Novgorod

Last Saturday and Sunday the group headed to Novgorod, one of the most ancient towns in Russia. It is located between Moscow and St. Petersburg, and was about a 4 hour drive on the bus. A few of us talked later about the immediate contrast between the city and the country – as soon as you are out of St. Petersburg you are surrounded by fields, forests, and dachas (Russian summer homes). The complete lack of urban sprawl was very intriguing. As was watching people growing vegetables and playing with their dogs as the bus drove past their dachas. After arriving at the hotel (and parking behind a German tour bus), dropping our bags in our rooms and leaving our spravka – forms that are in place of our passports since the Russian government has those – at the front desk like always, we headed out for a bus and walking tour of the city. Novgorod has a population of about a quarter of a million, but feels like a small town with beautiful churches and a river running through the middle. Its full name is ‘Novgorod the Great’, which is how our tour guide usually referred to it. She was obviously incredible knowledgeable about the city and its history, but she tended to talk non-stop and not really differentiate between things we needed to know and completely random facts, so by the end of the trip we were missing our Petersburg tour guide quite a bit. We learned a lot though, for instance Novgorod was once one of the main cities of the Hanseatic league (German trading organization), and it has so many churches because pretty much anybody with the money could commission a church. One was built in celebration of a son being born, another honored a family anniversary. It helps explain why there are squares in Novgorod with three or four churches right next to each other. Many are today used for storage.

One of the most important churches for Russian Orthodoxy is located in Novgorod, that of St. Sophia. It has incredibly old icons and wall paintings inside (one from the twelfth century is believed to be the oldest in the country) and the entire church has a much more eastern feel. There are icons of course in the front and every inch of the walls and ceiling was covered with frescoes. It was incredibly beautiful and certainly a very different type of church. Across from the cathedral is the ‘millennium of Russia’ monument. Erected in the late 19th century, it is essentially a crash course in Russian history up to that point. (It was noted that that means it is free of Soviet influence, which is an interesting and rare perspective in this country.) There are writers, warriors, scientists, and rulers on the monument – our history professor told us there are more than 130 figures represented. One of the scenes at the top includes a man holding a broken idol under a cross, symbolizing the importance of the conversion of the country from paganism to orthodoxy. Alexander Nevsky and Peter the Great are of course two of the most recognizable figures on the monument. We were exhausted at this point from the never-ending explanations of our guide and the early morning start, so it was a good thing we were headed back to the hotel for dinner.

I was at the ‘segregated table’ while at the hotel, our affectionate name for those of us who were either vegetarian or couldn’t eat certain things, I was asked more than once whether I was Jewish because I couldn’t eat pork. We had fish instead, and it was very good, the first time I’ve had fish here I think. Jarlath stood up to inform us that if we wanted, we could go with him to a Russian bathhouse – banya – after dinner. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but then Kelly, Sarah, Vika, and Melissa came over to ask if I wanted to go and I thought it sounded fun so away we went to fetch our towels. Before we left Irina Borisovna, our resident coordinator and the most helpful and knowledgeable person, gave us a cute lecture about how we would be ‘banya sisters’ when we got back and to make sure we cover our heads with scarves on the walk back so we didn’t catch colds. When we got there, we paid about 5 dollars each and were immediately shown the ropes by the Russian babushkas who were incredibly entertained by the nervous American students who had just walked into their banya. They showed us how to shower, then run quickly into the steam room – where it was so hot you pretty much couldn’t breathe on the top level – and hit each other and yourself with birch branches, then run back out into the main room and jump into a cold shower or just dump a bucket of cold water on yourself and your friends. One woman even turned a faucet sideways and we ran through it like a sprinkler, which caused the babushkas to roar with laughter. After repeating this process a few times, it was time for the banya to close. Irina Borisovna stuck her head back in to make sure we were all putting scarves on and took our picture outside the banya with all of us and the guys too. It was only 9 when the banya closed so we got blini and chai (crepes and tea) at a café and then bought some wine in a store and hung out in one of the girls rooms talking and reliving the banya experience until about 2 in the morning, at which point we realized that we had to get up rather early so we crashed.

Sunday we started the day with an incredible breakfast buffet then headed to St. George’s monastery, one of the oldest in the country. It is one of the places where you can almost taste the real lives of the people who lived there, it looks like a place that was lived in and has a feel of added sincerity almost. There were a couple of monks walking around, apparently about 20 still live there, and their long robes were both familiar and somehow different from what I am accustomed to, like much in Russia I suppose. After walking through the monastery we went to a village of wooden buildings set up to resemble how most Russians lived in the 19th century. Absolutely gorgeous and simple architecture, and many of the buildings didn’t have many nails in them at all. There were also local artisans working carving and weaving birch pieces into various shapes. I got into a conversation with a cute German woman who was there with a tour group after I smiled at something she said jokingly. So that made me happy, and the rain held out for the most part. After wandering around the village, we headed to the kremlin (center fortress) of Novgorod where most of the historical things are to have lunch in a restaurant in one of the oldest towers in the wall. It specialized in ‘historic Russian cuisine’ and was very good! Though, once again, pork was on the menu so I had mushrooms in a cheese-cream sauce and thick cut french fries rather than the main dish – which I was fine with since the mushrooms were delicious and we were on our third course at that point. The day had turned rather chilly and windy so we headed out a little early, about 4 pm, for the long bus ride back to St. Petersburg. Arrived home nice and tired and with plenty of homework to do, but with a new perspective on Russian history and life outside of the city.