Novgorod

This weekend we went to Novgorod. It was a long trip. It takes about 2.5 hours to get to Novgorod. We left at 8am – in near darkness. The drive to Novgorod was quite uneventful, though I now have a better appreciation for the phrase “St. Petersburg and Moscow are not Russia.” The country side was open fields and forests of fir and birch tree.

We passed through towns that were barely more than a handful of ramshackle houses with out-buildings scattered behind them. The occasional dog wandering between buildings. I think most people slept on the bus. We were all tired.

Despite the name of “New City” Novgorod does not at all feel like a new city. In fact it was first mentioned in the Chronicles 859 and is implied to be an already established trade town at that point in time.

We drove into Novgorod a bit after 11 am. Coming into the city you drive through what looks like project housing. In fact most of the city is project housing from the 1950s. Meaning apartment buildings all about 5 stories high, plain concrete, with balconies that no longer look safe. The city was decimated by WWII; I think there were only about 50 homes left standing at the end of the war. Thus people needed places to live and the projects sprung up to fill that need. The outskirts of the town are more typical dacha style homes. Which aside from the carvings in the trim have the look of the older farm-style homes you see in many small towns in the U.S.

Our hotel was nice, and after the day of touring many of Novgorod’s churches and the Kremlin, we were content to go back to it, and many of us students spent the night enjoying our first real chance to hang out as a group.

The food at the hotel was good. Though I think more amusing was the entertainment at dinner. I wish I’d had my camera, but I was under the normal assumption that we would merely be eating dinner. There was a wedding reception being held in the same room as we were eating in. Thus live entertainment of the humorous variety was present. Michael knows the Ievan Polkka (this video? and this song? ed.), I think some other people at UW might as well. When we walked into the room it was being played and a group of 4 girls were dancing to it dressed as dairy maids. It is more amusing than the flash video and the original quartet singing combined.

My favorite places in Novgorod were the Hagia Sofia in the Kremlin. This church is one of the oldest churches in Russia that is still in use. The outside isn’t spectacular, as is the case with most churches, but the interior mosaics, and icons were beautiful. My other favorite was the out-door museum with wood churches and homes from the early 14th century.



I was also pleased with our guide for this section of the tour (on foot) as while he spoke Russian he was very understandable, and willing to make sure we knew what was going on. Or other guide spoke English but had a tendency to ramble and act as though we were all only 5 years old.

Unfortunately I didn’t write down my thoughts at the time I was there thus I am once again a bit scatter brained in my retelling of the tale.

Novgorod left me with mixed feelings. The town has a run down feel to it. But there are signs of new development and new homes being built.

"New rich" home


I think some of my impression was from the weather that had been warm enough to melt snow into sheets of puddle gray ice over mud, but was presently cold and gloomy.



These last couple days I have also been busy with school. On Monday I went to the Russian Museum in order to do research for my oral presentation in Culture class yesterday. I then ended up staying up too late talking to Tanya about wildlife of the U.S. and Russia. (Trying to explain moose and cougar took some effort), family sizes, (here it is uncommon to have more than 2 children, thus they think the U.S. with our average of 2 kids per family and sometimes more than two kids is strange), and about New York since there was a very interesting documentary on TV - with me explaining that New York is not the U.S. as a whole. I also had to try and explain that I had never been to New York because I probably live about as close to Vladivlastok as I do to New York. I don’t think she quite believed me, but I did get across the point that it is a great distance between Seattle and New York.

Yesterday (Tuesday) was very long. I left at the normal time and didn’t get home until 12 hours later. My classes were okay and after class I walked to Chernishevkaya metro with another student. I took the metro to Vasilevorstrovskaya to meet with Irina Borisevna, our extra-curricular activity liaison. She met with Kate and I and took us to the main SPSU campus.

We had the grand tour around many of the buildings. I also auditioned for the choir there and made it in! The Director was really quite nice, and I’m looking forward to rehearsals starting on Friday. I could have gone to rehearsal last night but Kate and I had to meet with Alexander Alexandrovich about tutoring English to Russian students. By the time we were done, choir practice had already started and I had yet to eat dinner, and didn’t know how long it would take to get home. I was also tired enough that I thought I was going to pass out. I hope the director won’t be annoyed that I didn’t come to the practice, but I honestly didn’t think it was going to be safe for me to go if I wanted to make it back to my apartment in one piece.

I made it back safely, though I think I know a shorter way to come back by than the one I took. I will try it on Friday.

Today has been slow. The bus made good time getting here and my classes went well, though I didn’t expect our debate over small vs. large cities to get quite as heated as it did in my conversation class. I kind of like it when we get going like that though because then you don’t think about the fact you are speaking Russian, and for the most part our grammar actually improves because we aren’t concentrating on the words but on the message we want to get across.


*Note: Photos will be up shortly in my gallery from the Novgorod trip.