Every step they take there’s a sobbing in a vault.
They were born to escort the dead, and be at the grave
First to greet those who rise again.
It would be terrible to want a caress from them
But to part with them is more than a man could do.
One day angel, next day worm in the grave,
The day after that, a sketch.
What used to be within reach—out of reach.
Flowers never die. Heaven is whole.
But ahead of us we’ve only somebody’s word.
-Mandelstam
Our last day in Moscow was basically comprised of monasteries, convents and graveyards.
Morning was breakfast buffet downstairs at the hotel, which was pretty good and never ending. Ashley pocketed enough pastries to last us all through the trip and day at the monastery. We had to travel about an hour and a half trip outside of Moscow to get to Sergeyev Pasad, a very old and very important monastery.
(if you look closely you can see a couple men doing work on one of the roofs)
Here we are up above the town (minus Ohara and Mariya):
The monastery was built in the white forest by Sergio, who came here in 1337. The monastery holds the special title of “lavra” given to it by the patriarch. 300 monks currently live here and there are 1,600 students and professors in the academy and seminary. This monastery was quite a contrast from Novgorod, which is essentially quiet and dead but lingers on in its afterlife, whereas this monastery was bustling with priests and monks talking to pilgrims and their students, people drinking from the holy fountain, the churches were gleaming and full, and there was a general sense of activity. The monastery has also had a less turbulent history than say Novgorod, seeing as Sergeyev Pasad was never occupied. People give credit to Sergio for that, who apparently while praying one night with another monk or someone had a vision of Mary who said that the monastery would always be protected. And so it has never been besieged.
Some of us commented that it reminded us of the monastery in Brothers Karamazov.
Monk outside the gate:
Us just inside the gate:
This is the oldest church in the complex I think and one of the most important, (Holy Trinity Cathedral). If I remember correctly, it’s the first church Sergio built in the forest, and has a never ending 24 hour service.
This church with the blue top is the Church of the Holy Spirit built by people from Pskov in the 15th century.
The little arched thing on the side in this picture is the well of holy water which was discovered in the 17th century. (see the monk taking a picture for someone? aw)
This big bell tower was built to two saints I can’t remember the names of. It’s modeled after the one in the Kremlin, but higher (88m) and had 42 bells before the Revolution.
So we went in the Church of the Assumption, which was very dark, as usual. It has never been restored, so is even more dark than some of the other churches. The frescoes were painted by 36 artists over just 100 days some 322 years ago. The iconostasis was pretty amazing and made entirely of wood and was something like 11.5m high. The 2 ton chandelier was also pretty impressive. There was a small service going on when we went in, so we hung around for a while listening to the dissonant Hebrew like singing.
There were various relics in the churches, including the coffin of Sergio, who had made it for himself as an old man. 30 years after his death a monk had a vision of the disciples telling him to open up Sergio’s tomb. Inside, the body was perfectly preserved. So for 504 years they’ve kept the relic in a special silver shrine in the Holy Trinity Cathedral.
In one of the churches we were able to take photographs after the service stopped. I was able to get a few shots, even though it was very dark. Our guide warned us not to take photographs with the icons, because it’s extremely disrespectful. Wasn’t planning on doing that anyway, but it’s a good thing to remember.
Icon thing:
Random shots inside:
The Holy Trinity Cathedral was quite crowded, mostly because of this long line of people waiting to approach, pray before, and kiss a particular icon, which a monk was chanting next to. It was interesting listen to him because it did sound exactly like temple, with a kind of mumbling and discordant chant followed by some kind of spoken words or phrases. Rublyov’s iconostasis, which we saw in the Tretyakov gallery, was taken from this church, so it was nice to see where it’s rightful home was.
On our way out from the Holy Trinity Cathedral this old bearded monk came up to us and started talking to Svetlana, Britt, and I, asking where we were from (in Russian of course). When Svetlana told us we were from America he was extremely apologetic and compassionate saying, “Oh you poor souls, you have to live with this Bush of yours.” It was pretty funny that this old cooped up Russian monk could have such compassion for us regarding our president.
After leaving the church cluster we went over yo the monk’s canteen, where they eat their special meals together and where services are sometimes held in the winter. It was a very colorful building and designed in the baroque style. It seemd a bit extravagant for a bunch of ascetic monks, but whatever. The main room is pretty large, 522 sq meters, which was the largest non pillared chamber at the time (if that makes any sense). It was used as a hospital during WWII and is still called the refractory.
Window from inside:
I obviously liked these columns:
Babushka escaping the rain:
Another Babushka with monks carrying something in the background:
It started to rain pretty steadily as we left the refractory, and I was stupid enough not to bring an umbrella. I also had brought only one warm over shirt thing with me to Russia. Doubly dumb. We walked around the little souvenir market for a while, and I bought a big shawl to wrap myself in to keep warm. There were a bunch of matrioshka dolls (sp?), but no matter how pretty they may be, I still find them kitschy and haven’t caved in to buying one. I probably should’ve bought one here because this is supposedly where the first matrioshka was made, when a husband had to be away from his wife for a long time, so he painted her likeness on one of these dolls to remember her. Oh well.
We got lunch at a little restaurant, which was pretty bad except for the ice cream. It was a strange place because all the décor was folk arty and the waiters and waitresses were dressed in peasant attire, but they had tv’s blaring American, British, and Russian music videos the whole time and the bathrooms were papered in pornography. I didn’t get it.
After eating and drying off a bit we had 15 minutes to walk around before heading back to our minibus.
Everyone pretty much slept the way back, in addition to raiding Ashley’s bag of pastries. On our way back from and through Moscow we saw Chekhov’s little red house. We also made a bathroom stop at this expensive souvenir store that had free shots of vodka for all, so that warmed us up some.
We then headed toward this convent called Novodevoochkee (that’s my attempt at a phonetic spelling). Peter’s older half sister Sophia under the name Susanna resided here as a nun at his request (basically a sentence of imprisonment for her). Some came to the convent by choice, but a surprising number of women were forced here. When Sophia tried to organize an uprising against Peter while she was at the convent, Peter had those she had coerced into leading this uprising murdered, hanging their bodies up along the street in view of the monastery so that Sophia could see that she had failed by just peering our her window (at least that’s what our tour guide said).
Pics from the convent:
Little chapel thing:
The convent was pretty much empty, no doubt due to the pouring rain. It was very quiet except for the pathetic whimpers of a kitten this man was carrying around, probably trying to rescue it from the rain. The main church was closed, so we weren’t allowed to go in, but we did go in a smaller chapel where a service was taking place (not the thing pictured above). The nuns had beautiful voices so we stayed in there for a while enjoying the warmth and dryness and the singing. If only the weather had been better, we would’ve been able to walk around more and I probably would’ve noticed more if I weren’t so wrapped up and soaked. You have to cover your head (if you're female) when entering a monastery or convent or most churches, so my little shawl thing wasn't only warm and pretty, but served a higher purpose!
After leaving the monastery we went over to this large cemetery full of famous people from Russian history, literary and artistic culture, politics, and everything else. We saw Stalin’s first wife’s grave which was sad looking. It’s still debated whether she committed suicide or he had her killed. We also saw Gogol’s grave, Chekhov’s, Soviet leaders and their families, Mayakovsky’s, Russian clowns, various Soviet generals’, and much much more! The cemetery was very different from any other cemetery I’d been to and the tombstones were very unique to the person. The graveyard is organized differently, from these strange walls with names and faces on them, to cramped corridors with graves packed next to each other. It lacked the same kind of eerie melancholy that New England graveyards have--especially when you stumble upon them in the woods, which were once farm lands and homes (common occurrence in Maine anyway). Some of the graves were really just like monuments or jolly or funny or completely random. It was fun and probably somewhat disrespectful to walk around being like “Ooh! I just spotted Krushchev!” “Well, I just found Mayakovsky!”
Chekhov!
Gogol!
Mayakovsky!
Krushchev:
After the cemetery we went to Patriarch’s Pond, which if you’ve read Master and Margarita you might be excited about (I was). It was raining pretty hard so we didn’t go walk around it. Instead we went to get some food before heading to the train station. The district was nice but insanely expensive. We eventually found this Italian place that wasn’t quite so outrageous. The food was good, the service was quick, and the tea was hot. We sat there for a couple hours not wanting to go wander in the rain any longer. Everyone was tired and cranky, so it was nice to just sit for a while. I was even looking forward to the train ride back, even if the car was claustrophobic and hot and the blankets smelled of wet wool.
We stopped at a little продукты (somewhere between a convenience store and a grocery store) on the way back to the mini bus to get some snacks for the trip. I was so psyched to find Honey Nut Cheerios that I cracked open the box on the way back to the bus, even though I’d already had dinner. I ate the whole box on the train ride home, I’ll admit.
Train station:
Our train left a little earlier on the way back (10:40), which was nicer. My host father had told me that if the train leaves before midnight, it’s generally better food, better beds, better rooms, etc. He was right. Although we did have some trouble boarding the train again, for whatever reason. Eventually we got on and were thankfully placed together.
This made us laugh (mostly the "set of the feeding, in which enter" part). It's describing the little meal packs we got and what came included in our trip. Russian doesn't have articles (like the, a, an) so they end up in random places during translation.
I was in a little room with Alisa, Alex, and Britt.
We hung out in Tania, Lydia, Ashley, and Michelle’s room mostly though.
Hanging out:
Sonya got stuck with the boys (Joel, Zach, and David), but they had a pretty good time. Somehow they met these two Russian guys Sasha and Alexei and ended up staying up all night drinking with them. The rest of us were too tired to take part in the festivities, and I’m glad I didn’t when I saw them in the morning. David was pretty much passed out and it took a lot of work to get him moving, same with Sonya. Although they did make two new Russian friends, which we later went out to dinner with (covered later). We went to bed around 2 and got an ok amount of sleep, I guess. I woke up a little early and was able to watch the dawn over the countryside, which was beautiful. I really love when fog settles in fields or forests, but sits like some kind of layer of sediment with a strict line about how far it presses down onto the land.
We arrived around 6 or 7 and then went our separate ways home to get some rest, do homework, and shower before classes, which were pushed back till noon. I had a lot of homework to finish up and I got a hot shower in before class (yay for hot water returning after 22 days!). Overall it was a really fun trip, even if I paid the price of sleep deprivation and exhaustion the whole rest of the week. But adrenaline about spending one last week in Petersburg, finals looming, last museum trips, archive trips, and the prospect of going home kept me going.
Home!
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