vladimir & suzdal

What a fantastic weekend!!

A total of 11 of us headed out a bit after 7am on Saturday on the metro. We boarded a bus around 9am bound for the Golden Ring city of Vladimir. It took four hours. The bus was like a charter bus, only pretty old with uncomfortable and sometimes broken seats, and every seat was occupied before it left. We all slept most of the way, but when I wasn't asleep, I saw bunches of run-down cottages on the road out of Moscow. The road itself wasn't in particularly good condition - potholes, random sidestreets, occasionally divided 4-lane and occasionally 2-ish lanes with no real dividing line.

When we arrived, it was, as Jeff put it, a "wintry mix." (Rain, hail, sleet, snow combination.) We gathered our things and found a pizza place where we had lunch. Very Russian - they told some of us that they only had coke light and others that they only had regular coke. Irina told us to pack light because we'd be carrying our stuff with us all day in Vladimir. I must say, it was quite a relief to get out of the huge city that is Moscow! Vladimir is around 300,000 people, but it felt downright tiny in comparison to Moscow. We saw a "golden gate" (conveniently placed in the middle of a roadway), about five newlywed couples, a snazzy cathedral, a random tall brick museum building, and a nice park area with a beautiful view. Apparently it's good luck for newlyweds to drive around the golden gate three times, and one of the wedding parties we encountered seemed to think that if three times was good luck, fifty was even better.

Thankfully the weather improved as soon as we'd eaten and aside from a chilly breeze it was beautiful out. Partly cloudy but simply splendid. By around 6pm we were thoroughly exhausted, so Irina decided it was time to head on to Suzdal. She called three taxis which arrived surprisingly quickly, and in we piled. I was in a taxi with Nick and Jack, and the driver spoke no English but was determined to converse with us in Russian. Didn't get much out of the conversation beyond the fact that Soviet times were great, that the roads were like glass back then and you could get free medicine. (As we drove along the most potholed road ever - the main road between Vladimir and Suzdal that lacks painted lanes.)

We were bracing ourselves for a terrible hostel-like hotel in Suzdal, but were pleasantly surprised when we pulled up to the "Sokol Hotel," a recently renovated 3-story yellow building. We checked in with minimal hassle (by Russian standards anyway), three to a room, and each room had two rooms in it - one with two single beds and one with a sofabed, chair, and TV. Plus a small entryway and nice bathroom! Definitely a notch above the dorms we're all living in. I was with Irina and Celina, and Celina volunteered to take the sofabed since she was sick and was probably going to snore.

Once we were settled, we all met in the lobby to go to dinner. Suzdal is a town of about 12,000 people and easily makes the top 10 list for "coolest places I've ever been." It was simply wonderful! Fresh air, a bit too tourist-centric but just a splendid small Russian town. Horses and buggies as prevalent as cars (but neither in abundance), an open market area, tons and tons of churches, a friendly atmosphere, and public restrooms that actually have toilet seats. What more could you want?

We headed first for Suzdal's Kremlin, which is my new favorite Russian building, because its onion domes are dark blue with gold stars. :) We were going to have dinner at the restaurant there, but some kind of large group was taking up the entire restaurant complete with musicians and dancers! So Irina led us to another restaurant. It was quite good, they even had a few menus in English, and we had a great evening. Traditional Russian food but actually *tasty* unlike so often at the University Stolovayas (cafeterias).

After dinner we pretty much crashed at the hotel, though I think some folks stayed up all night playing cards. Not me - I was asleep by midnight and didn't get up till well after 9am. Plus I was in a real bed and not a wannabe saggy sofa with random metal bars... :)

It turned our our hotel was even MORE awesome than we thought, because breakfast was included!! All you had to do was show up in the restaurant on the 2nd floor by 11am, and you had yourself an authentic yummy Russian breakfast. (I got there around 10:30.) Pancakes (blini) and "fried cheese biscuits" (which apparently can be really tasty if prepared right) with sour cream (smetana - runnier than in the US), sliced ham and cheese and a slab of butter, sliced white bread and a roll with poppyseeds on top, a glass of orange-mangoish juice, blueberry yogurt, and coffee or tea if you asked. WOW. I win. I'd been wanting a Russian breakfast ever since coming here but (a) didn't know where to go to get one and (b) am never awake early enough.

After that amazing start to my day, Celina and I packed our things and knocked on the guys' room next door to see if they were about ready to check out. Jeff was about to take a bath while Jack and Nick were watching a movie about baseball dubbed in Russian on TV. We informed them of the noon checkout time, and after not too long we were all poking around the nearby market buying random souvenirs.

Soon, Irina rounded us up and we walked a little way to a monastery. After once again gathering our student IDs and paying 10 rubles for everyone and issuing thin paper "bileti" (tickets) to us, Irina led us in. It was quite pretty, the weather was gorgeous and we enjoyed walking around the grounds and looking in a few buildings/churches and gift shops. Then randomly there was a bell concert - for about 10 minutes, some guy(s?) in a bell tower started playing all these huge church bells. No real melody per se, but really neat to watch and listen to.

After a little while we headed back to the other end of town to visit a collection of wooden houses and things that were all brought to Suzdal to be salvaged and made into a museum. We were getting a little "museumed out" at this point, but it was still fun. It was getting on towards 3pm though, and realistically it was going to take 6 hours to get back to our dorms in Moscow, so we headed to get some lunch at the restaurant in the Kremlin (this time there wasn't a huge party).

The food was overpriced but not bad and the service was terrible. For instance, I ordered a coke and the waiter told Irina (at the other end of the table) that they were out of coke so I sat there thirsty for a good 20 minutes before managing to inquire, and he tried to walk away before I could ask for a sprite instead. Still, we had a good meal, but we didn't get out of the restaurant for over an hour and we didn't get back to the dorms in Moscow until 10:30pm. One of the taxis from Suzdal back to Vladimir got pulled over and fined for speeding, and the bus ride back was long and uneventful.

Overall I had a fantastic time - just getting out of Moscow was (literally) a breath of fresh air. If I ever come back to Russia, I don't think I want to be based in Moscow, because it's just too big. The more places I go and the more things I see, the more I realize that I am *not* a city person.

Today's been pretty much "back to boring" with Thermal Physics and catching up on emails and such. I'll make another post soon with pictures from the weekend trip (I took nearly 200 in 2 days!), but for now I'm off to grab some dinner.