A lovely little village

Church in Suzdal
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I was sick while we were on the train coming across Russia and I still wasn't better in Suzdal so I didn't do a huge amount while I was there. The hotel was nice enough though the rooms were very hot during the day. The Russians don't have aircon because most of the time it's cold and at the moment they are having a heat wave.

We arrived on the day of the 1000 year anniversary of Suzdal so the town square was full of people having a giant party. Any excuse to drink lots of vodka! I came out briefly in the evening and checked it out but had to go back to bed fairly quickly. The next day I did a bit of sight seeing and the town is really very lovely. It was once the capital of Russia but when it was moved to Russia the town didn't really move on. It has lots of churches and five monasteries so it's a bit of a religious centre. It was one of the few towns during soviet times to have a functioning cathedral. There are about 30 churches in the town but that is because all of the churches are in pairs. They build a large, high ceilinged one for the summer and a smaller, easier to heat one for the winter. Many of the churches aren't functioning at the moment. They were closed during the Soviet era and haven't been restored yet. The churches are all fairly similar on the inside. There are no seats because everyone stands up, they have an entry area, a main chapel and an area just for priests that is separated from the main chapel by the iconostasis. This is a big wall covered in icons that has a door in the bottom to get you into the other section. They always have the Virgin Mary on the left, Jesus in the middle and the patron of the church on the right side.

Another Church in Suzdal. There are nearly 30 of them so I don't really have pictures of much else
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I went for a walk down by the river which used to be much larger but is now silted up quite a bit. The locals were all going swimming in it because of the heat. They were just going in in their underwear. I was starting to get tired and I knew it was bad when I was overtaken going up a hill by an eighty year old woman with a walking stick so I called it quits and went back to the hotel for a rest. In the afternoon, I went for another walk before dinner at a local put followed by a swim in the river. The water was lovely and cool and deep enough that you didn't get slime on your feet.

Iconostasis in the Suzdal Cathedral
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The next day we did a guided tour of Suzdal with a guide. We started at the Museum of Wooden Architecture. They have collected a whole lot of buildings from the local area and put them together to resemble a traditional wooden village. They have a couple of wooden churches, some houses, water wheel, windmills and out buildings. The buildings are made of several different types of wood and then flax is pushed between the logs to stop the cold air from going in. It used to be moss but flax lasts longer. The local house was really interesting. It has one large room at the front with a large fireplace in one corner. The elderly residents used to sleep on top of the fireplace to keep warm at night while everyone else slept in a loft above them.

Another photo of the Suzdal Cathedral Iconostasis
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After the museum we went to the Convent of the Intercession of the Virgin which is one of two currently functioning convents in Suzdal. There are about 20 nuns there at the moment. Unfortunately we couldn't go into their church but we walked around the beautiful gardens for a while in the sunshine.

Our final destination was the Suzdal Kremlin which was the centre of town when it was the capital of Russia. There is a large cathedral and a building that has served various purposes all surrounded by a large wall. The cathedral is really beautiful. Instead of the typical metal domes, it has fabric covered domes with golden stars on them which look like the night sky. The inside is devoted to the Virgin Mary and there are lots of murals on the walls. They are renovating at the moment so you can't see all of them.

We only went briefly into the Residence to see the banquet hall. It's huge for the time and had the largest unsupported ceiling in Russia for centuries.

We then had a quick drink and bundled all our stuff onto the bus to go to Moscow. It was stinking hot on the bus and it felt like we drove forever but we did eventually arrive.