Come Along Journey: #5 Velikiy Novgorod

In the fifth installment of our Come Along Journeys, we will continue our journey in Russia. And we will continue to try to evoke at least some of the feelings of traveling to a new place! I am going to try writing in first person plural (i.e. we and us) , in order to hopefully help you envision yourself actually there, but allow for me to be there as well. Feel free to let me know whether you prefer the first person plural or the second person construction. I have based the narrative on my experiences, but for the sake of flow some events may be combined or altered slightly.

After our adventures at Novodevichy Convent, Kolomenskoye Estate and Christ the Savior Cathedral, we are off to see some other areas of Russia. We head to Leningradskiy Vokzal (train station). We board the fast train Sapsan. We purchased second class tickets, but the seats are relatively comfortable, so we cannot complain. As we ride along, we conduct research about St Petersburg, but we also see information online about Velikiy Novgorod, which vaguely remember from our world history class. Velikiy Novgorod (or Novgorod the Great) is sometimes confused with Nizhniy Novgorod (Lower Novgorod), which is east of Moscow. Velikiy Novgorod, being the original can just be callsed Novgorod as well. Novgorod is one of the oldest cities in Russia and has an interesting Kremlin as well. We could take a side trip from St Petersburg, but on a whim, we decide to get off the train in Chudovo, which is one of the few stops on the Sapsan route and try to catch a local train to Novgorod. Chudovo is relatively close to Novgorod, so trains should run relatively often from there.

We find the ticket counter at the station and find a way to convey where we want to go, the attendant, an older woman, indicates with her hands which platform we should wait on. After 20 minutes or so, a train comes that has the word Новгород-на-Волхове written on the front. We figure that this must be the right train. We board the train, where there definitely are not any assigned seats like there had been on the Sapsan train from Moscow. The seats are just wooden benches, although we find out that they are not too uncomfortable and thankfully the train is relatively uncrowded so there is no problem with space. After a number of stops, we pull into the main train station in Novgorod. We disembark, go down some stairs to go under the tracks and then back up the train station. The train station itself isn't terribly large or impressive. As we walk out in front of the station, we see a McDonalds off to the left. Reassuring to see that McDonalds has made it even here. Although we usually avoid eating at McDonalds, we decide to eat there, just out of convenience and because being in an unfamiliar city, we don't know where we will eat otherwise.

After a quick meal, we head more or less southeast from the station to what we came here to see. Novgorod has a lot of churches, big ones, small ones, all kinds, but the area around the Novgorod Kremlin is what most people talk about, so that is where we are heading. As we walk towards the Kremlin (and really the center of town), a light fog rolls in. We are immediately impressed by the Monument of a Millennium of Russia. It depicts important scenes from Russia's long history.

Saint Sophia Cathedral is also very interesting.

We wander around the Kremlin and then outside the Kremlin beside the Volkhov River and across a pedestrian bridge, and over to Yaroslav's Court, just across the river.

We wander for quite some time, on both sides of the river. We wander up to the statue of Aleksandr Nevskiy.

At some point, we realize that we have missed the train that we had planned to take to St Petersburg from here. We are sure that there are other trains, but again on a whim, we decide to try to find a hotel. We Google hotels and settle on the Hotel Akron, it is centrally located, not very expensive and at least from the pictures appears to be decent.

As we arrive at the hotel, we check in. The person at the reception desk isn't used to seeing Westerners who are not German. Most of the tourists that come to Novgorod are either Russian, from somewhere else in Eastern Europe or Germany. The hotel turns out to be clean and nice. It isn't fancy at all, but fine.

The next morning, after we check out of the hotel, we wander around some more. We are up early enough, that there are not very many people around as we wander and take pictures. We see some of the same things, but in a new light literally.

We return to the Kremlin and find the bells of Saint Sophia ringing. It is a treat to hear them.

After listening to the bells, we hurry to the train station to see if we can make a midday train to St Petersburg.

Next time, we will explore St Petersburg.

*I thought that it might be good to add some end notes to this post. I have actually spent about six months living in Novgorod almost twenty years ago. It is one of my favorite cities for sure. Contrary to what I imply in these Russia related posts, I do actually know a bit of Russian, but I wanted to have people experience Russia as if they didn't know much Russian, because that will be the experience of most Westerners that go to Russia. I have been back a couple of times as a tourist and it was very different to see it in that light. Most of these pictures were taken in the late autumn seven years ago. The morning pictures were actually taken after 9 am for sure, so you can discern that Russia is a dark place in the late autumn and winter being 58 degrees north. It is also worth noting that in my experiences, the Hotel Akron mentioned in this post really is a decent hotel, not fancy in the least, but better than some other Russian hotels that I have stayed in (including one that was so disgusting and bad that my wife wasn't sure that we would stay together if I ever made her stay there again (I say that mostly jokingly), but that's probably a story for a different time).

#Russia #Novgorod