Spasiba Russia

At the end of May we boarded a plane to Moscow for a 9-day trip to Russia. Moscow was fantastic, starting with the Bolshoi ballet the evening we arrived, followed by a late-night wander around Red Square with a view of St Basil's Cathedral. Even though it was after midnight the sky was an amazing deep twilight blue. We were joining our first organised tour together - with Intrepid - which was hopefully going to cut through various red tape, visa and language difficulties we were expecting. However before we became tour bunnies we had a weekend to ourselves to explore the city, the markets, the food and the amazing, palatial Moscow metro system. It also took me only 6 hours after landing to get my first taste of (very cheap) caviar - I am a fan!

Exploring Moscow was fascinating - there was some very conspicuous consumption (in particular the GUM department store - see below) as well as many glimpses into its recent past. The Sculpture Park in the city is a cemetery for unwanted communist-era sculptures - some still standing, others forming part of a big pile of lopped-off heads - nature being left to slowly reclaim them.

After fun on our own we met up with our tour group for a walking tour of Red Square and the Kremlin - including Lenin's mausoleum. Staring at a recently preserved corpse on public display has to be one of the oddest tourist experiences I've had in a while. The mausoleum is the low dark red building in the left of the picture below, with the Kremlin behind.

From Moscow we travelled north-east to Suzdal, a small town of 12,000 people which is home to numerous old monasteries and churches, set amongst rolling hills and meadows. After the urban grit of Moscow it was lovely to spend a night in a relaxing small town, and to experience the home cooking of local lady Lena - who not only taught Shaun to make Russian dumplings (hard at work below) but also encouraged him to make short work of a large amount of Russian moonshine (I still have no idea what that stuff was and not sure I want to). A highlight of the trip for me were the amazing Russian Orthodox churches, which featured throughout the tour. From beautiful fresco-style painting to incredible gold-leaf iconostasis (icon walls) the churches were in an amazing state of repair, and were some of the most beautiful I've seen. In Suzdal we were also treated to four monks singing a capella in the church - spine tingling.

Leaving Suzdal we headed back to Moscow for the overnight train to Novgorod - an historic merchant trading town on the Volkhov River which is today a city of around 200,000. Along the way we took advantage of the train's Soviet chic dining car to sample some more vodka and - sparingly - some railway caviar (I think the guys had expected to be able to share the bite-sized serving below between 4).

In Novgorod Shaun and I busted out from the group and went exploring for an afternoon, first to an old monastery strategically built at the entrance to the Volkhov River, which had been standing since around 1000, and then to a wooded grove containing a number of old Russian wooden churches - built in log-cabin style but incredibly ornate. All this was preliminary however, as a gentle cruise on the river was soon to take us back into town for our local banya experience...

Unfortunately there are no photos of banya time! but suffice it to say that I have now experienced standing naked while being roughly beaten with birch twigs by a similarly naked large peroxide blonde Russian lady in sauna temperatures. Shaun, meanwhile, in the mens' section, was befriended - along with Craig who was also on the tour - by a stern local man who took them through the banya steps (rinse, loofah, rinse, sauna, run outside in your underwear and jump in the river (see others doing the same thing below), sauna, repeat) with some hilarity. Priceless and definitely not something we would have been brave enough to venture into without our tour guide's urging!
Leaving Novgorod we arrived in St Petersburg - our last stop. St Petersburg felt more European than Moscow - and with very different geography, being clustered across and around the Neva river, with many city canals. We had booked tickets to the Hermitage Museum for our first afternoon - which was stunning and did not disappoint - the palace rooms in particular were beautiful and with amazing views out onto the harbour from most of the windows.

Some of the other local attractions were slightly less highbrow - while the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood (built on the site where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1883) was beautiful, we also made an important stop to Russia's first Museum of Erotica, situated in the waiting room of a local prostate clinic where you could see what was supposedly Rasputin's most famous attribute in a large preserving jar near the door.

On our last day in Russia we jumped on the hydrofoil and headed out to Peterhof - the former palace complex of Peter the Great on the Gulf of Finland. It's known for its fountains and surprise water features - both large and small (as Shaun discovered to his detriment when he tried to leave the Magic Mushroom):

Finally on our last evening it was time to enjoy the almost White Nights of St Petersburg (a week or two away) and go on a midnight cruise on the harbour to watch the bridges open. On a local boat with Russian dance music playing and sipping vodka wrapped in rugs, it was a fitting way to end the trip!

M