Sergiyev Posad

On Saturday morning Svetlana picked Laura and me up at 7 a.m. at Konkovo metro. She is so funny. She said, "I am sorry to say that I bought a tree at the wrong time. So, we have a tree in our small car. Also and a cat." So, we were crammed into this tiny car with this tree stretching from the front seat to the back seat. Svetlana's husband, Igor, drove. It took about an hour and a half to get their dacha. Igor and Vasya stayed at the dacha, and then Svetlana drove us to the Holy Trinity Monastery which was about ten minutes down the road.

Svetlana's English is pretty good, but her vocabulary is mostly for everyday conversation. So, she spoke in Russian, and Laura translated it so that I could understand. I didn't realize how good Laura's Russian is until Saturday.

This is the Holy Trinity Lavra (Monastery) in Sergiyev Posad. There are three major Russian Orthodox monasteries in Russia, and this is most important out of all three.

The Assumption Cathedral.

In the early 1600s, Polish and Lithuanian armies carried out a 16-month siege against the monastery. Everyone was locked in, but this well provided a continuous supply of water during that time. It's considered to be a very sacred place now.

The line going into the church. It was no special holiday though. Svetlana said the line is like this everyday.

This is St. Sergius of Radonezh whom the monastery is named after.

This is the czar's palace. I was surprised at how many monks, young and old, there were. The person who took our money so that we could take pictures (100 rubles) was a monk, so even the tourism ticket booths are worked by monks. I used to be annoyed about the stores in the churches and the things that are for sale, but not so much anymore. They have to maintain the grounds and the churches at the monastery somehow. The monk gave us a Lent and Easter CD though with our tickets. One of the surprising things about this monastery is how much interaction I saw between the monks with regular people. Every time I saw a monk he was walking and talking with someone.

The Baroque bell tower.

Peter the Great's daughter, Empress Elizabeth (1700s) ruled Russia for awhile. Svetlana says that people only know about the male rulers of Russia because they are violent. The five women who ruled Russia always brought peace to Russia. Svetlana says, "It is because women are not as ambitious as men." The legend goes that Elizabeth fell in love with a man in the choir here, but she couldn't marry him because that would require her to give up her title. So, she married him secretly in the chapel in the picture above.



After that we went back to her dacha. Svetlana prepared tea and some food, and Laura and I sat in their garden for a long time. It was so beautiful out there.

They've been working on their dacha for four years now. They bought it at a really cheap price because it was burned down. Russian superstition is that you can live at a place that's been burned down before, so no one wanted it.

Igor showed us their banya in the backyard. A banya is a Russian sauna. If you go to a public banya, you will see old babushki whipping each other with banya branches. It's supposed to be good for you.

Igor is really cool. He is a metal scientist, but he works for a bank now. Vasya likes his dissertation title; Igor read the title of his paper, and one minute later he's still finishing it up. It was the longest title ever. Everyone was laughing. Vasya translated it for us. Something about aluminum, magnesium, etc. I don't know. It was long either way.

Vasya is 16. He goes to both Russian school and HCA. He has no accent in English, and he said to me, "You are from Georgia, but you don't have a southern accent." Man, what a gift to be able to recognize accents in a second language. I'm jealous.

Vasya is going to Holland for university next year, but he cannot return to Russia until he is 25. If he returns before that, he will be immediately drafted into the army. In Russia, if you are not enrolled at a Russian university, you are forced to go into the army for at least a year. He doesn't want to do that, so he is not coming back to Russia until he is past the age of the draft.

Vasya is going to study electronics and engineering, but his real dream is to be a movie director. :)

Inside the dacha where we had our tea.

This is Dimok. His name means Smoke.

The garden.

Afterward Svetlana took us to the train station, and we said our goodbyes. She kissed me on the cheek and wished me all the best.

Then Laura and I took a 2-hour train back to Moscow...