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In Novgorod and Tver by Alex Mumzhiu , USA When I was young I tried to travel to far remote places. There is Russian expression "wind of far travel" (veter dalnix stranstvii). This wind blew me as far as possible from the home. Now, when the most of far remote places are already visited, I feel interest in traveling to these places which I always ignored: North-Western corner of Russia: Pskov, Novgorod and Veliko-Lukskii Region.
From SPB I took a bus to Novgorod and as usual slept on rear bus seat, even the sleeplessness should try it, as the best remedy for this disease. In Novgorod, I took the boat tour to the lake Ilmen, where one well dressed man offered me a drink. He was Russian representative of American company looking for the local sales representatives. He was very disappointed to learn that I live in the Washington. For some reason people all around the globe consider me a local, maybe with exclusion of China and India.
Novgorod is nice, especially oldest churches built in modest and romantic pure Novgorod style, like Church of Our Saviour-at-Ilino (Spasa-na-Iline)in attachment. Unfortunately later this style was replaced by more bulky Moscow style.
From Novgorod I took early morning bus to Valdai, another old Russian town. My friends recommended me to visit Valdai National Park and they were right. It is real good area, nice and ecologically clean. Putin's dacha is located there. In Russia you will not be wrong if you will go to president's dacha neighborhood.
I took late afternoon bus to Tver, another old Russian town. Tver is located on Volga river and there are several churches beautifully situated on the Volga shore, one of them is in attachment. I found a place to stay in train station hotel but in luxury loft for $17. Hotel manager gave it to me only till early morning. They normally keep it permanently "reserved" for railway executives and do not rent it to ordinary customers. So I had a chance to experience nomenklatura (high management) luxury. It was a lot of rugs there, but towel was slightly larger than handkerchief. |
