RUSSIA'S GOLDEN RING

(ЗОЛОТОЕ КОЛЬЦО РОССИ)

In the following texts there is a series of Blogs about a truly extraordinary tour of Russia's Golden Ring organised by a Latvian Tour Company.

These Blogs were written each day and emailed back to colleagues, family and friend. They are therefore spontaneous, written in the moment at the places and amongst the people where the experience took place. No sanitised or considered prose, just straight from the heart.

I have tried to express what I felt at the time I felt it. It is too easy to write accounts when you've returned home, and to do this is to lose the emotions and the context that they occurred within.

The accounts below are true, but I hope they are also readable and amusing – that was my intention. If you want to read more, then go to: Wikipedia

RIDING RUSSIAN

"How was your 24hours in the Bus?"

Well it wasn't quite 24hours, but it was quite a lot. We left the centre of Riga at 21:00hrs on a 17seater Mercedes Sprinter Bus (pictured), all but 2 seats being occupied; quite a tight fit. We were crewed by 2 drivers who changed over about every three hours, and by our courier. The whole coach, excepting myself and the guy from Portugal spoke Russian for the entire journey; probably for the entire holiday. Latvian could not be heard.

The coach sped out of Riga on Freedom Street vying with trams, potholes, atrocious cobbles and traffic that could be 5 wide in places. Oh and watch out for trams; their track is a dreadful cobbled band down the middle of this thoroughfare, and when they stop for passengers the other lines of traffic must also stop for the passengers.

As we continued on the road out, the street lamps finished and our Courier warned us that this journey was the worst of the week; 1200Kilometres (Lands End to John O'Groats). Every two to three hours the Sprinter stopped sprinting and we paused at a garage for toilets and coffees and for driver change over. We were warned that the road condition would deteriorate before the border, and particularly so afterwards (see pictures of the main road into Moscow).

For some reason we were navigated through part of Estonia to get through to Russia and we took the Estonian customs around midnight. Not a lot of bother here, except for the miles and miles of heavies parked up on this country lane. Russia is playing games with Estonia and any LGVs can be held for about a week before border formalities are completed.

We didn't have to wait a week, but the Russian Customs kept us stationery until 3am. The final act was to order us to evacuate the minibus and bring all our luggage inside for scanning. Everybody's passport was inspected at length and in detail with some feigned surprise about some aspect of each one just to put fear of rejection into each passenger.

Meanwhile the luggage stood in front of the non-operating scanner with no operator around. After about 15minutes of this game we were told to go as "the scanner operator cannot be found". We set off into the night and the road got more potholed and the joins between the concrete sections got more apparent. At 7am we paused at a Russian motel for breakfast, and I made the mistake of putting the toilet paper down the WC instead of into the tin bin; oh and I forgot to pay the attendant her 5roubles.

Onwards we rolled with still hundreds of kilometres to 'MOCKBA' on the signs. At about 100Kms to go the road became Motorway (more of a dual carriageway in reality) and there was only a little improvement in surface quality. Then we hit the outskirts of the Russian capital and ground to a halt in gridlock.


But our drivers were not afraid of a challenge and we found our way around Moscow and parked up at Sergiyev Posad (Се́ргиев Поса́д) at 16:30hrs. Unfortunately the kind weather that had accompanied most of our 19hour transit let go and the onions domes pierced a gloomy grey and caused it to weep. I got a few photos of the The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius (Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра) before the rain drowned everything.

We are now camped in a hotel at Alexandrov - 1hour past Sergiyev Posad, AND we have persuaded the Ostrov Hotel into giving us access to their Wifi.

Enjoy the photos, hopefully more tomorrow.

a russian dawn: ten hours on a minibus from Latvia into Russia, only ten more to go. Bumpy Road: This is the main road in Russia from the Western border direct to Moscow The Dormition Cathedral (Church of the Assumption) within the St. Sergius Lavra at Sergiyev Posad Cathedral of the Trinity; Тро́ице-Се́ргиева Ла́вра (The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius) at Sergiyev Posad Church of the Holy Spirit. Built in 1476 within the St. Sergius Lavra at Sergiyev Posad (Се́ргиев Поса́д)

From Russia [a PICASA album by RedSimon]

RUSSIAN FOOD FACTS

Our journey yesterday (Thursday) was again very long, and once again we had to eat on the road. In fact we called in at a large Supermarket at 18:30hrs and were given one hour to eat and shop.

Juris found a place in the Food Court which did meals by the weight. Take a small plate and pile it up with half a kilo of food for 90 Rubbles, or take a larger plate and fill this with a whole kilo of food for 140 Rubbles. I took the larger plate and helped myself to fish baked with vegetables and cheese on top, and then piled on sauted whole new potatoes, broccoli and a cheese/carrot salad. Juris saw that my plate was not full enough, so having filled his he piled on mine a chicken leg and others.

I wanted a piece of Apple Strudel and Juris told me this also had to be piled on the same plate - it all came under the same weight. In fact our plates were only weighed by eye, and if you kept your pile quite short you were spared the weighing scales. 260Rubbles for 2 meals and a soft drink, hardly a fiver!

Eating eventually leads you to the toilets. I've been spared any really horrible toilets, but I do think that putting your used toilet paper in a bucket is totally inhuman. Almost as bad is the quality of the toilet paper. It is a ghastly beige colour and very thin.

I feel sure that the paper from the bucket is 'recycled' by washing and joining back together! At one place, having paid the attendant to enter the toilets she then offered me about 4sheets of toilet paper rolled together; there was none in the cubicle!

Thursday had started by visiting Rostov (Ростов), a really ancient walled monistical community, and totally gorgeous. Several magnificent cathedrals are contained within this citadel and onion domes of every hue thrust into the sky. Such communities were always solidly constructed for defence, and needed to stand up against possible Mongol hordes as well as neighbouring 'Russian' kingdoms seeking expansion.

But it didn't always work, and in Vladimir (Влади́мир) it was explained that when the population sheltered in the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir (see photo) against attack, the aggressors lit fires around the church and caused the death of many inside from the heat and smoke; the church survived and was redecorated later (in gaudy baroque).

This part of Russia benefitted from having rich fertile black soil, unlike much of Russia to the north and west which has the much less good sandy soil so typical of the Baltic. With such soil, a rich agricultural thrived and on its back the monasteries built good businesses and very comfortable gilded communities for themselves. Take a look at Fountains Abbey, it was the same there as well.

In Yaroslavl (Яросла́вль) about 50 churches were built in only some 70years. Even now the street plan of Yaroslavl is like a wheel with roads going from the hub to the 'tyre' and each road ends with a church. It was impossible to visit all of Yaroslavl, or to take in all of its features.

Yaroslavl (Яросла́вль) celebrates a 1000years of history in 2010 and many domes were being freshened, interiors cleaned, and resoration work was all around. UNESCO is granting Yaroslavl the status of World Heritage site, with a certain amount of controversy and disapproval of some works currently ongoing.

This town lies on the River Volga (and Rostov is connected by River/canal too), some millions were spent on new facilities to encourage the river steamers to bring new visitors into Yaroslavl, but it hadn't worked. Unfortunately, between the lovely churches and historic aspects of Yaroslavl is a modern reality of a large city with Chemical works and heavy industry, and the thoughtlessness of Lenin and Stalin of how to combine history and industry; it is quite nasty in parts.

Enjoy !!!

The Church of St. Gregory of Nazianzus. 1670–1680s, Rostov Veliky (Ростов Великий) Rostov Kremlin. Church of Resurrection of Christ (1670), Rostov Veliky (Ростов Великий) Golden Gates of Vladimir (Zolotye Vorota). Supposedly the earliest stone structure still standing in Russia, originally constructed in 1164. Originally it sat in the middle of an immense defensive city wall instead of a traffic island. Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir (Успенского собора во Владимире). Built 1158-60 and 1185-89, the building survived being set alight by the Mongols in 1239 even though the people sheltering inside it did not. Yaroslavl Churches: [Left] Church of Archangel Michael in Yaroslavl (Церковь Михаила Архангела. Западный фасад), [centre] Redemeer Church of the Transfiguration On-the-town, [right] New Cathedral on the site of the Dormition Cathedral

From Russia [a PICASA album by RedSimon]