07.22.08
His Majesty Lord Novgorod the Great
 So … the journey continued from St Petersburg. We caught a bus in the general direction of Moscow to a sprawling metropolis named Novgorod (essentially meaning New City). The correct way to address this location is the subject of this email. Novgorod was once the Capital
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The city has about 11,000 inhabitants of which none are mechanics.
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I need a little background information first. We’ve started a “photo of the day” competition to keep life interesting. Each evening over dinner we pick a topic for the next day and then you have until the next evening’s dinner (or decision time) to take photos that qualify. The photo has to be in keeping with the topic and at dinner (or whenever the decision made) we vote for which photo is best. Obviously you can’t vote for your own photo, most votes wins.
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One of the first things we noticed after being dropped off at the “modern” bus station, modern because it was built after man discovered fire, was a concertina bus. The middle of the bus was sagging so much that it almost touched the ground. That night at dinner the photo of the day topic was set as “derelict”. Novgorod did not fail to dish up a vast array of subject material. Cars, Buses, Radio masts and even their theatre. It was like being in some sort of post-Apocalyptic town. On a positive note - They had an excellent Pizza restaurant. This was a godsend as the previous night in Novgorod I decided to sample the local fare and ordered Okrushka - A nasty mix Kvas, sour cream and just general nasty tasting items — supposedly very refreshing … I think not. Needless to say I went to bed hungry that night … and most of you know that’s a rare occurrence.
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As usual we had a tour of the location as we were to spend two nights there. We did arrive late in the evening so really two nights and a day. The day was spent exploring their Kremlin - Kremlin just means fort really it’s just that the Moscow one is the most famous. Also we visited what seemed like every one of their 52 churches! Novgorod has the highest concentration of churches in Russia .. and after our tour I wasn’t inclined to doubt this.
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The following day we were bussed off to Vladimir where we were to catch a train into Moscow and the start of our Trans-Siberian journey, Hurrah!