Steve and I are in Russia! It's so exciting! We are here visiting his parents, his dad works over here. It's VERY cold, but everything is beautiful! I caught a slight cold on the flight over, but other than that we are both healthy! I am writing this on the Russian blogspot, so I have already deleted a post on accident, and I'm starting over! Monday we just relaxed, we were trying to get over our jet lag! We played games, I won Settlers of Catan (obviously - I'm AWESOME at it!) and on Tuesday we went to Red Square!
We toured St. Basil's Cathedral (that's behind us) and it was absolutely gorgeous! Each of the spires is a church, and we were in the largest one when a Russian Orthodox Folk group started singing this gorgeous choral music, just three of them, but it was amazing! Their voices just filled the whole space, it gave me chills! We also visited the Armory, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside unfortunately.
The Armory was amazing, it had so many beautiful elaborate things in there, from plates (Catherine the Great had a silverware set to feed 3,000!) to ornate carriages (one from 16th century France!) and also beautiful dresses! Catherine's wedding dress from when she was sixteen was so beautiful, her waist was teeny tiny! I would love to wear those dresses, but they looked like they weighed a ton! We also saw Lenin's body, which was cool because Moscow is apparently thinking of shutting that down and not letting tourists go inside anymore. He was such a small man, and looks very waxy now, but in the dim lights and the darkness still looked very intimidating!
Today we went to Sergiev Pasad, which is the largest active monastery in Russia! It was amazing! Since I was still sick with a cold, I was wearing Lisa's jacket, which went all the way down to my ankles! I felt like I was in a sleeping bag! It definitely kept me warm, which was good, because it was snowing!
There are 260 monks who are studying there, we saw a few, all very solemn looking, and some quite young. They have tons of Cathedrals, and one of them has a 24/7 service! One is only open twice a year. It is quite intense! There were a lot of women and men coming to kiss the relics and also the icons. For many it is quite a religious experience, as Saint Sergius who opened this monastery was visited by the Virgin Mary, who told him she would pray over this monastery always, and pray for those who visited it or lived inside it. He started the monastery because he wanted to be away from the wealth of the others, and build only a small wooden hut. It's definitely grown since then! I wonder what he'd think if he saw it now! The monastery was closed in 1919, and a lot of the relics and books were plundered, but luckily it was reopened. It is definitely a piece of history!
Tomorrow we are going to a museum that has a lot of the relics and artwork stolen from various churches/monasteries during the communist time in Russia! It is an amazing collection, though a sad way it was collected. I'm really excited to see more history from Russia. It is all very gorgeous, but as Dave says, "It's all for show." The royalty were wearing pearls, sitting on diamond thrones, riding in gold carriages, but the people of Russia were starving. I can't imagine how the people would react if President Obama had the tax-payers buy him a gold-plated Bently! There would certainly be mass riots for that!
I am having so much fun, and learning tons, though I do miss my parents. It doesn't quite feel like Christmas without watching White Christmas with my mum, or seeing the horrible tree my parents picked out! I'll certainly miss my dad's mushroom gravy! Yumm! And it won't be Christmas morning without opening stockings on my parent's bed with all my siblings. But we are making new traditions, Steve and I, and I am learning his family's traditions too! I guess that's just part of growning up and being a married woman now... sigh...
xoxo Merry Christmas!
We toured St. Basil's Cathedral (that's behind us) and it was absolutely gorgeous! Each of the spires is a church, and we were in the largest one when a Russian Orthodox Folk group started singing this gorgeous choral music, just three of them, but it was amazing! Their voices just filled the whole space, it gave me chills! We also visited the Armory, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside unfortunately.
The Armory was amazing, it had so many beautiful elaborate things in there, from plates (Catherine the Great had a silverware set to feed 3,000!) to ornate carriages (one from 16th century France!) and also beautiful dresses! Catherine's wedding dress from when she was sixteen was so beautiful, her waist was teeny tiny! I would love to wear those dresses, but they looked like they weighed a ton! We also saw Lenin's body, which was cool because Moscow is apparently thinking of shutting that down and not letting tourists go inside anymore. He was such a small man, and looks very waxy now, but in the dim lights and the darkness still looked very intimidating!
Today we went to Sergiev Pasad, which is the largest active monastery in Russia! It was amazing! Since I was still sick with a cold, I was wearing Lisa's jacket, which went all the way down to my ankles! I felt like I was in a sleeping bag! It definitely kept me warm, which was good, because it was snowing!
There are 260 monks who are studying there, we saw a few, all very solemn looking, and some quite young. They have tons of Cathedrals, and one of them has a 24/7 service! One is only open twice a year. It is quite intense! There were a lot of women and men coming to kiss the relics and also the icons. For many it is quite a religious experience, as Saint Sergius who opened this monastery was visited by the Virgin Mary, who told him she would pray over this monastery always, and pray for those who visited it or lived inside it. He started the monastery because he wanted to be away from the wealth of the others, and build only a small wooden hut. It's definitely grown since then! I wonder what he'd think if he saw it now! The monastery was closed in 1919, and a lot of the relics and books were plundered, but luckily it was reopened. It is definitely a piece of history!
Tomorrow we are going to a museum that has a lot of the relics and artwork stolen from various churches/monasteries during the communist time in Russia! It is an amazing collection, though a sad way it was collected. I'm really excited to see more history from Russia. It is all very gorgeous, but as Dave says, "It's all for show." The royalty were wearing pearls, sitting on diamond thrones, riding in gold carriages, but the people of Russia were starving. I can't imagine how the people would react if President Obama had the tax-payers buy him a gold-plated Bently! There would certainly be mass riots for that!
I am having so much fun, and learning tons, though I do miss my parents. It doesn't quite feel like Christmas without watching White Christmas with my mum, or seeing the horrible tree my parents picked out! I'll certainly miss my dad's mushroom gravy! Yumm! And it won't be Christmas morning without opening stockings on my parent's bed with all my siblings. But we are making new traditions, Steve and I, and I am learning his family's traditions too! I guess that's just part of growning up and being a married woman now... sigh...
xoxo Merry Christmas!
Oh Anna, enjoy your adventure. We will all be thinking of each other. Remember the tradition of raising a glass to absent friends? We'll be doing that here at 1pm PST, 9pm GMT - join us? Wonderful pictures. S Roždestvom Khristovym as I believe you say in Russia!
ReplyDeleteAnna thanks fr the pictures can you post more soon. Looking forward to skyping!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great place to visit, glad you are getting to see so much. Sorry you are missing us - still we were able to put up the old artificial tree we had from Mr Warren knowing you wouldn't be around to complain. With some wire coat hangers, sprayed green, to fill the missing pieces it looks almost like a tree.
ReplyDeleteNo you didn't! That's terrible!!!
ReplyDelete