Novgorod and a day off.

This is a long post, bear with!     

     This past saturday was a trip to Novgorod, a city about 2 hours' bus ride from St. Petersburg (with the world's slowest driver, though I will admit the road was pretty awful).  We met at a southern metro station at 8 am, which meant breakfast at 6 am. This would have been pretty awful if it weren't for the white nights, which, while not officially started yet, means it's broad daylight from 4 am to 10 pm. So at the very least, the day was light (if rainy) when I had to get up that early. 

Our first stop, outside the city, was St. George's monastery, built an incredibly long time ago, and beloved by someone. Sorry to be flippant, but I've been here 2 weeks, and seen over 50 churches, chapels, mosques and monasteries, and after a bit, they all start to blur together. This particular one had a lovely bell tower, which can be seen in the middle of the picture here (I swear they had us park by the kitchens, the smell was heavenly!). It was also about 20 feet from a lake that varies between 7,000 and  30,000 square kilometers, depending on the season. Seems a little imprudent to me, but oh well. Needless to say, it was more than a little swampy, and the mosquitoes were a) quite prevalent, and b) the size of small dogs. Ok, perhaps a bit of an over-exaggeration, but not by much! Only by having my hair down, long sleeves with my hands tucked in them, and long pants, as well as a scarf over my head and fanning my face often did I manage to
avoid any mosquito bites. The rest of my group was substantially less fortunate. The monastery and lake were beautiful, but it was a blessing to get back in the bus.

   On the way back to Novgorod, we stopped off at the Museum of Wooden Architecture, which is an outdoor museum in the process of being built. Apparently they are dismantling wooden structures from surrounding countryside and transporting them here to make a wooden village. So far there are a couple houses, with adjoining well and garage for carriage/ sled, a church and a chapel. The last two are different in that (if I recall correctly), the church has an altar and can perform ceremonies, while a chapel doesn't; it can only give sermons and... stuff? Sadly, I'm not too current on Orthodox church rites. Anyhow, the picture to the right is a chapel, but to me, it looked like a perfect model for Baba Yaga's house. The roof and cupola are done in shingles that are feathered, and every surface is decorated with almost lacy woodwork... just add chicken legs, and we're good to go!

    As we were getting ready to go into the religious/ ruling side of Novgorod, it decided to downpour for about 15 minutes. We all ended up crowded around the tour guide, huddled under what umbrellas had been brought. I was quite glad I'd decided to bring my nice (waterproof) coat, and spray down my bookbag, so everything except my shoes and pant legs stayed quite delightfully dry. This side of the river had a very pretty church that is still active, and showed a collection of the bells that had been used to call the ruling party to council since the 1500s. They had been shipped out of the city during WW2, as Novgorod was right on the front of the war, and was occupied frequently by the Nazis.

   On the way over to the Commercial side of Novgorod (the city is built on two sides of the river, which doesn't sound secure to me, but I suppose if it's built as a trading city, it wasn't planned for battle...), I saw this statue of a tourist, who supposedly stopped to rest too long and turned into bronze. Since we'd been walking already for 2 hours, I figured I was safe for a 30 second break, and had someone catch a picture. They happened to get the ship in the background as well, though I'm not sure what exactly it is.

    There were a total of 7 churches in the square mile that used to be the trading center, commissioned by everyone from princes to the inhabitants of a single street. They weren't huge,  but old as can be. One of them, the church of Saint(ess) Friday, has a legend (Novgorod is full of 1150 years of legends), that any woman who runs around the church 3 times will find a good man. Tired of standing around listening to the long-winded tour guide, a number of us decided to do so just for a break. There was quite the beaten path around it, and only one puddle, so we made pretty decent time. We shall see if anything comes of it. :)

    

     Sunday was a day off, and since my host guy had not yet come home, I made myself breakfast, did my homework in record time (I think I'm starting to grasp the language!), and decided to go out for a walk. I'd seen and translated a blurb in the paper on Friday that said there was a chocolate festival going on, and I wanted to check it out. However, I didn't think it would be worth it to bring the camera, so there won't be any pictures for this part, sadly. 

    The chocolate festival was pretty small; apparently it was put on by just one chocolate company, but their mascot was a purple cow! They had a "herd" of cows that kids were playing around on, which would've made a cute picture, but other than that, it was mostly kids' rides and games, and all were free, so insane lines everywhere. I got a little flag to show I'd been (also free), and then headed across the street to the square in front of the Hermitage, to see what all the loud music was. 

   It turns out that this is the 307th anniversary of St. Petersburg, and they were having a "little" celebration. It was free to get in (and I got another free little flag), though they did have metal detectors, and the guards "checked" my bookbag (ie, eyeballed it and me, and grunted that I could go in). Now I wished I had my camera... there were 4 stages for bands, so that when one ended, another started on a different stage. There were stilt-walkers from Cirque du Soleil there, and a group called the Moon People- basically tomfoolery in silver get-up, but quite visually appealing! There was also something called an Animal Operetta from France, with red fabric giraffe heads about 20 ft tall, but I missed that performance. 

   The bands were pretty cool... one of them had a guy headbanging while playing the violin; quite the sight! Another one was a duo of an electronic bass (think cello/ bass, not bass guitar) and a bombard! Aaaaaaaaa! Very odd, but fun. The last band I saw before I headed out was a 6-man ensemble with a cello, violin, trombone, trumpet, guitar and vocalist. They were pretty good, but I was hungry, so I started to leave... and then heard the opening bars of the Super Mario Bros song start playing! I laughed so hard and, once again, wished I'd brought my camera. 

    I took the long way home so I could hit McD's for my weekly infusion of fat (I've lost a fair bit of weight, and figured I could use the calories). It was very unusual to see all the citizens walking around waving the anniversary flags and smiling, but nice to be able to be optimistic and not stick out like a sore thumb. Just to cap off the wishing I'd brought my camera, though, there was a street musician outside the McD's playing a bagpipe! It was so awesome to be able to hear pipes again. All in all, a great weekend, and now, back to school!