russia: pskov, pechory and izborsk

Another cute sounding town in the guidebook is named Pskov. For English speakers like me it is a strange name, in that it only has one vowel, but it is still easy to pronounce. Anywho. Pskov is the capital of Pskov oblast, and is just 30 kilometers from the Russian border with Estonia.

Pskov is considered one of the oldest cities in Russia, it was probably established in 903. Well, that's not really when it was established, but that is when a prince from Kyiv married a local named Olga. It was originally called Pleskov, (the English name was Plescow.) 

Like so many other towns in Russia, it was originally a republic of its own, and sortof functioned as one gateway to Europe for Russia.

Pskov has well defined history from World War 1, as it was in a railroad car sitting in Pskov where Tsar Nicholas signed the paper announcing his abdication in March of 1917. Due to its location, the city and state have been the sight of a lot of fighting through history. Several countries have come in and ruled the area for a time, including Estonia and Germany.

Our visit started when our night train from Moscow arrived on time, at 0805 Saturday. 

It was easy to walk through the station, (and look up to see if there was one of the grand ceilings I love so much,) get a small cup of hot chocolate, then walk to the appartment accomodation I had booked.

After hanging out in the flat for a bit, we started walking. The weather was fantastic, completely sunny and chilly. What we didn't love was the the remains of the slush and ice that covered a lot of sidewalks. It wasn't easy to walk at times, there was a lot of sliding. We considered ourselved lucky in that we didn't fall. 

Our first sight was a war memorial in the middle of a traffic circle. There was a column in the middle, with a gold, double headed eagle on top. On each of the four corners of the platz was a four sided, shorter column. Each side of those had a depiction of some part of the military history of the area.

From there we crossed the street and found a WW2 war memorial. This one included an eternal flame, (going very strongly,) fake flowers, and a large sculpture making me think of long guns.

Moving along, we came to an old fortress wall. We followed it and came to a tower from which defenders would've tried to protect the city, back in the day. This particular tower was right on the river, and there was a special viewing platform nearby. The viewing platform was not a safe place during our weekend, it was basically a small skating rink.

We crossed the river by walking over a bridge, and followed another small street. This one took us to a monastery, only half active now. The main church of this monastery is now a museum, with an entry fee. 

It is supposed to have very nice frescoes inside, but it was rather small, so we opted to skip going inside. Maybe another time.

There was a small duck pond in the corner of the grounds, it was fun to watch for a few minutes.

We left the monastery and soon found ourselves at another church, this one named for Alexander Nevsky. While it was an Orthodox church, it didn't look quite like they normally do. This one was brick on the outside, with blue onion domes. The interior was different too. The chandelier was more of a double chandelier, with one hanging inside another, and the iconostasis up front was very very different from what I'm used to seeing.

Our next stop was a tea shop. It wasn't an intentional stop, but when we walked past it on the street I peeked through the window and was very intrigued. I didn't buy anything, though I was sorely tempted. After three weeks in Sri Lanka over the new year, the last thing I need to be buying is tea.

We were about to cross a different bridge, back over the river when I saw an interesting looking bell tower, right on the banks of the river. There was a church too, and the view over the river was great. 

We sat on a bench for a while and soaked up sun, which felt amazing. 6C and sunny, how awesome!!

we walked across the bridge, and saw a couple people crossing the river by walking on the ice. It looked solid, but we also knew it was 6C that day, so we didn't know how solid it actually was at that point. I would've loved to walk on the ice, but better safe than sorry.

Back on the first side of the river we came to the Pskov Kremlin, also called the Krom. I'm not sure why some towns have different names for their kremlins. 

Since Pskov was the sight of soooo much fighting over the years, the kremlin had to be really strong. Wikipedia told me there were a huge number of seiges (26!!) in just the 15^th century alone. People really wanted to claim this part of the world.

As we went through the first set of walls, we could see ruins, though I don't know of what. As we went through the second set of walls (at one point there were 5 walls!) we couldn't help but see the church in the middle of the whole area. Trinity Cathedral looks really new, I'm sure it has been painted recently. 

The bell tower stands separately, I don't know if it is possible to climb.

We went into the church, the sanctuary of which was on the second floor. The iconostasis was really really tall, and made your head naturally look up. The ceiling had some frescoes, but they were older, and dirty. They were so dirty I thought they were covered in netting. I'm the crazy person that suddenly craved a wet wipe, to try to clean them off. (Yes, I'm fully aware that wet wipes are not the best way to clean up paintings.) After a few minutes of wandering around, we walked back out.

Not far from the kremlin was Pskov State University. In front of the main university building was a statue of our favourite Soviet, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Of course we took a team photo.

About a block away from the statue of Lenin, was a museum of an apartment in which Lenin lived for a whopping three months. It seems that everywhere he lived in the former Soviet Union is now a museum. This one had a couple rooms that seemed to be the same as they were back when he lived there, but the other rooms (it was a big flat,) were filled with photos and information and other items of his life.
One of the rooms also had items from his wife, I liked those just as much as items from Lenin.

After seeing the flat museum, we were hungry for real food. We ended up walking about 25 minutes, ending up at a cafe with decent reviews online. Our experience was mixed. One item was undercooked and cold, (since it was meat, this was particularly alarming,) and the desserts we wanted had sold out. Other food was okay, and presented well.

A grocery store visit on the way home took care of any additional hunger :)

The next morning our 'landlady' came when we asked her to come, at 0830. We were proud of ourselves for getting everything together and out the door that early. 

We walked back in the direction of the train station, which was across a park from the bus station.

At the bus station I bought our tickets to a town called Pechory. About 75 minutes later, we got off the bus at a very small bus station in Pechory, only two or three kilometers from the border with Estonia.

Pechory is mostly known for its monastery. The monastery has several names, but they all seem to be some version of Pskov Pechersky Dormition Monastery. It is one of the few monasteries in Russia that have never been closed since they were first opened. Somehow, they escaped the rule of the Soviets.

Our first stop was actually the WW2 memorial, since we'd passed in on the way into town. From there we found the statue of Lenin and took our normal team photo.

Then we made our way toward the monastery. It was established in the 15^th century, when religious hermits settled in 'caves' where you can now see by joining a tour.

Entry is free, to get inside you walk through a gate at the bottom of a bell tower. There was a big, newer church on the higher level of the monastery, but when we got close we could hear the service taking place inside. We walked down the hill, deciding to try again at the end of our visit.

When we got to the bottom of the hill we were stunned by the view of the full monastery. It's not big or grand, but the colours of all the buildings are gorgeous. There was a yellow building, a red building, a white building, another bell tower, and more. The onion domes were particularly fancy, and were the main part of several of our photos.

We watched a crowd gather at a doorway, and figured that must be where you enter the caves area. We should've joined that group, as it turned out that we had no idea when another tour would take place. Oh well, it's a reason for us to come back another time.

We visited a smaller church at the bottom of the hill, the one in the yellow building with fancy onion domes. The inside was not at all impressive, but we didn't care. The outside more than made up for it.

After wandering around the area at the bottom of the hill for at least 30 minutes, we came back up the hill just as the service in the big church was letting out. We were able to go inside and look at the ceiling for a few minutes. The entire ceiling was painted, it was beautiful. I wish I'd taken a few photos.

After leaving the church, we walked back out of the bell tower gate, and stopped at one of the stalls across the way. We each wanted a magnet from the town.

From there it was back to the bus station, where we bought tickets for the next bus. We had to wait about an hour, inside a bus station that hadn't been redecorated since it was first built, probably in the 80s.

The bus dropped us off in our second town of the day, called Izborsk. Another tiny town, this one is mostly known for its fortress. Walking through the town of Izborsk was difficult, as the road had not been plowed, at all. 

The tires of cars had gone through the same paths over and over again, so there were ruts in the ice, they'd gone clear of ice. The sidewalks were still covered in ice and snow and slush, so there was no really good place to walk. Each time we tried to walk on the road, in the dry ruts, a car would come along. Sigh.

We made our way to the fortress which had an obvious entrance. After paying the fee (the same for locals and foreigners, woo hoo!) we were able to climb stairs to take us to the second level of the walls. Great views over the entire area, I wish the walkway had gone all the way around the fortress.

After coming back down a different set of stairs, we walked through the entire center area of the fortress. The bastions were still standing, we were able to go in most of them. My favourite was round, with 'windows' allowing light into the middle.

As we circled back around toward the entry gate we were walking in the shade, and on ice. It was completely slick, I'm amazed I didn't fall and slide every which way.

Just before leaving the fortress we walked into the church sitting in the middle. It was small, with green onion domes. The interior looked and felt even smaller than the outside made me think it would be. It took us all of a minute to see the entire church.

From there we walked back in the direction of the bus stop. It took us a while, since we were walking slightly uphill, and choosing between ice, slush, and snow.

It was easy to hang out at the bus station and wait for the next bus back to Pskov. When we got back we hopped off the bus a bit before the bus station, and stepped into a cafe for a warm drink.

After eating and drinking, we ended up back at the train station, where we didn't have to wait long before boarding our train.

The next morning we arrived back in Moscow, on time as expected. Another successful weekend. I'd happily return to this area of the country, as there are several smaller towns in the area that sound as if they're worth a visit.