As we head west, the accommodation prices shoot upwards. A room that cost 36 $CAN a night in Ulan Ude is almost 80 $CAN by the time we reach Tomsk, and in Vladimir we expect to pay no less that 100$CAN a night for a “low-end” room.
We decide it’s time to try something new. In China, we stumbled across an article about a website called couchsurfing.com – people register, create a profile and then hunt the database for other registered users who are willing to have guests stay at their place for a few days. The profiles of the couchsurfing hosts give you an idea of who they are, what they’re interested in (cooking, travel, etc), their preferences in guests (non/smokers, male only, couples ok, families with children welcome) and the details about the apartment (cat, dog, smokers) and the sleeping arrangements (floor space in living room; extra bed in guestroom) as well as the level of hosting available (couch available definitely/maybe, meet for coffee only). We send emails to a few people, a few people reply. Addresses are provided, arrival dates/times are confirmed.
For Vladimir, we’ve been lucky enough to find a host – our new friend Artyom arranges to meet us at the train station.
“I’ll be there in 20 minutes. Wait for me please by the old black train.”
We take a seat outside by the train set up as a historical point of interest. While we wait, I translate a commemorative plaque and sign behind us.
“This says that Lenin visited here,” I say, “and the map shows the route he walked to get to where he was going.” It’s the only Lenin-was-here sign I’ve ever seen that included a map. Usually it’s just a plaque with a relief of Lenin’s profile and the date of some meeting.
Artyom arrives almost exactly 20 minutes later, and we walk to his apartment. By this point in our trip, Pierre has started using his scooter (originally bought to give his feet a rest) as a way to wheel around his largest backpack. It’s worked well in most of the places we’ve visited, but in Vladimir it’s slow going.
“I don’t think it is made for Russian sidewalks,” says Artyom. When the sidewalk is not cracked and potholed, it just doesn’t exist, and Pierre drags or carries the scooter over damp sand and around puddles.
On the walk over and while we settle in, we all get to know one another a bit. Artyom’s English is excellent, almost entirely self-taught. He’s a big fan of the American tv show House, which in Russia is called House MD to be clearer as to what it’s about.
“Your medical English must be amazing,” I say. He laughs.
Over the course of our stay we see his sister in passing, and also meet his grandfather Vladimir who loves politics and is curious about other countries, having spent so much time behind the Iron Curtain in his youth, separated from real news about the outside world. The guests that come to visit through couchsurfing.com are an endless source of information for him. Usually Artyom translates for him but when Vladimir discovers that I speak some Russian, he and I pick our way through a conversation.
He has many questions, and the variety of them are as interesting for me as the answers probably are for him.
How much is rent for an apartment in your city? Is there a lot of unemployment? Here in Russia now we have many girls and women who wear their hair like this [uses hand to indicate straight bangs against the eyebrows]. Do you have these women too? Have you had your nose ring long? Is it common? Why is it do you think that Canadian athletes don’t win many Olympic medals in sports events like track and field and so on? Do you like politics? Do many Canadians study Russian?
Our first afternoon in Vladimir is spent walking around the center. The middle of the main street holds a towering, white city gate. Not far away is one of Vladimir’s most famous cathedrals, the Assumption Cathedral. It sits on the top of a hill that looks down over the nearby fields, a river and the holding yard of the train station. It’s a popular spot for families with kids, women with baby prams and couples looking for a pretty place to sit.
We first see this Cathedral on a Sunday, and inside there is a service. We enter, I put on one of the available headscarfs and sarongs to cover my hair and my pants. There are a few other women also trudging around in these makeshift, shlumpy outfits – mostly Russian tourists. The devout are stylishly decked out in heels and skirts and coordinated head dresses. The Cathedral is the most impressive we’ve seen so far, and one of the first I’ve ever seen that wasn’t just scaffolding and bare walls. Most churches were quite a mess by the time communism fell, and most cathedrals I saw back in the mid-90s were just plaster with a few pieces of art. A lot of reconstruction was started at that time and as we travel across Russia we see the results of that hard work. The Assumption Cathedral seems to have been less damaged than others internally because the walls are almost claustrophobically covered in colour and icons of every size, some in frames, some painted directly onto the plaster. There are details on the underside of the window arches, and on every pillar. The crowd in the church is mostly women, with a few devout men here and there. A group of priests sings at the front altar, the younger ones in long slim black cassocks with goatees and hair pulled back into a neat pony tail. They sing, a group of women chant back in answer. Some elderly women kneel on the large metal tiles of the floor. Incense smoke clouds the air.
Nearby is the Cathedral of St. Dimitry, which is famous for the delicate ornate carvings that cover its walls. It’s now a museum. The building has large metal doors on each of its sides, and these each hold a sign that says something like “dear visitors, just a reminder that it’s bad luck to knock on the church doors.” I guess it really echoes inside and is irritating for the people who work there.
On Day 295 we head to the nearby village of Suzdal, which is one of the famous villages in the area around Moscow that’s known as the Golden Ring. Since we’re not sure that we’ll be able to see many others, we’ve gone out of our way to see Suzdal, which is the main reason we’ve come to Vladimir for a few days.
The guidebook says that this town has almost more churches than people which, once we arrive, doesn’t seem like a huge exaggeration. If every local person picked a church and stuck to it and if no tourists ever visited, they’d all have very tiny congregations.
The churches are all onion-domed and we arrive early enough to enjoy a few in the morning light. We check out a nearby wood building museum, whose buildings were collected from the surrounding areas. It’s pretty impressive to see onion domes made out of wood, and we walk through a few houses, a wood mill, a church, and the whole time I can’t help but think what a fire hazard these seem after the brick and plaster buildings that followed this style of architecture.
Not a unique thought, obviously, and each building holds a prominent sign explaining the emergency exits in case of fire and the location of the fire extinguishers. In a one-room building – a house converted into a gift shop – we find our favourite fire escape plan: a drawing of an arrow leading from the one existing room to the door. The fire escape plan is probably best described as: “in case of fire, walk outdoors.”
We continue our tour of Suzdal and head to the Nativity of the Virgin Cathedral in the south of town. Inside is stunning, with ceiling to floor icons and murals. The light is warm, and lands on the hands and faces painted around us. The incense is thick like dust in the sunbeams, and the light of the sun and from the candle flames reflects off of the metal halos that cover some of the heads of the saints. We spend most of an hour walking around the room, looking at what the light is doing that’s different this time around the floor, and listening to the monk chants plying from a set of speakers. Pierre takes photo after photo, and gives himself a sore neck trying to get the perfect shot of the ceiling.
The day (295) happens to be our 2nd anniversary, and we celebrate with a herring sandwich picnic outside on the old grassy knoll that used to be the city wall, and go to a mead-tasting hall for drinks. Suzdal is famous for its mead (honey wine) and the mead-tasting hall is empty when we arrive but preparing for a large group of tourists expected to arrive within the hour. Servers in medieval-type costumes walk by with tray after tray holding cups of warmed mead, lightly flavoured with traditional seasonings. Our server passes us an English menu that explains each of the ten small samples of honey wine on our tray:
Honey wine (plain)
Honey wine with mint
…with hops
…with spices
…with juniper berries and pepper
…with lime tree blossoms
…with hops and mint
…with hops and spices
…with hops, mint and spices
…with pine tree buds and rose petals
Between drinks we talk and snack on the bread croutons included on our tray (as palate cleansers), and by the time we finish the ten samples we’re pretty full and (for Pierre, who got the 5% honey wine) lightly buzzed. He takes a nap during the 20 minute bus ride back to Vladimir.
That night, we have a chance to visit a bit more with Artyom before we fold out our sofa beds for the night. We have to catch a bus in the morning, and rather than leave and come back for our bags, we decide to leave them in storage at the bus station while we tour town for one last time. On Day 294, Artyom wakes up early to let us out of the apartment and to relock the door behind us. We thank him again for his generosity during our stay and that we hope to return the favour someday in Canada.
Before our bus leaves, we grab a bite to eat at a local bar with a good deal on business lunches. The Russians use the English version of this word to describe the lunch menu, and Pierre loves saying it again and again a la Russe: Biznes lanch. Biznes lanch. It’s right up there with his second-favourite Russified English word, snack. Snek.
We walk out by the cathedral, and around the perimeter of the Assumption Cathedral. We approach the doors to see if we can go in again but they’re closed to the public today. I scan through the notes on the door to see if there’s any indication as to why they’re closed today.
An old woman slowly works her way up a hill and toward the door we’re standing at. She in her 60s or 70s, bent at the shoulder blades, wearing a sweater over a long skirt, mud boots on and a kerchief tied over her head. This is an outfit we’ve grown used to seeing on many elderly women in Russia. In one hand, she carries a large plastic shopping bag, and with the other she point to the door.
“What does that say?” she asks me. The font and location of the note in the middle of the door makes it look like an official notice.
“Please close the door behind you when you leave,” I read. She smiles – she too was expecting a note about why the doors are closed.
Pierre and I walk around the church again and decide it’s time to get our bags and wait for the bus. We pass the old woman again as we’re leaving the grounds, and she says “here, take this” and passes me two knotted, bright red apples, each small enough to close my fist around. We thank her and the sun glints off her metal dogtooth as she smiles back at us.
Pierre and I walk in silence for a moment. I look at the apple in my hand.
“I think I just had my first ever Snow-White moment,” I say, and we laugh.
We eat the apples later on the train, and they are sweet and soft without being mealy. It’s a lovely thank you.
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