Suzdal

Suzdal is arguably the most popular city in the Gold Ring, although for a long time I had no idea why. Every description of the town seemed to be similar to any of the other towns I had been to in the region, and I wondered what could make this city any more spectacular than Vladimir, Pereslavl Zelsky. Just more churches and wooden houses right?

Well, in a way yes. But then again, when we arrived, I realized rather quickly why people told me that you need more than just a day to visit Suzdal. What I thought would be a charming little town ended up being a sort of Disneyland for adults who really love churches, countryside, and wooden houses. I was so overwhelmed by the sheer mass of things to see, that I seriously regretted the fact that we had only slept 4 hours the night before.

Despite the sheer mass of things to see, Suzdal still holds the "little country town" charm, with delightful streams full of luscious lily pads and plenty of tiny wood bridges. Everywhere you walked there were horse drawn carriages and musicians, and of course the expected hoards of tourists who came to celebrate mid-summer. I could imagine that Suzdal is lovely in the winter, but I think in the end everyone in our group declared that summer was by far its most beautiful season. The flowers were even more in bloom here, and the grass was growing as if there was no tomorrow. We laughed as a group of swimmers attempted over and over again to retrieve the rope swing from over the river.

The breeze was almost as sweet as the mead we drank, "myedovoukha," which was hommade and tased just like the honey had been harvested that day. Suzdal is an absolute must see, because no matter what age you are, you can feel the magic, as you are transported back in time to some ancient, simpler, happier way of life.

Back to Vladimir

It’s precious rare that as a traveler you get the chance to visit a place a second time, especially if you’re as flighty as I am. I tend to be of the sentiment that once you’ve been there, you’ve at least seen the most of what you need to see, so why go back and waste precious time? Rather, you should be covering new territory!

Of course this mentality is fundamentally backward, because if you think about it, a city for example, is never the same; it’s always changing, just like the seasons. Which brings up an even better point: if you visit a place in the winter, will it look the same in the summer? If you’re in California where seasons don’t exist too much, the answer is probably “no,” but in Russia, there is absolutely a difference. As much as Moscow blossomed into a glorious green natural city this summer, I knew that outside of Moscow must be even better of a transformation, so my travel buddy Luke and I ventured off to Vladimir for a SECOND time, to see what we could see. And Luke had two revelations, just in time to send him off home to England.

And of course, as predicted, after 6 months, the transformation was even more acute, since the last time we had laid eyes on the place it had been buried in snow, and we had missed out on the slow thaw of spring. As happy as I was to see our friends again, I was even more thrilled when we ran off to tiny little Bogolyubovo, with the most perfect churn in Russia.

Diana’s friend explained to us that the church was created around an icon. As the workers tried to drag the large icon to a far off church outside of Vladimir, they soon tired of their work, and after 5 miles or so dropped the icon and rested. They looked around and decided, “To heck with that! We’ll just build a church here!” and so they did. And despite all of the swarms of mosquitoes and tourists, it was still just as peaceful as I remembered it. We swam in the river as it started to rain, but it didn’t dampen our spirits, or our fire, thankfully. “This is what makes Russia so perfect,” reveled Luke, as we sat on the river bank grilling sausages. “Russians are so in tune with nature, it’s their religion.” I laughed as Diana aptly built up the fire, our little elven friend who wouldn’t have surprised me if she had told me that she had been born in the nature.

This was even more evident when we made it to her parents’ summer home, and saw what a magical garden her mother and her had created. As Diana had promised, we experienced “shashlik” at her family’s summer home, or “dacha” and even had a chance to spend time in the ever popular banya. I’m not sure what could be more Russian than barbequing meat over a wood fire, or drinking homemade apple juice with fresh veggies, but Diana’s family, as expected was perfectly hospitable, and we talked and laughed until the fire burned down, and her father stopped playing folk songs on his guitar. “I think that’s what makes the Russian way of life so perfect,” pondered Luke discovering his second revelation. “Everything is done with good food, good company, and good music.” This is the secret to a good life, it seemed to us, both with bellies full, encouraging the words to a Beatles song that Diana’s father tried to play, mumbling along to the lyrics he obviously didn’t know. We were so exhausted, but it didn’t matter, because everything else was balanced and whole. We felt at peace with the natural world, breathing it in as we watched the sun already start to rise.

Summertime in Moscow

Perhaps nothing can be more refreshing than to experience a true summer after a true winter. I will admit that the wimpy Californian in me used to take summer for granted, as that time when it was "hot" versus "chilly." But here in Moscow, it's a completely different transformation. The bleak city turns into a lively place, and the color green just explodes from every direction, as the trees shoot out leaves in what seems like a matter of days.

The explosion of flowers and colors does wonder for not only the aesthetics of Moscow as a city, but also for the people who live here. Everyone throws off their black and brown fur coats and transforms their wardrobe into a wild and colorful array of clothing with different colored prints and patterns. People smile more, and seem to have awoken from some sort of hibernation. But above all is the combination of happy Moscovites and their love for the outdoors in the various parks around the city.

I was invited for my first "shashlik" (from the georgian word for shish kebab) in the park, and was shocked to see how apt my Russian friends were at setting up a picnic. They immediately went into picnic mode, throwing down blankets, setting up a barbecue, passing around beer. We sat around for hours, just talking and enjoying the sun, like everyone else around us. There was no running around, no checking of watches, as we laughed around the delicious food we ate as we listened to Russian pop music, as always. As we walked home, I admired all of the other families and friends who were doing exactly the same thing, and I felt rather glad for that moment, that I lived in Moscow.

Lake Baikal

I could think of no better way to end a Siberian adventure than to make it Lake Baikal. It is by far, one of the most spectacular things I have seen in my life.

But first I had to go to Irkutsk. Although it was an interesting city, after my amazing adventures in Krasnoyarsk and Ekaterinburg, I wasn't as thrilled by its messy and chaotic state. You could tell that the locals weren't big fans of tourists either, since they must get too many in the summer, with the way they talked to me in a huffy, irritated tone. I still enjoyed the river, crowded with ice fisherman who sat there with their poles all day long, waiting for something to happen in the frozen water.

But Baikal was everything I had hoped for, and more. when the train cleared a pass, my new friend Alex pointed out the mountains and my jaw literally dropped. They were even bigger than the ones in Krasnoyarsk, but in front of them was a HUGE lake, which was frozen solid, three meters thick. I was dazed as we trudged across, faintly reminded of a time when I had tried to cross the salt flats in the Badlands, California with my cousins. We were kids and thought that maybe if we walked far enough, we would get to the other side. But of course history repeats itself, and I'm pretty sure that after a few hours of walking I hadn't even made it halfway! But it was only the corner of the lake anyway. In parts, according a guy who worked at the hostel, the lake was 50 miles across. So much for that idea.

Baikal was refreshing in a way because of the youth hostel where we decided to spend the night. It was decidedly outdoorsy, especially with the people who came in and out, with their cross country skis or climbing gear. Jena, who was our know all on the lake and worked there, was obviously a big fan of the outdoors, and showed us hours upon hours of photos of downhill skiing adventures, kayaking trips, and biking expeditions in nearby Mongolia. "If only you had come in summer," he smiled at me wistfully, showing me all of the cool activities I was missing out on. All but one.

That evening we headed out to the Russian "banya," their version of a steamroom sauna, which felt great after a freezing day of walking outside. As soon as we got as hot as we could manage, we grabbed our towels and ran for the nearby hole in the lake, neatly cut out from the ice. I plunged myself into the freezing water, and as I went under I looked up and could see the moon and the stars shining above my head. I had to get out fast, but I walked a little slower to admire the best stars I had seen in a long time, as my friends made a mad dash for the warmth of the sauna. I thought of all the people I had met on my trip, and all of the beautiful things I had seen. Moscow seemed so different now, like a different world, but 26 hours later I was on a plane, heading back to my "reality," away from those stars. Away from a different side of Russia, so different from anything else I had ever seen.

Where are them bears!??

I know people have different opinions about Siberia. Even in Moscow the stereotypes were comical, if anything: big trees, too much snow, wild people, wild animals. Bears even! My student Staz told me that if I went to Krasnoyarsk, no matter what I did, I was NOT to go wandering in the woods, where there were....dangerous animals!

As soon as I left Ekaterinburg to head even further into Siberia, I wondered what awaited me in Krasnoyarsk. For the first evening hours of my 38 hour train ride from Ekaterinburg to Krasnoyarsk, my neighbors at first took on a more sinister, grizzly look in my less than plushy platzcart wagon. Nobody spoke much at first, but once you got them going, there was no stopping the conversation. Turned out my neighbor on the train was my neighbor in Moscow too, living only one metro stop away from me. We joked about California (Schwarzenegger came up inevitably) and soon our group of 4 had a running joke going about how the governator now lived in a tiny village in Siberia with the bears (medved, as I soon became familiar with this new word). Eventually a lady further down in the compartment came by and yelled at us to keep quiet, and we all drifted off to sleep.

When I did make it to Krasnoyarsk, I was surprised again. I had been expecting some tiny, rugged town, far from everything, as my friend from this town had explained to me before I left Moscow. But as I walked around the streets it became more obvious to me that this wasn't the sort of place a bear would enjoy strolling around in. It was, dare I say, modern. The buildings looked clean and bright, and the streets were so well groomed I wondered for a moment if I was back in some cute tiny roadstop town in the US. I'm sorry to say the only bear I found in Krasnoyarsk was in my coffee cup, just a fancy motif created by the barrista out of cream.

But that isn't the charm of Krasnoyarsk. Sure the main street is well kept with cute music blasting away, and there are plenty of fountains, not to mention a nice looking university. What was incredible was the mountains. Right across the river, you could see why people head to Krasnoyarsk for skiing, I might as well have been in the Swiss Alps.

Of course one of the top things on my list to do was to go to the Stolby National Park, which I had only heard rave reviews about. Managing to convince a couchsurfer and his friend to join me on the quest, we headed out, for the several hour climb to the top of a mountain, where rock columns loomed above it all, just begging to be climbed. As I picked my way through the boulders and ice patches, I managed to reach the top, just in time to catch my breath, as I looked around and saw for the first time, true Siberian wilderness. Ok, so maybe there was a bear or two out there somewhere, but that didn't matter. For as far as the eye could see, was pure forest, and it was beautiful.

Ekaterinburg, not quite Europe, but not quite Asia

During my transiberian experience, I decided to somewhat randomly choose stopping points along the way, to catch my breath, and of course experience a bit of that good old Russian culture. Ekaterinburg seemed to be a logical decision, although I honestly knew very little about the city, and nobody seemed to have exciting things to say about it. I showed up with low expectations, and ended up hopping off the train into a pleasantly exciting city. Of course there was that burning question in my mind, that I hadn't managed to discern from my neighbor on the train with my horrible Russian. As we shopped in what could have been any supermarket in the US, I asked my friend, hardly containing myself: "Are we in Europe or Asia??" He shrugged and said, "Well, the border is technically 14 kilometers west from here....so I guess we're in Asia." He laughed, somewhat embarrassed by my sudden outbreak of glee in the supermarket, jumping up and down. I'm in Asia, for the first time!! And yet, looking at my friend Alex, with his red head, I could tell, that this wasn't quite the Asia I had read about in books...

Although Ekaterinburg is as industrial as people complain it to be, there's still a surprising bit of charm to it. Firstly, if you ignore all of the crazy city construction and modern charmless buildings, you come across some gorgeous architecture, and some really incredible history, that you never would have expected.

What really amazed me, was that for once, I went to a museum, and actually loved it! Inside, I wandered alone in the historical science museum, discovering more and more about the ancient peoples of the Ural Mountains, when all of the sudden, I came across an incredible sight: there, alone in its own special room, stood a towering impressive monolith. An ancient wooden idol, carved by humans over 3000 years ago, the oldest wooden carving ever discovered in the world. I stared in awe, completely amazed that such ancient things could be so beautiful.

If that wasn't impressive enough, I made my way over to the most modern church I had seen in Russia....built only a handful of years ago, it was to memorialize the family of Nicolai II, the last of the czars, who was murdered....in Ekaterinburg. When my friend Alex took me to the place where the family's bodies were thrown into a mining shaft, far out of the city limits, I was awestruck. There, in a peaceful, brand new monastery, were tiny churches, each one for a family member that was killed by the Red army during the revolution. Sadly, nobody could officially announce the deaths of the family and discover exactly what had happened to them until the fall of the Soviet Union, and they weren't memorialized until the 1990s. As I stood in the silence of the forest, staring at the place where they found the bones of the children, I felt sad, humbled, and forever overcome with the power of history. This is Russia, I thought, as the sun set, and Orthodox choir sang their somber mass. I looked at the forest beyond, realizing I had much further to go.

The Simple Joys of traveling by train

I remember my father telling me once about one of his fond memories as a kid traveling through Europe with his family by train. He had that look in his eyes as he smiled, retelling his feelings as the train slowly rocked him back and forth to sleep, the quiet but steady noise of the wheels on the tracks. A lullaby of sorts. This is what I imagined when I first decided to travel by train - a relaxing, scenic way to appreciate the vast Russia without really doing much of anything except being lulled to sleep in my cozy bunk. What could be a better way to avoid the hectic life in Moscow than to sit on a train for 28 hours at a time? As usual I should have known better!

Life on the train(s) had its ups and its downs, its quiet moments, and its happy moments, but most of all, the one thing I noticed more than anything else, was how chaotic life could be when you put 80 people in a compartment for who knows how many hours? Just when you think you can silently observe what is going on from a distance, you soon find out that you are swept into what becomes your new life in a new community.

Although my Russian was awful, from the first hour I sat down on the train, I instantly cracked out my textbooks, dictionary, and notepad and pen. Soon I found that what was entertaining for my neighbors became my free Russian lessons, taught by native speakers who...didn't speak any English. My first evening became an adventure running through a town with some guys from Azerbaijan looking for crystal before the train took off again, and I could already tell that my vacation wasn't going to be so boring after all.

The best part of riding third class is that it is a great equalizer. No matter whether someone was from Mongolia or a college student heading off to university for the first time, everyone seemed to work together. If someone had something funny to say, everyone was allowed to be in on the joke. People spoke freely to their neighbors, who joined in on conversations which could last for 10 hours. Everyone agreed on when it was time to go to bed, time to eat lunch, and time to take a nap. If someone needed help putting their luggage up, everyone helped. And when I cut my foot on a piece of glass, to my embarrassment and surprise immediately I was hoisted up to my bunk, with my foot sticking out into the aisle as it was inspected and argued over by 4 of my neighbors as the woman in charge of our car poured alcohol over it. I guess there are benefits to being a single girl traveling alone after all, everyone worries about you.

Each time the train stopped I managed to jump off and try to imagine what the cities looked like on the other side of the train station. People kept getting on and off of the train at different stops, so sometimes your friends would disappear as you slept, leaving you in the middle of the night. Sometimes passengers would get off at a stopover for 20 minutes to visit with family or friends that lived there. One of my older neighbors stepped off the train for the first time at Novosibirsk late at night which surprised me, almost as much as when I saw her talking to a young guy, much younger than her. I was pretty confused until she later explained that it had been her son who had met her at the train station for those precious 20 minutes to visit. As we left she smiled wistfully out the window and then went to sleep.

Although there were crazy times on the train, and plenty of improvement on my Russian conversation skills, I did get an opportunity to watch the scenery go by. There were some moments during the day where I stared for hours out at the vast countryside which turned to glorious mountains, and then to plains. I could really appreciate the change in scenery even with the huge cover of snow over everything. At least it was sunny and just a little below freezing, and we were plenty cozy on the train. Sometimes I couldn't help but keep my eyes wide open at night, as the moon shone over the forest, reflecting off of the pristine snow. I watched until I was lulled to sleep by the quiet chugging of the wheels on the tracks, and the gentle swaying of the train back and forth, as I kept moving further and further away from what I knew, to something completely new and exciting.