Home Safe

Just making a quick post to say that I got home safe.  The trip was pretty long, and at times the children on the flight almost lost it, but it turned out to be entirely tolerable.  Customs and passport control were quite pleasant, and the entire landing to out-the-door process only took about 30 minutes, which all told is pretty solid.

One more day...

Just one more day in Russia for me.  Tomorrow we've got a get together at the school at 10-12 to sing songs and tell jokes in Russian (oh joy).   Then, at 4pm, we are all going out to a dinner together.  The people doing internships will be here for a couple more weeks, so I suppose it is a bit of an anti-climax, but for the rest of us, we are looking forward to a fairly light last day.

Wendesday moring I leave here bright and early (and thanks to Russia's northern latitude, it really will be bright).   I'll be home sometime in the evening EST.

I want to remind everyone that is interested that I will probably make around 3 more posts or so after I return posting on some highlights of the trip that I didn't fully talk about in my posts, and to post links to more pictures from the trip.  So, if you are intersted, keep checking for a week or so after I get back.  Alternatively, most of you will see me in person sooner or later, so bug me about it then (but not too much please!).

Poka!

A week to go, just a quick update

As I am writing this, I've less than a week in Russia proper. This time next week I will be flying somewhere over the atlantic. This week is already more than half over, and things are starting to wind down in earnest now. Today we went on a pretty casual boatride down the river to the edge of the lake, did a nice lazy turn around and road back. It was a nice change from our normal type of mini-trip which involves rigid scheduling and tours. There was no guide, no narration, we just got to enjoy the scenery and the surroundings of a nice pleasant afternoon. I was actually a little unhappy about the prospect of the boatride because I was expecting to be assaulted with information the entire time, but it turned out to be a nice little relaxing afternoon.

I've only 3 classes of Russian Language and 2 classes of history left now. I feel like I've learned a ton in both classes actually, to this point. While I've got a lot of grammar and vocabular to learn still, of course, I do actually feel like I'm getting a feel for the language, which isn't exactly a concrete achievement, but maybe I can explain it better by saying I'm starting to have a slightly more intuitive feel for learning, even though my actual body of knowledge is a long way from fluent. Hopefully it means my time here will mean I've not only gotten better at speaking and understanding the language, but better at learning it, which is probably at least as important in itself.

Thats all for now.

Pskov, and a trip to the country

Last Thursday was our trip to Pskov.   We went to a monastery in the hills outside the city first. (bottom picture).  Its still an operating monastery, unlike a lot of the places we've gone to, which are glorified museums, and a large part of the place was blocked off from tourists.  Still, we were able to see a lot, and we did get into the caves.  It was a pretty neat experience.  It was pitch dark in there, and everyone that went in just got a little candle that was dwindling in size at an alarming rate.   We had a  monk to guide us, at least.  It was only 5 degrees C in there, so it was pretty chilly. Apparently it stays that temperature regardless of the time of year.  

Next we went to the oldest (remaining) stone fortress in Russia (not pictures here).  It was nice too, and you could got up into one of the guard towers which has been restored, and look out across the countryside and see really far.  I've got a few photos from up there that I will share with people when I am home.  

Lastly, we went to Pskov itself for a short tour of the Kremlin there.  It was very pretty.  The middle picture above is from inside the main walls of the Kremlin looking up the hill at the church and the inner walls.  It was very beautiful, but I think that I like Novgorod's Kremlin a bit better.  We went into that church, and our timing was perfect, because about 5 minutes after we got there the Archbishop was to arrive, so we got to see all the pomp and circumstance associated with that.   We left shortly after he arrived.

It was a REALLY long trip.  We spent over 8 hours driving in one day.  Also, the roads from Novgorod to Pskov are really quite badly kept up, so the trip was very bumpy.  It was worth doing, but its not something I wish to experience again any time soon.

On saturday I went with my host family to their dacha.  Its about an hour outside Novgorod.  I knew more or less what to expect, but it was still a pretty neat experience, because we really don't have anything like dachas in the USA.  The short version is that its essentially a log cabin out in the country that many families have.  My family also has built a banya (a sauna, more or less), and a very nice fruit and vegetable garden.   We got to literally go out and bring in food for meals.  It doesn't really get any more fresh than that.

On sunday I slept in and my host family greeted me with a small birthday breakfast which consisted of some fruit pies with candles in them :), tea, and black bread.  It was very nice.  After we finished eating, we suited up and went out into the forest to hunt wild blueberries.  We were out there for a couple hours and came back with a big basket of fresh blueberries that we've now brought back to the city with us.    

I'm on to my last full week here now.  I thought it was going to be relatively uneventful, but Liza came to our class today and told us our schedule for the week, and its a bit more full than I had anticipated.  Tomorrow we're going to the convent outside the city, Wednesday is a boat trip down the river and out to the lake and back, and thursday we are touring the archeological sites in the city  ( of which there are many).

Next monday is our last class, Russian only, no history by then, and Tuesday we have a small gathering in the morning and are going out to dinner are a big group in the afternoon.  Next wednesday we are leaving early in the morning and I'll be traveling all day.  Given the busy schedule of this week, I'll probably not post here again until friday, and then possibly early next week.  I'll also be posting some other stuff after the trip is over, with some more pictures, comments, etc, because I will have more time to upload and write, and such. 

Museums, Pskov tomorrow

This week we've been going to some museums in Novgorod. On Tuesday we went to the meseum of wooden architecture where they've recreated a small wooden village show casing the building techniques of the early people here. It was very interesting to see. Its all open-air/outdoors, and you can pretty much walk aroundd whereever you want, and some of the buildings are open to go walk through and visit. The architectural techniques were pretty impressive for their time. Apparently metal for use as nails was really expensive in these parts, so everything was build so nothing needed to be nailed together, everything with notches and such (like lincoln logs, but more so).

Today we went to the archeological meseum. Novgorod is a very old city, of course, and coupled with some lucky environmental factors, a lot of ancient things were preserved in the soil. So, we saw a lot of things that from knives and arrows, to birch bark writing (usually religious), and weapons such as somewhat primitive looking axes and spears. They also has some pieces of the old wooden roads that were actually in decent shape. Later on a lot of stuff came in from Europe on trade routes, and so we got to see things from as far as France that ended up in the soil here. You could also track the religious history of the city by looking at religious ornaments and such. At first they were "pagans" (which is a way too generalized term if you ask me, but I guess it describes it), and you could see a lot of traditional symbols. and later, you can see the influence of christianity. During the transitionary period, you could see things like amulets with pagan symbols on one side, and christian on the other. As our teacher (and guide) said, you could imagine someone standing on the bank of a river praying for Jesus to save him from the evil water spirits. Funny imagery.

Tomorrow we are going on a day trip to Pskov. It is going to be quite a long trip, I think its about 3 hours by bus each way, so I am going to try and sleep on the trip. There is a very old monastary there was left pretty much untouched in Soviet times, so we are going to see it, and hopefully we will get to go into the catacombs as well. Liza told us that the monks arbitrarily let people in or not, so we can't be guarteed admittance to that particular part of the trip. I'll take pictures and post them either friday or early next week.

St. Petersburg

What a weekend!  

I am totally exhausted from my trip and can barely stay awake today.  We hit most of the major tourist attractions in Petersburg in just 3 days, so we were basically on the go the entire time.  The city was very beautiful and I enjoyed being able to see first hand many of the sites I've learned about in history classes.

The first picture is the Church on Spilled Blood (If I have the name exactly right, I dunno).  It was build on the spot where Alexander the first was assassinated.   Its extremely amazing to see, and a very Russian looking cathedral in a city that is very European.  The colors are amazing to see from the outside, but the inside is even more so.  The inside is covered nearly entirely by mosaic religious icons.  Its very impressive, and I've got some pictures of the inside that I'll either post later, or let people see when I get home.

The ship above is the Aurora, famous for firing on the Winter Palace at the moment of revolution in 1917 and sort of scared the provisional government into surrender.  Its really not an terribly impressive ship, but I had to go see it of course.  We didn't make it to it during our tours, but I went myself on sunday before our bus left.  I got to walk around on board.

On the topic of ships, the next picture is of the St. Petersburg ship yards, as seen from the top of St, Isaac's.  Seeing all the giant cranes in the distance was very impressive.   I've got other pictures from the top of St. Isaac's that I'll share with people when I get home, but I don't want to upload a ton right now.

Next is St. Isaac's from the front.  This is possibly my favorite building in the city.  Its incredibly beautiful and very impressive.  The inside is cavernous, and at the risk of geeking people out, it sort of reminds me of being in some sort of giant Dwarven hall like in Lord of the Rings or some other such Fantasy story, giant pillars, large open spaces, and the like.  If you look near the top of the building where the columns are, just below the dome, that is where I was standing when I took the previous picture.  The trip up is a little dizzying and frightening for someone like me who doesn't like heights, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to go up there.

We also got to spend time in the Hermitage, of course, and its truly impressive.  The only rival I've seen in the Met in NYC, and even that isn't quite the same, because the building itself isn't quite so impressive.  Our guide told us they have something like 3 million works of art in the Hermitage, of which only 7% or so is on display at any given time.   We spent 3 hours in there, and saw a tiny fraction of what was on display.

We had a day trip to Peterhof as well.  For those of you who don't know it was basically Peter saying, "You know what would be cool, if we made something more impressive than versailles just to show up the French."  I've never been to Versailles, but this was damn impressive.  There are fountains everywhere, everything is gilded in gold, and the whole thing is situated right on the Gulf of Finland.  Standing on the back side of Peter's personal palace on the grounds, you can look out over the entire gulf, and even see St. Petersburg (including the gigantic dome of St. Isaac's Cathedral)

St. Petersburg tomorrow

Tomorrow morning we are leaving for st. petersberg. We are all looking forward to it. We will be staying until sunday and will see all the sites. Not much news to report on this week s0 far. Our painting class is over and our history class has started. It has been pretty good so far, and it is very interesting learning Russian history from a Russian's perspective. (No Offense Meredith, if you are reading this!! :) )

We took s three hour basket weaving class yesterday. Weaving birch bark into a basket is very hard. The guy who taught us has a book out in the United States, if anyone is interested. Search for Vladimir Yarish 0n Amazon. He was fun to work with, and hey, we all ended up with a tiny little basket, which isn't half bad for a group of people who have never done it before!

I found a great coffee shop near my apartment here. Its called Coffee Land, and its really quite excellent. They serve coffee, tea, coffee with alcohol, blini with a variety of toppings (from fish to ice cream, but not both at once!), and they even have a vegetarian section of their menu. Its a little more expensive than some other places we've gone, but not by much, and its really excellent. They also have an english menu, for wimps(Not me though! disclaimer: ordering coffee and tea in russian is super easy), We'll definitely be going there often now that we've found it.

I will not have my computer in Petersburg, its not worth lugging it around, so I'll be posting again on monday about the trip. Hopefully I'll have some fun pictures and stories for you all.