After five weeks of big city life, what we needed was a break. So Rachel and I decided to get out of the city for the weekend. We had read in the guidebook that the small town of Veliky Novgorod, the seat of the kingdom of Ancient Rus, was only four hours away by bus, so on Saturday morning we set off. With no accommodation or bus tickets booked, we were taking a gamble (Vera certainly thought so!) but it paid off!!
The bus journey was relatively easy, although I did have an encounter with an arch-enemy - the wasp! This taught me that my mother had lied to me as a child when she told me that wasps "only hurt you if you hurt them". While this may be true of some wasps, this particular wasp was pure evil and attacked me viciously without any provocation, and I was pleased when the woman opposite exacted revenge with her Hello magazine. (Yes, it does exist in Russia too!) Farewell wasp, you will be mourned by.....absolutely no-one!!
We couldn't believe our luck when the bus arrived in Novgorod precisely four hours later. What's this? We used public transport and actually arrived on time at our intended destination?! But perhaps we allowed ourselves to feel smug a little too soon, as the next task (after purchasing return tickets) was to find somewhere to sleep. And this didn't look very likely at first - the first hostel on the map appeared not to exist, the second was full. Slightly panicky, we trudged on, and it was third time lucky - the Hotel Akron had a free room, and despite me having made the colossal error of forgetting my migration card , they were prepared to let us stay there. Result!!
Once the shock and relief at not being homeless had worn off, we were ready to explore the town. In the rather rushed (i.e. non-existent) planning of our trip, we had failed to read very much about Novgorod, and thus we were unprepared for how beautiful it would be. Set on the Volkhov River, with the magnificent red-brick Kremlin on one bank and dozens of onion-domed churches on the other, it is stunning. And all of this was made better by the fact that autumn has well and truly arrived (although it's a flying visit, as snow is forecast for next week) and the leaves seemed to turn golden and drop to the ground even as we looked at them. Rachel described it as being like France in the autumn, and I thought that it looked like I imagine New England to be like, but whatever your simile, it was pretty!
One thing that we did discover about Novgorod is that it's best not to eat there! In the restaurant which we chose for dinner (Хорошие люди or 'Good People') we encountered that Russian textbook classic - nothing on the menu being available!! Even better, the alternative which they brought us was salmon, which was what Rachel had ordered (and been denied) in the first place!! For dessert, we moved on to a little cafe opposite our hotel, where we opted for the one thing we could decipher from the menu 'Strawberry Dessert'. This was the little-known delicacy, whipped cream with strawberry sauce. An entire sundae dish full of whipped cream with strawberry sauce! I also wanted a beer, and after much motioning towards the beers on the shelf, managed to procure one, although not the one which I was pointing to. The joys of eating out in Novgorod! It did cost about a fiver altogether though so we had money left over to try some supermarket beer - Siberian Corona and Mojito beer. I will let you imagine how these particular delicacies tasted....
The next day we decided to play the little-known game of "Let's see how many attractions we can get into for free." It had started out as a game of "Let's see if we can find the church that Vera recommended", but when we found it and discovered that we could get in for free with our student cards, a new game was born. Altogether we managed to get into the Cathedral of Our Lady on the Sign (which had amazing seventeenth-century frescos), the Church of the Transfiguration of Our Saviour (which had slightly less intact, but still amazing, fourteenth-century frescos), the Bell Tower of St. Sophia, another tower of indeterminate name and similarly indeterminate number of steps, a photo exhibition and the Museum of Novgorod - not bad for a morning's work! And then it was time to grab a bite to eat (once again not getting what I ordered), buy a few souvenirs, and catch the bus back to St. Petersburg!
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