Everything has been ticked off.Houston, we have lift off.Inch of Snow Brings London to a StandstillRiga For A DayWe made it to RussiaRussiaAndy V, we thought you might like this!University: Learning Amidst HistoryWedding AnniversarySunday stroll in the sunZa Zdorovie! (Cheers!)Today's explorationsCathedral CentralThe week continued...by JodiBIG Weekend!Russian experiencesLast week in St Pete's(Mis)AdventuresMoscow - Some fun answers to prayerOrphanage visitKremlin+15C!Warning: Rambling AheadSpecial Birthday CelebrationsEaster partyAn afternoon in town.VNDKhOur last visit at the babies home10 girls and snow come to stayAuschwitzWieliczka, PolandZakopane, PolandLwowek Slaski, PolandPrague in SpringFour countries in one day.4 countries cont.Ancient Sea-side CityThe View From the Ferry Split - DubrovnikNothing to do by the seasideRainRome was seen in a dayThe 300km homestretch!Leon, SpainDay OneBloody Hard Work!Up the MountainSnow!Cacabelos Albergue is the best one we have seen yetBrazilian AlberguePerserverence has its rewardsFantastic Lonely ForestsLoooong DayWalking With WalterWet DayPerserverence pays againThe Final Stage
Embed trip
View in Google Earth
Rss news about this trip
GPX Track
Journal
Location
Petrozavodsk, Russia
Actually, Petrozavodsk is better known as the departure point for a famous island called Kizhi Island, except during winter while the lake is frozen, the ferry doesn't operate. Seeing as the waitress was so certain that there was nothing to do in town, we went over the road to a hotel and asked there about things to do. The woman there was great. She was easy to understand and very friendly. She recommended going to a nearby bookstore and buying a map that had the locations of the local musems on it. We took her advice and went to the book store which wasn't open. In the time we had waiting for the bookstore to open, we made an a-class snow-woman. A German friend named Daniella had bailed out on us at the last minute so we named the snow-woman Daniella as her proxy. All the snow in St Pete's had melted too quickly and suddenly to make a snow sculpture, but there was still about a foot of snow in Petrozavodsk, so we were very glad we got a second chance to make a snow person.
We bought a map and went to a fine arts museum in town. It was a reasonably small affair, and modestly priced as well. The first woman to greet us took our tickets and ushered us into the first section of the museum which displayed Orthodox Icons. She was very sweet and gave us a guided tour of the whole section. When we got to the folk artefacts section, there was a wooden thing that looked like a coat of arms or something (it was free-standing). I looked up the English word for it and it said 'distaff'. Bugger, I don't even know what a distaff is in English. Turns out it is something used for spinning wool by hand. Look it up in Wikipedia if you want to know more, that's all I know. Anyway, the art in the gallery was really beautiful. Mostly it was pieces by modern Russian artists. Some of the pieces were so beautiful I just wanted to sit in front of them in a comfy couch with a cup of tea. Heaps better than tele.
After the museum we had lunch in a Karelian restaurant. (Petrozavodsk is the capital of a region named Karelia). That was some of the nicest and most 'authentic' food we have had in Russia so far. We were not in a hurry to get anywhere because we were in short supply of things to do. Eventually we made our way to the lakeside again to look at some sculptures. The definite stand out was a sculpture depicting two people casting a fishing net. After that it was back to another to cafe to drink hot drinks and pass the time reading Russian Newsweek. In one article there were some statistics on opinion in Russia about Intelligent Design and Evolution. The sample population was 64 people. Nice work guys. Did that take your WHOLE lunch break to conduct that survey? Our train returning to St Pete's didn't depart until 4am the next morning, so after stopping at a local grocery store for supplies we went to the train station to settle in for the night. A fun day with a few interesting conversations and fun stories, but a misadventure none-the-less because of lack of preparation and understanding of how things would turn out.
PS: captions for the photographs. They should be mostly self-explanatory. Jodi and I you know, the woman with the spectacles is Adaline, the French woman, and the other woman is Liz, an American from Florida. The white looking character who looks like they have a thorax and abdomen is the snow woman depiction of our friend Daniella.
Comments |
Log in to add comment |
No comments