i booked a tour for us as that seemed the easiest way to deal with visas, hotel registrations, and all of the other logistical stuff about traveling over here. i wanted to see some small towns on the golden ring. the golden ring is a series of medieval towns outside of moscow that 700 years ago all took turns sharing glory in ruling over the territory. now they are regular little towns, but have preserved a lot of their medieval architecture, in that many buildings are not over 3 stories tall, and most of them have extremely impressive kremlins, churches, monasteries, or all three. beautiful sights. so i wanted to see some of those places, as well as moscow, and of course st pete's. and i wasn't about to rent a car to drive us there on my own. so, a tour seemed the answer. and it was a good one, if exhausting! our tour guides spoke non-stop - their knowledge was broad and deep. much broader and deeper than we could take in at times. and i saw more onion domes than i need to in one lifetime! and sometimes we had to beg to stop for food/bathroom. but we saw everything!
dad got a real crash-course in russia. the language, the strict adherence to the plan no matter what the circumstance, and the intense amount of paperwork and stamps. even when you make a purchase. and BORSCH! and VODKA! he got to taste several kinds. and hopefully he had a good time doing it all. was fun to show him my world for a bit - the good and the frustrating.
so here are some pictures from our adventures:
DAY 1. welcome to moscow! dad fresh off the plane...no idea what's in store for him! but i'm darn happy to see him!
first lunch, and taste of borsch. also, first pic with "flat mom." who i'm sure would have had a salad. :) we are also drinking "mors" the traditional russian berry drink. it's kind of like iced tea, made only from cranberries. very tasty i think.
dad and flat mom in red square, in front of st basil's! this is still dad's first day. he got off the plane, checked in, then we went to the office, and then to lunch. and then back for a nap. then he got up and wanted to see red square before dinner! big first day!
first vodka! this is at dinner, at Hatchapori, a fabulous georgian restaurant in the center of town. some of my team joined us for dinner.
first taste of georgian food! dad insisted we order the pickled veggies. everyone was into them. btw, the things that look like green beans are not. they are stalks from garlic plants. and they are very garlic-y. and yes, there is also pickeled garlic there, too. the breads are amaze-balls. the one in the middle has a freshly cracked egg on it, as well as being filled with cheese. my gut would explode if i lived in georgia. so i just feast with my eyes.
DAY 2. dad and flat mom at a quick stop across from the kremlin! we were on a bus tour of the city, and begged our guide to let us out to take photos. thank goodness olga was amenable! she was lovely, and was more amenable to changing the plan than masha, our guide in st pete's. but they both talked a mile a minute.
thank goodness dad and i visited red square the day before, as it was closed on saturday for remembrance of the day the USSR joined WWII/were invaded by germany. instead, dad and i went to GUM, the fancy shopping mall that used to have bread lines and apartments for soviet families. now it has champagne and caviar and louis vuitton. and it also has a sochi merch store, so of course we stopped in and got a jacket for mom! here she is at home wearing it:
then we went to my apartment for dinner with roommate gerri and our friend campbell. pork roast! and more vodka tasting. then called a cab and let poor old dad go to sleep, to get ready for day 3!
DAY 3. we toured the tretyakov gallery. a collection of some amazing russian portait painters, landscapes, etc. all russian art. then we had a metro tour of some of the most amazingly designed and decorated moscow metro stations. here is dad in front of a mural from the kievskaya metro station, i believe, dedicated to the cultural art and life of the ukraine.
the tour went to old arbat street after the metro, but dad and i knew better than to hang around that tourist trap! so we went on a boat cruise along the moscow river, thru the center of town. was lovely! and we got some great shots!
moscow skyline can be lovely from certain angles! this is one of the seven sisters.
dad and i on the boat!
DAY 4. bus trip to Valdimir and Suzdal, two of the golden ring towns. these pictures are of Vladimir. the left is the Golden Gate, one of the fortresses at the edge of the city, one of 5 gates you could use to enter medieval Vladimir. the right is the Dmitry cathedral, the patron saint of Vladimir, who ruled here.
the church of either the assumption or the ascension, or something of st mary. i apologize that i can't remember, but you try to come here and see 25 churches in 2 days and remember them all. :)
a street musician of vladimir. playing to a crowd of surely appreciative pidgeons.
Oh yeah, and we stopped in Bogolyubovo along the way to Suzdal. it means "god's love" or love of god. this is the pokrova-on-nerl church. part of a convent here. and it has gorgeous blue onion domes, blue in honor of st mary.
more of the convent.
dad and i overlooking the quaint village of suzdal! (tho we both harbor ill feelings toward this sweet little town...beautiful, but deadly...we think this is gound zero for the gut-wrenching - LITERALLY - intestinal infection we got. i'm still suffering the effects.)
a beautiful old cathedral in Suzdal's kremlin. btw, all of these churches are btwn 700-500 years old. amazing, right??
wooden replica of a wooden country church from the medieval period in russia. Suzdal has it's own "living history farms" and it is a replica of a medieval village. very quaint. and HOT in the blazing sun. our short hike to this museum will forever been known as "Olga's death march" - coined by Anne, one of the older women on our tour and our fast friend. she is 73, from texas, smart as a whip, fabulous dry sense of humor, and LOVES the NBA. we immediately adopted her.
my quaint room in quaint suzdal. soviet-era decor.
the strawberries (suspect numero uno for the ghastly gut disease). they were SO tasty. i gobbled them like a scene out of Anne of Green Gables. there was probably strawberry juice running down my chin, i'm not kidding. Suzdal is known for it's farming...mostly cucumbers (dad's favorite! not...) and cherries. we had cucumbers at every meal. pretty much every day, actually, as they are a stable in most russian food, either fresh or pickled. but these strawberries were amazing.
an example of the detail in suzdal's domestic architecture. every home had gorgeously carved window frames.
a restored home of a former merchant in suzdal. note the fine windows!
but most houses, despite the ornate windows, looked a little run-down, unfortunately, like this one. i guess the cherry market isn't doing so well...
just some funny street art...i think it's an owl.
lenin, still standing guard over the town square.
token WWII memorial. EVERY town has one, especially the ones in the west, nearest the front, or which got attacked. this is a very moving eternal flame.
DAY 4. ok. so this is classically russian. on the ONE ROAD between towns, there was a traffic jam. a crane had fallen over. so traffic was stopped and we didn't know for how long. some russians, not wanting to wait it out, not being able to change their schedule to accommodate such an unforseen event, took it to the fields. they turned off the road, and started driving ACROSS A FARMER'S FIELD. from both sides!! so at one point, there was a traffic jam in the field! all kinds of cars were doing it...from little rusty, junky lada's to brand new mercedes to little mac trucks. it was unbelieveable. probably 50 or more cars took this route thru the fields. and some cars got stuck, so everyone had to hop out and push. amazing. i've never seen anything like it.
dad enjoying cherry ice cream (another suspect) on one of our begged-for stops.
rostov! we finally made it. but because of the traffic jam delay, our tour here was cut short, as we had to make it to the lunch spot (which turned out to be yet another suspect for the gut disease).
these are original frescoes. i think at least 500 years old.
these are the guts of the iconostasis in a HUGE church that is being renovated. it will take years, nay decades to restore this beauty.
STILL DAY 4. on the outskirts of moscow lies little sergiev posad. "settlement of sergiev." sergey is the patron saint of russia, and his remains are in a church at this monastery. it is a beautiful monastery. and there was quite an intense thunderstorm when we arrived. and right after it ended, i got this godly shot.
a couple wheeling away their tub of holy water. i hope it is not for a loved one who is ill.
DAY 4 NIGHT. overnight train to st pete's!! this should have been a fun ride. we had a cabin to ourselves, fairly comfortable beds, coffee and oatmeal in the morning. but this is when the gut disease attacked dad. so it was no fun for him! but he was a great sport about it and we managed to enjoy ourselves as much as possible.
flat mom had lots of snacks for the train trip!
DAY 5. delayed (by 3 hours) arrival into st pete's. dad, feeling a bit better in the morning, shaving to look his best for st petersburg.
on a side note, i am keeping a photo album of funky cars i see in russia. this definitely qualifies. there is something the russians just love about painting their cars. this one is quite a gem.
another saintly pic! this time after a storm in st petersburg. while dad was recuperating in the hotel room, i took a little afternoon stroll to visit the places i saw when i was here in february, and frigid!
DAY 6. the hermitage!
with about 10,000 other people! needless to say, we did not stay for the whole tour. we saw the important parts of the old palace, and the peacock clock, and then skipped out before all the european art. dad didn't care, and i've seen it all before. so we went on our own walking tour of the city! i took dad to the church on the spilled blood:
and the kazan cathedral, where there were some wedding photos being taken:
we ate dinner at the hotel (we ate there like 6 times). and then went to see Aida at the famed Marinsky theatre! it was beautiful. and we had amazing seats. and then, in the middle of act 2, i started shivering and shaking and knew the disease had hit me, too. i went back to the hotel and dad and anne stayed to watch the rest.
DAY 7: i stayed in bed all day and dad got me drinks, and medicine, and a little bit of food. and he went on a walk, too.
DAY 8. i felt good enough to go to peterhoff (immodium really is a wonder drug sometimes!). it was one of the reasons i chose this tour, as i really wanted to see the palaces outside of st petersburg. and i was not disappointed! the palace was stunning, tho we were herded thru like cattle. but the grounds, with all of the fountains and gardens were just amazing. if there weren't 5000 other people there, i would have felt very much at peace.
dad in the upper gardens.
the grand cascade of fountains that leads right up to the palace. these were all designed in the 1700's, and all operate off of gravity and pressure.
this is a lovely little fountain made as a gift for catherine the great. she loved her pet dog, so this one was made with a dog chasing 4 geese. and they somehow rigged the water to go thru a special pipe to make it sound like a dog was barking and geese were quacking. grandpa parish would have loved this!
dad, a fountain, and one of the hundreds of posing russian women we see everywhere. boy how they love to pose for pictures!
dad and i on a MIDNIGHT stroll! so, with the help of immodium again, i convinced dad to take a midnight boat cruise to see how late it stays light this far north. dad agreed. so he took a nap from about 7 to 11pm. during which there was a HUGE thunderstorm, causing our boating plans to be cancelled. but i still wanted to go for a little walk as it was light as day out, and dad, being the good sport that he is, instead of going back to bed, came with me!
these are locks put in place by married couples or lovers, sealing their love.
DAY 7. the trip back to moscow! and this was the tunnel leading to our gate at the st petersburg airport. very welcoming, no?
dad enjoying a snack of bacon-flavored lays potato chips at the airport. he thinks they would be an absolute hit in the US!
last night! this is dad's last night in russia, at my apartment, drinking his last shot of vodka in russia. another taste test, between Baikal (made from the ice of lake baikal here in russia), Drova (ecological vodka made from birch wood here in russia) and a fire-y chili vodka that gerri likes. i think the baikal won out. that's my favorite anyway, tho i didn't partake, as i was slowly succumbing to the nasty gut disease again.
i've since been to the clinic and been diagnosed with an infection in my large intestine. i'm on cipro, and a few other russian drugs to help with the cramping, dehydration, and some other stuff. i'm doing better. but i'm told it takes a long time to work it's way out of your system. i went to the fancy european clinic, which looks just like any clinic in america. they all spoke english, and i was very well looked-after. they gave me an IV to increase my fluids, and did blood tests. very efficient and easy. and here is now what i'm taking:
so, we got knocked down a bit from the sickness, but didn't let it stop us from rockin' russia! i hope dad had as good a time as i did. and like he says, the sights don't matter nearly as much as spending time together. thanks for making the trip dad. it meant the world to me.
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