About midday we left the hotel to take a train and car to Suzdal, a journey of 4 hours in total. Here we stayed in a ‘homestay,’ a house belonging to a very cheerful lady named Elana. The women in the group share one bedroom sleeping on folding beds while I had a settee in another room all to myself. The house was very warm, finding out later that Elana had upped the heating as she thought that we would be cold. The radiator in my room was the length of one whole wall, no way could anyone be cold it there. For the evening meal we had a salad, vegetable soup. chicken and cakes, all home-made. Plum vodka and horseradish vodka was produced for us to taste. None of us want to see horseradish vodka again! I left to go to bed after helping the others drink the plum vodka and in the morning there were three empty bottles to be seen. No-one was ill, but we were all kind of slow to start the following morning.
Other houses in the village
The reason for going to Suzdal, one of the oldest Russian towns, was to see the town buildings, all of wood and none more that two stories high, except the churches. There was a museum there where house, churches and windmills had be moved from other parts of Russia and reassembled as original. They were really something and we all found something to like about at least one of the buildings. There was a summer church with high ceilings and wide doors to keep it cool when the winter church was smaller, had low ceilings and small doors and windows to keep in the heat.
Spinning, knitting and sewing items in one of the houses
From the museum we went to the Kremlin which has a 1.4 kilometre long (0.9 mile) earth rampart enclosing a number of houses and churches including the Nativity of the Virgin Cathedral. While there there was a peel of 15 bells, all rung by one monk with foot operated hammers and wire to the bell clappers. Apparently he does this every hour during the day. The word ‘Kremlin, does not just mean the one in Moscow but is the normal word for the government building, usually in the centre of a town and city, all over the country.
Frescoes inside the cathedral
It was actually Christmas Day today, an Anglican festival, which had no effect in Russia as it is not celebrated here. Government office, businesses and shops operate as normal so the idea of Christmas kind of passed us by today. The Russian Christmas with Father Frost will be celebrated on 6 January. During our sightseeing in the museum we were followed for about three hours by a television crew filming us and asking what we liked about the museum and Russia. Whether it will ever be seen is another matter but we have been told that a web link will be available if the program me is produced.
The temperature had slowly dropped during the day reaching –10C in the evening and requiring an extra layer of clothes to be worn when we went out to a local restaurant for the evening meal.
The following morning we left at 9.30 and by car traveled to Yaroslavi, the journey taking just over three hours.
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| The scenery from the train window |
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| The was Elana's house |
Other houses in the village
The reason for going to Suzdal, one of the oldest Russian towns, was to see the town buildings, all of wood and none more that two stories high, except the churches. There was a museum there where house, churches and windmills had be moved from other parts of Russia and reassembled as original. They were really something and we all found something to like about at least one of the buildings. There was a summer church with high ceilings and wide doors to keep it cool when the winter church was smaller, had low ceilings and small doors and windows to keep in the heat.
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| Windmills |
Spinning, knitting and sewing items in one of the houses
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| The owners of the original house maybe |
Frescoes inside the cathedral
It was actually Christmas Day today, an Anglican festival, which had no effect in Russia as it is not celebrated here. Government office, businesses and shops operate as normal so the idea of Christmas kind of passed us by today. The Russian Christmas with Father Frost will be celebrated on 6 January. During our sightseeing in the museum we were followed for about three hours by a television crew filming us and asking what we liked about the museum and Russia. Whether it will ever be seen is another matter but we have been told that a web link will be available if the program me is produced.
The temperature had slowly dropped during the day reaching –10C in the evening and requiring an extra layer of clothes to be worn when we went out to a local restaurant for the evening meal.
The following morning we left at 9.30 and by car traveled to Yaroslavi, the journey taking just over three hours.
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