It was a beautiful crisp, clear morning and lovely to be out as the sun was rising. We all walked down stone steps into the labyrinthine Pecherske Lavra caves that the monks dug out centuries ago to create their monastery (1015 A.D.).  Today the walls of the tiny spaces are all plastered, there are beautiful icons and candles are the only illumination.  We had a special service in one small church cave, by candlelight, the smell of beeswax and incense, and four young priests/monks chanting and singing; it was quite lovely.  In each of the church areas there were glass caskets with the remains of a saint, and also in alcoves along the narrow passages, with a candle hanging over each one.  After the service we were taken along many of the tunnels, and saw others who were  doing the rounds of the saints; stopping to kiss the caskets, cross themselves and say a prayer, before moving onto the next one.  There are over one hundred saints/relics there, dating back from 1115-1912, whose bodies have naturally preserved.  In orthodoxy that is part of the sign of a saint; not decaying.  Some of the heads even produce myrrh and the priest uses the oil makes the sign of the cross on your forehead.  Some of the monks apparently stayed underground permanently and just had food passed to them through a tiny opening.  When the food was still there the next day they knew the monk had died and just closed up the opening.  It has been a very long time since any monks lived in the caves, now they just use it as a church.When we asked what happened to the saints during Soviet times, we were told that there was a museum of atheism, and all the saints were laid out naked for scientific interest.

We had a hearty breakfast in the refectory of the seminary and then went on a major tour of all the churches and monasteries in Kiev.  My favorite was St Sophia, where all the original frescoes and icons were discovered under layers of paint and still retain their original colors, without being overly restored as in some churches.  It has remained a museum since Soviet times rather than being made back into a church, and is truly beautiful.  The Lavra and St Sophia have both been granted UNESCO world heritage status.  Kiev is a beautiful city, particularly the old town, with cobbled streets, art Nouveau buildings and striking statues.  At lunch we were given the treat of horseradish vodka – not to my taste!  We took the plane back to Moscow that night, and felt we had had a very full day.

Dawn by the Percherske Lavra

Sunrise over the Dnepr river

Autumn leaves and golden domes in Kiev

Ukrainian decorated egg art installation

Another church

Big newly restored monastery in center of Kiev

Babushkas begging outside the monastery

Yarolslav the Wise - the founder of Kievan Rus, holding a model of St Sophia - that he built

The enormous statue of the Motherland - Mother, 102 meters hight

A couple of nights later we were lying in bed around midnight when the doorbell rang – the one to the street.  We didn’t expect anyone, so went to look from our window to see who was out there.  It was two men with machine guns standing in the road and looking up at the apartments!  They must have rung all the doorbells, hoping someone would open it.  We watched from our darkened window, wondering what was going on.  At one point they went inside the building and then came out again, and walked up the street – to a police car.  So, it was the police, not quite so scary, but we never found out why they were there, or who they were looking for.

The temperature is now down to 0C, which is feeling really cold; and we know that winter will mostly be around -25C, I guess it’s a process of adjustment!

This week our schedule has been different and because we were at the office yesterday, we could visit the Friday street market there, hurray!  Such a treat…we bought wild mushrooms, (ceps Boletus, and King Boletus that grow under pine trees) Jerusalem artichokes, figs, fresh herbs, lovely fresh, hard, crisp apples, pomegranates….yummy!  We were only limited by what we could carry home on the metro as we both had a bag/briefcase already.  The market is set up along a lane, with bright yellow awnings over the line of stalls, there are many fruit and veggie ones, some smaller booths run by women, with flowers from their gardens, honey, pickles, mushrooms and other veggies they have picked themselves, people selling clothes, eggs, a small mobile tank where you can fill your own bottles with milk, live fish for eating, meat and dried fish and meat, cheeses.  Interestingly the longest line was for the prepared foods.  Here in Moscow people always serve prepared salads, often bought, of grated beetroot, carrots, cabbage, etc. pickles and salted fish…..It seems that no one makes their own, but always buys it prepared, hence the popularity of that stall.

There was a great scene (unfortunately I did not have my camera) of the market in the foreground, with lots of different kinds of people shopping, behind it was the huge Soviet building that has a MacDonalds on the side, so I could see the large sign – МакДоналдс, and above that an enormous Soviet mosaic fresco of soldiers on the side of the building.  It seemed to encapsulate so many of the different elements of Moscow today – the Soviet history, the generic western import, and the continuum of the street market like a thread running through it all.

When we got out at our station to walk home through the park we were blocked by a metal fence, and the police.  It seemed that there was a demonstration planned – a common occurrence – but this time they were stopping anyone even going into the park, so we had to walk home along the road after all.

Friday nights are busy on the metro with people going home from work, going out, people with suitcases and backpacks heading to the train stations to get away for the weekend, then the accompanying buskers, and the occasional old lady kneeling on the steps to the metro, often with some small icon in front of them – begging.  It is sad that they have been reduced to this.  In Soviet times the elderly were all well cared for, and now it seems they are one of the casualties of the new Russian capitalist society.

We decided to try and make the journey more bearable by taking an evening flight direct to Amsterdam (checking our bags all the way to Portland) and spending the night in the airport hotel, which is literally above the concourse.  We got up at eight, and had a leisurely breakfast before boarding the ten-hour direct flight to Portland, where we arrived at noon.  It was way more relaxing than taking an early flight from Moscow, having a 3 or 4 hour layover in Amsterdam and then the long flight, which would have brought us into Portland at almost midnight.

We arrived to a welcome heat wave, so had the chance to wear summer clothes for a little longer, although after a few days it grew autumnal and chilly.  We had a lot of meetings planned with our business administrator, accountant, rental manager, lawyer, our teachers etc.  We also had a friend’s 60^th birthday, organizing repairs to our car so we can sell it, some shopping, and Solihin had five days of work with certifying practitioners, teacher training and a workshop.  We did manage to see some friends and I did a quick trip up to Vancouver to visit our youngest daughter Miriam, who is studying theatre design at UBC, which was a lovely treat, and I managed to squeeze in lunch with a dear friend too.

It is always interesting to return to the place we lived for eighteen years and called home before we moved to Russia, just as it is always interesting to visit England and see how that feels in terms of home and place.  What struck me this time was how relaxed and laid back Portland seemed.  People going to yoga classes, having coffee, talking to friends, walking with babies and children, a lot of life on the street, especially in our South East Clinton/Division neighborhood. There is a yoga studio below our flat on 26th, another on 32nd and another on 22nd with equivalent numbers of coffee shops!  I noticed how many small creative entrepreneurial enterprises there were everywhere, often with deliveries by bike.  Many streets now have groups of food carts around a collection of tables, offering a variety of sustenance for all tastes.

Portland has a worldwide reputation for its dedication to sustainability, and is often used as a model of urban planning, and its environmentally friendly way of life with locally grown food available in restaurants and farmer’s markets, the largest bike riding population in the US, and as a pioneer in recycling.

I was a dedicated recycler, bike rider, cloth bag user, filling my own containers with bulk produce, buying local and organic food from farmer’s markets, only buying free range, grass fed or wild meat and fish, using VOC free paint, growing and preserving some of our own food, gardening with native plants and low water use, and there really was the feeling that all the choices we made, helped to make a difference because so many of us were doing it.

When we moved to Moscow almost none of that was available. There is, understandably, very little environmental consciousness here as yet.  My attempts here have been cloth bags for shopping, but trying to stop the cashier putting everything in plastic bags before they fill my bags is always a challenge!  We drive rarely, and take the metro or walk to most places.  We carbonate our own filtered tap water rather than buy imported foreign glass bottles that we cannot recycle.  When possible we buy nuts, seeds and dried fruit in bulk. I make my own yoghurt, nut butters, almond milk and tahini.  We had to accept that organic produce, meat, eggs and dairy were not available and eat what is.  When we can we buy fruit, mushrooms and veggies from old ladies who sell their own produce on the street.  We hardly use any paper at all, now that everything is by email, scanned and saved as pdfs.  Unfortunately, we are working when the local street market is here, but we now have a woman who has set up a fruit and vegetable stall on the back of an old abandoned car just up the street and she is there each weekday.

In Portland I was surprised to catch myself thinking, as I watched people earnestly recycling their glass bottles and cans, how futile it all seemed, from the perspective of living in a city of around 15 million people where virtually no one is doing any of those things.  How much of a difference does it make? It doesn’t stop me doing what little I can, but it does remind me what a small percentage of the western world is doing anything.  As a total contrast, while in Portland I had to go to the mall for something, and could hardly find a parking place as the parking lot was full, the mall was packed with people, all buying, and I wondered who the recession is affecting, it doesn’t seem to have stopped anyone shopping.  I found it all a bit much and left feeling completely exhausted, I cannot see how people go there for fun!

Arriving back in Moscow we were met by the taxi guys who stand at the customs exit.  They all wear official looking laminated cards round their neck and come and ask you if you need a taxi.  We know that to get a regular taxi into town from the airport is 1200-1400 rubles.  These guys start off asking for 5000 rubles! When we speak Russian and name our price they will usually come down to 1500, after a bit of wangling.  This time they would not go below 2000 and were getting annoyed with us.  I was determined not to be at their mercy.  It is a real taxi mafia there, these guys control all the taxis in the airport and the ones negotiating with customers make their cut before giving something to the driver himself.  I had the bright idea of going back inside and upstairs to arrivals and catching a taxi that is dropping someone off.  We found a nice taxi driver and agreed on 1500, as by now we just wanted to get home.  In future, if we can’t take the train and need a taxi we will arrange for one to meet us and avoid the confrontations with, and attempts to rip us off by the taxi mafia.  Welcome to Moscow!

Muscovy ducks on autumnal pond

Flying in over the lakes and forests of Solovki

Last month our boss took a group of us to the Solovetsky, or Solovki, Islands for a few days.  These islands of great natural beauty with a long, important and diverse cultural, spiritual and historical heritage lie in the White Sea, one hundred miles south of the Arctic Circle, and a three hour boat trip from Archangel, Russia’s most northern seaport.

We flew in an old 30 seat, chartered plane, that did cause us to remark on all the recent plane crashes in Russia over the last few months, but we arrived safely and without any incident!

As we flew in over the sea, and then the flat, densely forested islands, with many sparkling lakes and inlets, I began to get excited.  This was a side of Russia we had not yet seen, so we were discovering another, very remote part of this country we live in.  We had been warned about the weather, that it would probably be very cold, gray and wet, and had been issued with a long list of what kind of clothing to bring.  Luckily we had most of it already, from years of living, hiking and camping in rainy Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest. We did however need to buy some wellies, or rubber boots and I was able to get some very pretty black and white flowery patterned ones, as I am a great believer in practical things being beautiful!

We arrived to a clear blue sky and warm sun, in fact, Solihin actually got a little sunburned on the first day and there was no sunscreen on the islands as it is so rarely warm. The northern light was incredible, rich and saturated, and reminded me of Scotland and the San Juan islands; the deep blues, and rich reds, colors seem to have another dimension in that light.

We were picked up from the airfield by an old bus and driven the mile or so to our hotel, on dirt roads, there are no paved roads on the islands, and past a mixture of very old wooden buildings and houses, the incredible 15th century walled stone monastery, and a motley collection of Soviet era apartments.  Our hotel was a lovely collection of traditional izbas, or log houses. Decorated very simply with painted beds, woven bedspreads and curtains, wood floors and a large bearskin rug, complete with head, in the hallway.  The izbas were all set around a simple garden of rocks, wood pathways and a profusion of blooming flowers with lots of bumblebees and butterflies enjoying the warmth.

After unpacking Solihin and I could not wait to go out and explore, so took off for a couple of hours wandering around the village, the Holy Lake and the little port and taking photos. There were eight cows wandering around the village that apparently belong to the monastery, and a herd of goats living free range between the apartments and the local shop.

We were all divided into small groups to take a selection of prearranged tours.  Our first one was to the Maritime museum, and we had a wonderful guide who really brought alive the whole history of seafaring that had been so vital to the islands in the past.  In the middle of the museum they were building a replica of Peter the Great’s wooden boat, which was fascinating to see.

Our second day we went by boat, on a mirror calm sea, to Bolshoi Zayatsky island, a tiny place with just a simple cabin for the caretaker and the little wooden church of St Andrei, the patron saint of seamen, that Peter the Great had his men build in just one day!  The other remarkable feature of this island is the presence of two stone labyrinths dating back to 2000 BC, 4000 years ago!  There are a total of 40 labyrinths across all the islands, and the historians are still not entirely of their purpose, but know that they were considered sacred sites, and not where people lived.  I found it very interesting that they have been found in so many different countries, and so long ago….

In the afternoon we were taken around the main monastery, when it rained for an hour or so, and then the sun came out again.  This monastery is considered one of the most important in Russia and there are wonderful stories of the founders, their visions and miracles, layered with years of history, intrigue and challenges, the greatest of these being during Soviet times, when many monks and priests were killed and the churches and icons destroyed, and the monasteries used to house some of the worst and cruelest gulags during Stalin’s time.

In the evening we had a barbecue dinner at a long table set up by the seashore.   The kids all went off to pick wild blueberries and we sat and enjoyed the extended sunset over the still ocean.

The next day we were due to all go together to Anzer Island, and woke to chilly thick fog.  The boat took a long time making it’s way through the narrow channels between the islands.  We walked the 10 kilometers across the island with many taking breaks to pick wild mushrooms and berries.  We visited ruined churches in the process of restoration, and many places that had been hermitages for a single monk, with more stories of visions and dreadful gulags.  On the way back the fog had cleared and the sea was quite flat and we spotted a few baluga whales, which was very exciting.  During the day my camera suddenly stopped working, the sensor had gone, so from then on I had to see in a different way.

On the following day, without my camera, I started to see mushrooms….and once I started seeing them, they were everywhere!  The others in our group, like most Russians, have all grown up picking mushrooms and they told me which ones were paganka,  inedible, or pagan!  We ended up with a huge bag and I wanted to take some back to Moscow, so spread them out on a towel in our room and they dried out enough to take home.  Later we had another bagful, which we gave to the guide, and the next day she presented us with a jar of our mushrooms in oil to take home with us, lovely!

That night there was a special service in the monastery for the assumption of the Virgin Mary.  It started at 11pm, but our group was all doing confession with Father Andrei at the hotel and were not finished until 1am, so we all walked over to the church together.  The service was in full flow and we joined in, standing with everyone else.  Around 3.30 there was a procession of the entire congregation, lead by the priests carrying crosses and candles and singing, around the outside of the whole monastery, about a 1.5 km walk.  Solihin and I walked home after the procession, but we heard the following day that the service had gone on until 6.30am!  It was very beautiful, and I can appreciate the ritual and ceremony, but after a couple of hours I found myself thinking that this is not my way…and wondering how Christianity went from something that was originally so simple to something so elaborate and ritualized. Also from hearing these stories of simple monks and their faith, made me want to understand more about the roots of the Orthodox church.

On our last day I went for a walk down near the sea and to look for berries.  I managed to pick a good cup of tiny wild blueberries, in the absolute quiet of the woods.  I then found two labyrinths overlooking the sea, one of which seemed a more recently created one, which I walked.

Later we went on a trip to another monastery and heard deeply moving and horrendous stories of the “punishment camps” situated in that area.  At one point I had a strong feeling of the horrors that the ground beneath us held.  They are still discovering mass graves of unidentified victims.   20 million people living in the USSR were killed or disappeared during Stalin’s time, something that is rarely spoken of outside Russia, even though it is more than three times the number of victims in the Holocaust.

We were speaking to one of the guides, who used to be a physicist in Moscow and asking about life on the islands.  She said that many of the people living there would not work and drank a lot – a common problem in much of Russia. They have to bring people in from the mainland who want to work, so it is not the rather idyllic place it might seem.

Our experience there showed us, yet again, the extremes of Russia; the sacred, with the stories of visions, miracles and faith, and the profane, the cruelty and inhumanity of Stalin’s gulags, all set in a place of incredible natural beauty, with a history and culture going back thousands of years.

On the last day we had the wild berries with kefir for breakfast, and then after arriving home in the evening, had a tasty supper of fried potatoes, onion and our own wild mushrooms – delicious!

A welcome drink as we arrived

Our lovely bedroom with painted headboard and woven bedspread

Worship of the bear - Solihin taking a photo of it!

Nearby lake

Solovki main street

Primary shopping center in SolovkiSolovki monastery on the holy lake

Monks riding bikes past berry pickers - note underground food storage buildings on left

some aging local housing, and transport

Some not so pretty Soviet housing

The local action outside the shop the center of town

Old barn

Solovki side street

Two ladies who had just been praying by the grave of a monk, passing free range goats

Note the "stitching" holding the boards of the boat together

Taking a boat out to Bolshoi Zayatsky island

No boat is complete without its icon (St Nicholas)

The original living quarters on the island, and remains of Russia's first stone harbor of the XVI century

Beautiful rocks and ground cover

St Andrews church on Bolshoi Zayatsky island built in 1702 by Peter the Great

One of the 40 stone labyrinths around the islands that date from 2000 BC

Courtyard inside the monastery

View through a window in monastery

A monk on his way to church

Main church in the monastery

Barbecue dinner by the White Sea

White Sea sunset

A cold, damp and foggy arrival on Anzersky Island

Picking wild blueberries, and eating them on the spot!

Part of our hike across the island

Church in process of much needed restoration - Anzer island

Bumble bees were everywhere

One of the biggest mushrooms picked that day!

Tiny little wooden church in the woods

Church on the highest point of the islands, often visible from afar, but not that day!

Lovely little old church, halfway up the hill

So, I researched it all thoroughly, and asked a Turkish friend, if he could recommend a particular boat or captain, as he runs small group tours in Turkey (www.latifbolat.com), and we ended up booking the gulet (a traditional wooden sailing boat) he normally uses for his groups, having negotiated a good price, as there were only nine of us (four kids and three partners) and it was a sixteen berth boat.  This turned out to be a very good thing, as the extra rooms gave us somewhere to store our cases and clothes, as our rooms were basically our bed and a tiny cupboard, and there was generally more space available. The crew later told us that it is better not to have a full boat, as it is too crowded, always better to have some extra space.

We were all flying in from Moscow, New York, Vancouver, Italy and Costa Rica, with seven of us converging in Istanbul to catch the same flight to Bodrum, and two coming later.  Only four of us made the first flight, the other three arrived when the last two should have, and they came very late, but eventually we were all reunited for a lovely grilled fish dinner on the boat in Bodrum harbor, with the castle across the bay, a mosque just down the quay, and later an extremely loud disco just across the street, which severely curtailed our sleep until 4am when it finally stopped. Bodrum is a lovely little town, but very touristy and crowded.  We enjoyed having a little look around the day we arrived but were ready to head out into the open sea the next morning.  Before we left Vili, my son’s girlfriend and I, went to the fabulous fruit and veggie market to stock up for the voyage.  Neither of us drink much in the way of alcohol, but we love our fruit, and the others all teased us mercilessly.  However, everyone was happy to have the crates of delicious cherries, apricots and green plums to add to the daily wedges of watermelon we were served.  We had a crew of three, Captain Ramazan, Mehmet, the cook, who spoke English, and Okan, Ramazan’s sixteen year old son, who helped with everything.  We all sat down with the maps to chart our course for the next two weeks.

Most days we left sometime after breakfast, would travel for a couple of hours, stop somewhere lovely for swimming and lunch, and then later move on again until we came to our night stop.  Often we would be ferried ashore in the little motor boat, and go and hike in the hills or explore a village, a ruin or castle, when it was cooler, returning in time for supper on board.  The meals were simple and fresh – breakfast was eggs, or occasionally French toast, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, feta cheese, bread, honey and jam.  We were all rather disappointed the first morning to discover that coffee for breakfast meant Nescafe instant coffee.  So, as we were still in Bodrum, our two intrepid New Yorkers went out to the local Starbucks, which is completely against their coffee religion, and bought a French press and some ground coffee, and also some Turkish coffee to mix with it.  This worked wonderfully until the glass carafe of the press was broken about a week later, and then everyone adjusted to the Nescafe!  Lunches and dinners were a selection of lovely veggie dishes and some meat, followed by fruit.  There was teatime each afternoon with tea and cookies.  There was much supplementing of the diet with additional raki, beer and wine by some, and cherries by others, at various times throughout the day!  We also enjoyed a little bit of good chocolate to share after dinner, the stocks of which needed to be replenished on a regular basis.

The sea was turquoise and so clear you could see down, down, down.  Not much sea life visible underwater, but we did see a couple of dolphins one afternoon.  We had a kayak on board and I loved getting up early and kayaking round the bay we had anchored in for the night.  So quiet and peaceful, and no need for a snorkel, you could look down and see everything clearly from the surface.  We fell into a rhythm of swimming, sunning, reading, chess, scrabble, taking photos, talking, singing, napping and hikes punctuated by mealtimes.  On the third day we stopped off early in the morning to explore ‘Cleopatra’s baths.”  Legend has it that Cleopatra would not stand on ground that was not Egyptian, so Mark Anthony brought in enough sand from Egypt to create a beach for her to swim from…It was an incredibly beautiful spot, with ruins of an amphitheater and a number of other buildings and walls, and views through the trees to the turquoise sea below.

Unfortunately, on the fourth day I became quite ill.  First I was extremely cold, then extremely emotional, then I started to throw up, and for the next five days I felt sick twenty-four hours a day, with periodic retching and was not able to eat anything.  The only thing I could stomach was a little glass of hot lemon and honey a couple of times a day.  So, I spent those days wrapped in a blanket in the shade feeling pretty miserable.  I cannot remember the last time I was sick for several days.  On the fifth day, with no sign of improvement, we were in Datca, a reasonable sized town, and so we took the opportunity to go to the local hospital.  With only a short wait, I was examined, and had blood and urine tests, was told I had an infection and prescribed antibiotics (for only the third time in my life) and some other stuff.  The whole visit, with the tests, results and purchase of medication cost a grand total of $9!  What are we paying for in the States?  The equivalent treatment there would have cost $100s.

In order to take the pills I had to eat, and so I began to eat a spoonful of food at each meal and slowly began to recover.  Even a few days later, we were walking up a little hill to a ruined castle, and I had to stop and sit and wait while the others went and explored, as I just didn’t have the strength to do it.

The weather was cooler than usual at this time of year, so our nights were not too hot in the cabins.  Some of us slept out on deck under the stars, and we had a couple of nights where we all slept out together, which felt like a big sleepover, and waking up to the sunrise was lovely.

We stopped in so many beautiful places, and I loved the sound of goats, donkeys and cicadas combined with the smell of thyme, rosemary, and other scented leaves complemented by gnarled olive trees, the rocks and turquoise sea.

One day we stopped to visit a tiny ruined church on an island.  There was only one other boat there, which was an extended family from Istanbul.  Within moments we had started talking, found all kinds of connections, the kids climbed trees together and we ended up hugging each other, exchanging email addresses and feeling like long lost friends!

Near the end of the trip we anchored next to Knidos, a very old settlement and ruins with an incredible history, and very beautiful and open, not many visitors.  The girls had planned a special ceremony for me to mark my transition into a new age, and so the guys all went off together, and we found a shady spot under the stone arch leading to the amphitheatre.  Sofiah, Rebecca, Miriam and Vili all sang and clapped as they approached me,  Sofiah did a dance for me,  all four took turns reading a poem they had written together about me, then they toasted me and I each one of them with pomegranate juice.  It was very special and I felt so blessed and grateful to have these four beautiful young women in my life.

It was a wonderful trip and seemed to be the right time and the right place for us all. When our two weeks were up we said goodbye to the others, who were going to spend a few days in Istanbul together, and Solihin, Miriam and I rented a car and drove north up the coast.  We stopped to visit the amazing temple of Apollo, after being sidetracked by a lovely carpet shop. At the end of the day we headed up into the hills to the little inn I had booked for the night.  It was absolutely magical.  Surrounded by olive and walnut groves, and little stone villages, we stayed in the beautiful village of Sirince for the night.  Unfortunately Miriam had to stay in while we explored, as it was the day she had to register for all her university classes, and we finally had internet access.  We rose early and ate breakfast watching the sunrise over the tiled rooftops and mountains.  We were making an early start to get to Ephesus early before the crowds came.  We had our first half hour there with just a handful of others, quiet and peaceful.  But as we came through to the Celsus Library, we were confronted by thousands of people, mostly in tour groups, as we had come in through the lower entrance and not the top one, where most begin.  Despite the crowds we were deeply impressed by the whole collection of buildings and the detail still remaining, and to get a taste of the rich culture that existed there.

We left around lunchtime and drove on to the coastal town Izmir, the third largest city in Turkey.  We spent the afternoon exploring the enormous bazaar and had a long extended dinner together overlooking the water, before flying out the next morning.

Gulet in Bodrum harbor

View back to the sea from our hillside evening hike

Exquisite and yummy fruit!

Kayaking on the surface of the clear, clear sea

The ruined church

Prayer tree by ruined church

One very early morning

Me and the girls

Ancient stone carving at Knidos

The temple of Apollo

Medusa, at the temple of Apollo

Pomegranates

Lovely village of Sirence

Ephesus - the Celsus Library

Ancient mosaic floor at Ephesus

Beautiful painted wall - Ephesus

Unfortunately we missed seeing the posters up around Moscow as it was during the time we were away.

"Cars 2" poster for Russia

Our dug up sidewalks

I have been feeling a strong need for a real ‘weekend’ with at least one day out of the city.  It has been hot, in the mid 30′s, we have been working solidly with lots of extra commitments since we returned from vacation, and so we promised ourselves a visit to Yasnaya Polyana, the country estate of Leo Tolstoy, about two hundred kilometers south of Moscow, near Tula, which I have wanted to visit since we moved here two years ago.

We  got away in good time on Saturday morning, stopping for fuel about half an hour later.  Then the car would not start.  We tried over and over, but it seemed that there was something wrong with the transmission.  We phoned someone for assistance and finally about two hours later he arrived, and then we had to wait another hour for the tow truck to come.  We were eventually back home five hours after we had left, feeling pretty frustrated.  We had been promised another car while ours was being fixed, and an hour or so later it came. Although closer to the end of the day we decided to head off and find somewhere to stay the night, rather than wait until Sunday.  The minute we left the city and were surrounded by countryside I started to feel different, like I could breathe more deeply, and felt freer and more expansive.  I remembered that is often how I feel when we leave the city, but I forget until we are out in the country again.  It was a beautiful evening and when we arrived in the village where the estate was we explored a little, driving down a lane of tiny old houses – one with two women sitting outside their gate with a baby and a goat – and following a dirt track past a pond with geese, through high grasses and yellow with golden-rod, all the way down to a beautiful lake. There were people camping there and swimming, some with little camp fires.  We stayed for a while and then thought we should try and find our bed for the night, eventually locating the Yasnaya Polyana hotel, which was well hidden in the woods outside the estate. We were given two prices, one for the Soviet style block that was linked to a derelict and falling down building by a glass bridge, and a very nice looking older building around the corner. We chose the latter.  We were informed that there was no hot water in either hotel, breakfast was not included and you had to pay for wi-fi.  Our room had a gorgeous bathroom, but, as promised, no hot water.

In the morning we got up and went to the gate of the estate, which opens at 9.  The cafe opposite has a sign saying it opens at 8, but it didn’t open until 9.  The menu was only in cursive Cyrillic, which is always a little challenging, so we ordered kasha, which can be porridge made from any grain.  It turned out to be buckwheat with mushrooms, apple and onion.  Quite tasty and filled us up for the morning.

When we bought our tickets for the estate they said we had to go into the main houses with a group and guide, even though there were no English guides.  We decided to go ahead and explore the grounds and do the houses later.  It was beautiful.  We entered by a lake, and followed an avenue of silver birches leading to the main house. On one side were orchards that were being grazed by very fat ponies.

Tolstoy died 100 years ago last year, and the estate has been a museum for 90 years, so has been quite well cared for.  After putting huge overshoes on to go into the houses, (that make everyone look like hobbits) we explained that there were no English guides, that our Russian was not good enough for a Russian guide and asked if we could please quietly look by ourselves, and they let us!  At least in one of the houses, the other we had to tag along with a group, and I found that I did understand little bits.  It was lovely to see it all, and Bolkonsky’s estate in War and Peace was based on it, so a not-unfamiliar feeling to it.  We paid our respects to Tolstoy’s very simple grave – his books introduced me to Russia when I was sixteen, and I feel a sense of gratitude for the sense of Russia that he gave me.  The estate is actually very modest, and the interior of the house, the furniture and decorations are very simple, not really how you would expect a noble family’s house to be.

After indulging in an ice cream and buying a bottle of water we headed back to the lake for a swim, before we turned again towards Moscow and the drive home.  We needed cash, as we had forgotten that outside Moscow it is almost impossible to use a card, and our money was running low.  We tried three different ATMs in Tula, getting a variety of responses but no money, until the fourth try!  We were then able to stop and buy large bags of chanterelle mushrooms, blackcurrants and gooseberries from the people who sell their produce next to the road.  We were concerned about getting caught in the Sunday afternoon return from dacha to Moscow traffic, and apart from one sticky patch we missed the worst and were back home in good time.

This factory outside Tula looked very Heath Robinson!

Field leading to lake in Yasnaya Polyana

Soviet architecture linked to very old and decaying architecture

View from the front of the main house

Detail from railing of verandah on main house

Coachman's cottage on the estate

(Note: for some reason the captions did not appear on two of the photos. 1. The avenue of silver birches leading to the main house. 2. A beautiful old embroidered dress that the docent allowed me to secretly photograph.)

As our fridge has a very small freezer, we decided to buy a separate small freezer so that we can preserve the fruit and veggies we buy when they are in season. We found what we wanted and then the fun began.  We can deliver it Tuesday or Wednesday.  That is fine.  We spend ages giving the young man the information to fill in the delivery forms.  We agree to be at home from 10am to 10pm.  We can only deliver it on Wednesday, to come on Tuesday will cost 1000 rubles ($35).  OK, we will do Wednesday.  We are finally handed the forms to check.  Our address is wrong, and it says the delivery will be on Friday.  We say it has to be Wednesday, we will be at work on Friday. We can only deliver on Wednesday if you pay 520 rubles. We have to have it on Wednesday, so are willing to pay if we must.  They redo all the forms, say that they will deliver between 10am and 4pm, and don’t charge us any extra.  It is now 2.30 on Wednesday, and I just received a call to say they will be here at 5.  We will see what happens…..

Sunday - We were dropped off at around 1am this morning, which for us was 3am, and found ourselves locked out of our building!  The new door key did not work, there was now a smart new keypad, but we did not have the code.  We finally reached the person we needed, who was in Turkey, and eventually he gave us the code so we could get into the house and fall gratefully into bed!

The cathedral square in Riga

Little street near our hotel in the old town

Latvian folk singers

An artistic display!

Riga rooftops during birthday dinner

Art nouveau entry

More art nouveau opposite our hotel

and more......

and more....there are 750 art nouveau buildings in Riga

Turaida Castle, Latvia

Beautiful little Lutheran church by the castle

Part of the surrounding farm at Turaida

Stork's nest

The Baltic Sea