07.30.08
Nizhny Novgorod
So the journey continued out of Moscow but this time by Bus. We were met by our guide for the day, Tatiana, and bundled onto a mini-van for the trip out to Suzdal. We all breathed a sigh of relief as we were now safe again.
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Suzdal is one of the towns forming the Golden Ring of Russia. Moscow is the South Western ‘corner’ of the ring. It’s basically an area which is famed for its countryside, architecture and history. Mainly because these are the towns where the Russian Orthodox church originated and the entire area is considered an “open air museum”. Personally I think Novgorod should have been classified as one too .. or perhaps a fossil site! Anyway .. back to our story. We arrived in Suzdal, having made a few stops along the way including Sergiev Posad where a monastery dedicated to St. Sergius (the patron saint of Russia) sits. I’ve noticed that the Russians seem to have a LOT of saints. I suspect that the canonization process is a little bit easier here, no need for two separate miracles here. I’m considering moving to Russia and doing something glorious, then you may all refer to me as St.Suraj ….. I’m sure it can’t be too hard to be glorious in Russia … maybe something related to drinking Vodka .. hmm I’ll have to think about this a little more.
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Suzdal is actually a sleepy little town, one that you could walk around in about half an hour. We were lodged at the best hotel in Suzdal … apparently a million tourists pass through every year… it was a four star establishment that was quite swanky looking. It would have been nice if the A/C worked though as it was quite warm in Suzdal. The term “Summer Holiday” is now being used by our little group as a joke since we tend to have rain wherever we go. There had been a correlation noted between the rain and Lisa wearing a particular denim skirt aka “The Rain Skirt”. It’s a little early to assign blame just yet but we will be keeping track just in case. We spent our first and only evening drinking Honey Mead and then dining in a restaurant called the Bee Hive. Apparently the area is big with honey, not just cucumbers. BTW it’s gherkins that the produce aplenty in Suzdal, not Cucumbers. Continuing on …. it wasn’t a particularly interesting town for me and I was happy to move on the next day … especially since our room was a mini-sauna! The next morning we headed to a town named Vladimir, also on the Golden Ring, where we boarded the train to Nizhny Novgorod. Along the way we also visited the “Most famous church in Russia”. It’s a little chapel on the outskirts of Vladimir and sits on an island when the river floods. We dutifully went for a look, waking a drunk man out of a stupor on the way, took photos and headed back. While we were out there Tatiana decided to go for a swim in the pond since we had another guide for this particular section of the tour. After this little diversion it was back on the train and off to Nizhny or as it was know in Soviert times - Gorky.
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Many cities in Russia were renamed during the Soviet times and didn’t return to their old names until the 1990s. It was named Gorky after Maxim Gorky. Gorky means Bitter in Russian. Gorky was a a closed city during soviet times and was also the place to which Andrei Sakharov was exiled. A.S. was the father of the Hydrogen bomb. One of the highlights of this trip was a visit to the museum that is now located in the flat where he spent his exiled years. Unfortunately most of the material is only described in Russian but still worth the visit as a peek into the life of a military scientist behind the Iron Curtain. Nizhny was surprisingly modern and quite free of tourists … except for us of course. We’ve now decided that we are clearly pioneers on this trail as it appears that people on the Trans-Sib don’t actually get off the train at these smaller cities… clearly. Nothing else of interest to report from Nizhny except that they have trams and their Kremlin is a far more serious fortification than any of the other I have seen. It sits atop a steep hill making it quite difficult for attackers, even of the tourist kind, to approach. It was also here that we actually boarded the official Trans-Siberian train #002. Route #001 Runs from Vladivostok to Moscow. So the even numbered routes run eastwards and the odd ones run west. Most of our trains follow the the TransSib route but aren’t actually the TransSib trains since they only service a particular section of the route.
One other thing we did do along the way was visit a little town named Semyonov where the Matryoshka dolls are produced. Most of us call them babushka dolls. Babushkas are basically Matryoshka dolls which represent an old woman. I saw everything from Winnie the Pooh dolls to Hello Kitty dolls. I have attached a picture of a doll painted by an acclaimed visiting artist or should I say Artiste? I’ve already received expressions of interest from the Louvre and the Hermitage but am choosing not to sell since it was not produced as a commercial product.
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Next stop Yekaterinburg - gateway to the Urals.