flat walking area, etc... Of course there were vendors with the usual variety of cheap plastic toys, cotton candy, and more.

We looked at our watches and realized we needed to get moving, so we went back to the stairs, back up toward the start of the bridge.

Instead of crossing the bridge we went into town, back to the place we'd gotten sushi the night before. This time we got our order to go, then walked back to our hostel.

We grabbed our bags and walked to the train station, enjoying the sunset along the way. Not surprisingly, our train boarded and departed on time.

While I don't feel the need to go back to Rostov on Don, I've learned never say never.