1000 years back

I have just come back from a trip to Velikij Novgorod, which is the city on the north of Russia that has a history of more than 1000 years. We went there with Sveta, a friend of mine.

It’s even difficult to imagine – 1000 years! Yet, many historical monuments are still on this land, although were badly destroyed by wars.

You may read about the city in web: www.novgorod.ru/english while I will put some pictures that we did there and my personal impressions about the trip.

Impression 1 – Kremlin, cultural center of the city and a good place for rest in piece and silence.

Impression 2 – Cotton hare. Surprisingly, we came to Novgorod in its birthday, so took part in the celebration that impressed us a lot! The event was organized in such an interesting way that everybody could get involved in different activities: painting, weaving, sewing, dancing!

As for us, we learned to make cotton hares :-)

Impression 3 – Monastery life. There are a lot of churches and monasteries in Novgorod. Wherever you go, you will find them on your way. It’s strange and frustrating how some of them are surrounded by cafes, clubs, beaches etc. without any respect to monks. Yet these are just exceptions. And there is the one which impressed us the most, because of its blinding beauty and spiritual silence…

We heard the story about novices (“послушники”) who have to obey all requests of a parson (“батюшка”). No words back, no complaints, if you are told to do something you are to go it. Are we able to live this kind of life?

And this is an old church destroyed during Warld War II, now a home for some Novgorod citizens...

Impression 4 – House of Dostoevsky in Staraya Russa (town in Novgorod region). Fedor Dostoevsky is the famous Russian writer, we saw his small house where he lived with his family.

Impression 5 – Weird things. Some of them are funny, some are frustrating, the others are completely senseless. One of them is just STRANGE… like this drama theatre… :)

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Thank you, my dear, for such a pleasant trip!