November 4th, Novgorod and Train to Moscow

The first thing we did this morning after an amazing buffet breakfast was to hop on the bus and head towards Novgorod. Novgorod is the third largest city in Russia, but as far as I knew it may as well have been Anatevka. I suppose with big sisters like Moscow and St. Petersburg, it becomes pretty easy to fall into the shadows like so much Jan Brady.

The bus ride was about 4 hours through the arctic tundra of Russia. No kidding, this was pretty much the way you would imagine Russia to be. The kind of place where Nazi's and Frenchmen starved and froze. Miles and miles of endless wasteland stretches out into the distance. Nothing is farmed there, nothing is built there. Aside from the occasional WWII monument commemorating the death of tens of thousands of Germans who got caught in a kill zone, there is pretty much nothing.

That is until you get to Novgorod. This is a contemporary city with a medieval Kremlin (which is translated as "city outside a fortress" so there are actually many Kremlins throughout Russia, not just Moscow.) We didn't get into Novgorod proper but we did get into the Kremlin as well as the old medieval area which is still an active archaeological site. It is in fact a very important one due since the discovery of numerous letters written by the people of the time. It was widely believed that the layman was illiterate during the dark ages but since this discovery of numerous birch bark letters written from the 11th century, that belief has changed. Not only that, but as an added bonus to theoretical linguists out there, the people wrote without the rules of grammar and instead wrote in the way that people really spoke, much like Mark Twain. This allows the academics to truly see how the language had and has evolved.

It was upon our arrival in Novgorod that it started to snow...and it didn't want to stop. It made the whole experience a little difficult. Now when I tell you I've seen bad winters you should believe it. Having lived in upstate New York as well as rural Kansas, I was under the impression I had seen the worst of it all. But I assure you, you have never felt cold like a bitingly frigid gust of wind, that having traveled all the way from Siberia, whips right through your clothing and makes you wonder if life is really worth all this effort. Never before have I felt cold like this...and when the snow blinds you and ice particles are flying into your eyes, well let's just say I dressed in many more layers on a daily basis after Novgorod.

After we left Novgorod (and after having perused the myriad of birch trinkets available at the tourist huts) we headed off to a monastery to meet with Brother Dimitri. He is a Russian Orthodox monk who deals in relief to drug addicted people. He was a well spoken man and a thoughtful man, as one would imagine monks to be, and surprised me in the fact that at one point he had been a chemical engineer. He spoke of the tenants of the orthodox church and spoke out against the bastardized protestants etc... But the most interesting thing he said was his philosophy of noise. He said that in anything in life, noise gets in the way. If you are studying radio frequencies you have to know what the background noise is before you can study variations in the actual subject. He said that this is the same as prayer and listening to god. One cannot hear the word of god if one has too much noise in their life. He said noise comes from abusing alcohol or drugs or sex and if one lives a life of moderation and prayer, that only then can one begin to identify the noise, remove it, and truly speak to god. Interesting stuff...at least philosophically.

We thanked him for the time and headed out for one last stop: a UNESCO protected monastery. At this point, I think everyone was exhausted and tired and was just ready to go. Or at least I was because frankly I don't remember a thing about this visit. Too bad too because looking at the pictures, it appeared to be pretty beautiful.

After another four hour drive back to St. Petersburg, we got dropped off at the train station. That was an experience. The station was everything a train station should be: big, imposing, almost threatening with the smell of diesel permeating every nook and cranny. We had an hour or so before we boarded our train to Moscow. It was an overnight affair so we all had sleeper cars with four beds to a room. I have to admit it was a pretty cool experience. The cars were so much like what you would expect from a Russian overnight train. Great window treatments with curtains etc...it was what you think of when you think of the Orient Express. Just a nice luxurious cabin.

Tomorrow in Moscow.