Winter Fun, But Still Winter...

Happy St. Patrick's Day from a Moscow freshly buried in snow!   It's been awhile since the last update, but as you'll see below, we've been busy. 

Let's see.  On President's Day weekend we went with another couple to the town of Sergiev Posad, one of the most famous of the Golden Ring city.  Our friends drove, but we enjoyed a nice relaxing train ride, which only took about an hour.  I had arranged for us to stay at a home stay where the owner organizes winter activities for her guests.  Our hostess  - Svetlana, met us at the train station and led us on an icy walk to her house near the Monastery.  On the way we passed some of the most amazing icicles I've ever seen on one of the wooden houses. 

Our friends, who also have a little boy Aiden's age, got there just after us and we were all treated to tea and blini (Russian pancakes served with sour cream, jam, and honey) while we waited for the other guests to arrive.  The house was very quaint and luckily Svetlana wasn't too concerned about Aiden's desire to play with everything in reach.

When the other guests arrived, we discovered that Svetlana runs a very strict schedule.  She told us that at 1pm, we would leave for our adventure in the forest. We would return at 3pm and have two hours to ourselves.  Dinner would be served at 5pm.  At 6pm we would all become good friends. at 7pm she would tell us the history of Sergiev Posad.  At 8pm, we would all go to the sauna, and at 10pm we would all go to bed.  I'm exaggerating a little - she didn't tell us we would become friends at 6pm, just that it would happen over dinner.

We quickly learned she meant what she was talking about.  The other guests arrived a bit late, and we figured we would have time while they ate their blini, so we took Aiden up to our room to play.  Shortly thereafter, Svetlana burst in and chided us for being late and told us everyone was waiting for us.  So we hustled on out and joined the rest for a drive out into the countryside.

Our drive took us on snowy roads to the edge of a forest where there were two colorful horse-drawn sleighs waiting for us.  Aiden had fallen asleep in the car and stayed asleep through the sleigh ride, but Stephanie and really enjoyed it.

The horses took us to a little clearing with a fire pit, where we all enjoyed snow-chilled champagne and vodka while roasting sausages over the fire.  Not too shabby, eh?

Aiden woke up shortly after we arrived and enjoyed wandering around in the snow and playing with a bear-skin rug.  There was also a nice sledding hill with great speed, which everyone enjoyed.  It was a great way to spend an afternoon.

After eating and sledding, we went on another sleigh ride through the forest.  This time Aiden was awake and really enjoyed it.  It was beautiful and quiet - a nice change from Moscow!

On our return, they had a samovar going for hot tea so that we could warm up.  I'd never seen one in action, but basically they take a burning piece of wood from the fire and drop it a tube in the middle, which heats the water around it.  Pretty nifty.

And I even got to play dress-up...

When the time came to head back to the car, we were a bit delayed, and eventually one of the guides told us that one of the sleighs was broken and told all eight adults to get in the sleigh together.  I couldn't bear doing that to the poor horse, so the men agreed to walk - it wasn't terribly far.  The guides didn't like that at all, but after much shouting, they agreed.  Sleighs don't really move all that quickly, so we were able to keep up on foot, which the women found very funny.

Back at casa de Svetlana, she was quite agitated that we were behind schedule.  It was already after 5pm, but she granted us until 5:30 to get ready for dinner.  I'm glad we didn't wait longer as it was an exceptional meal.  A generous course of starters, including more blini, followed by one of the best bowls of borscht I've ever had.  The main course was a rich pork stew in a clay pot and by the time the chocolate cake came out for dessert, we were pretty stuffed.

Svetlana started her overview of the history of Sergiev Posad, but she asked Aiden and his friend to leave shortly after starting because they were too loud. I stayed behind to relay the information to Stephanie. I won't get into the whole thing here but the history provided by Frommer's is pretty good if you're interested.  Not covered in Frommer's is the fact that the monastery was closed after the communist revolution and the monks were all sent off to labor camps.  For a time, people actually lived in the churches in little partitions, where their cooking and cleaning destroyed most of the original frescoes.  Today, the monastery is home to almost 1,000 people including monks and students, who must decide if they will be priests (in which case they must marry immediately upon graduation from the academy) or monks (in which case they will never marry).  Since most of the students choose the priesthood, there are apparently a large number of local young women who regularly attend church in the hopes of meeting a husband.

After dinner, I went out for a quick night view of the monastery but we were pretty tired and decided to pass on the sauna.

The next morning, after a prompt and delicious breakfast, we bid farewell to Svetlana.  Her adherence to a strict schedule was actually welcome compared to the usual experience in Russia, where things are haphazard at best.  She was an excellent hostess and took very good care of us.

Other friends of ours who have been to the monastery before have likened it to a fairy tale and we weren't disappointed.  It's one of the most impressive sights we've seen so far. No pictures were allowed in the churches themselves, but I found a good picture online to include for reference.

The sun came out as the morning went on, but it was quite cold, so we didn't stay too long.  We wanted to get some hot chocolate and snacks on our way out at the bakery on the premises but people were so rude, pushing and shoving, that we just grabbed the hot chocolate and left for the train station, taking one parting glance at the view on our way.

We barely caught our train because we were standing in line at one ticket window, and the cashier decided that she was taking a break after the person before us.  She literally just said "I'm on a break", and closed the window in our faces. (Not unusual, but still annoying). So with less than 10 minutes to departure, I had to dash into the train station, stand in line, get tickets, and then we had to walk down to the end of the platform to cross the tracks to get to our train.  We made it with about 2 minutes to spare and enjoyed our nice relaxing ride back to Moscow. 

 The next week we left for a whirlwind trip back to DC.  It was mostly to take care of Aiden's check-ups for his cleft palate, but that meant doctors appointments every day.   We barely got to see our immediate families while we were there and there were a lot of people we wish we had time to see. Aiden was a real trooper through it all, despite the long flights, jet lag, and constant poking and prodding from all of the doctors.  

We got very nervous about the "Snowquester" as it was forecast to snow over a foot at Dulles airport.  We watched as every domestic flight was cancelled, then most of the international flights.  Even though the storm did not turn out to be as bad as expected, we were checking with the airline up to the last minute to ensure the flight wasn't cancelled.  In the end, we left right on time - one of about 12 flights that actually left the airport that day.  It was good to get to see some of our family and nice to eat lots of good food, but overall we were relieved to get back to Moscow and take a break from our vacation.

Moscow welcomed us back with even more winter.  On Friday we had so much snow that we were sent home from work an hour early, which is completely unheard of.  More snow is in the forecast next week.  I think we're all getting tired of winter, but spring should only be a month away.  I think we've handled it pretty well so far. 

This week has been Maslenitsa - the Russian Orthodox version of Fat Tuesday, but spread over a week.  Blini are the star feature of the holiday, and we've been eating a lot, but we've had a hard time finding any of the folk festivals that we read so much about.  There are supposed to be folk dances, bonfires, and blini tastings, but it is actually pretty challenging to get solid information about local events as details are rarely provided.  

For example, I read that there would be a big festival at Red Square today but when we got there, there was nothing at all. Even Lenin's tomb  - which was my back-up plan if the festival was a bust - was closed for renovations   Maybe there will be something later in the day, but we don't have any way of knowing that.  Still, we made the most of our journey and enjoyed walking around the huge GUM shopping mall.  We even found a little blini shop to hold our own little celebration. 

Lucky for me, Stephanie knows how to make a great corned beef and cabbage, and Irish soda bread, so we can at least guarantee a good St. Patrick's Day celebration!