Preparation....South Korea's Got Seoul!Well, we're here.....We are gloopy....Have a great weekend!Hello, Friends!Snow! Snow! Snow!Another Monday....Where is the sneg of yesteryear?!?Merry Christmas!С Новым Годом!Наш Рай!Back to School.....NovgorodAnother week has passed......Very quickly....
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St. Petersburg (Saint Petersburg), Russia
Since then, we've been having a really great time. We met up with our Russian friends again, a couple of nights after New Year, and at some point during the night we decided it would be fun to go to Novgorod first thing the next morning! How exciting! So we got up early, made the trek into town to get tickets.....and it was all sold out! So our friend Alexei took us to a museum instead, the Artillery Museum, which was really insane. There were so many tanks, guns, grenades, and even nuclear rockets! It was really interesting, but we both found it really, really confronting, and we spent the rest of the day walking around, and talking about the ideas that we have of war. It's probably far too boring to go into here, but it's so hard for us to understand so much about war, and warfare..... Since then, we've been having some conversations with other Russians about the same thing, and it's really interesting to hear their point of view, particularly as if they weren't students, they would have to be in the army themselves! Anyway, the museum WAS interesting, but I would reccomend that you go prepared (and maybe after more than 3 hours sleep....)
We also visited the Political History Museum, which was great! I think we'll have to go back, there was just so much so see there, and we didn't give ourselves enough time, really. But we really enjoyed it, and a lot of the exhibits had explanations in English, which greatly aided our understanding, of course! The actual building itself is really beautiful, it was built for a ballerina who was having an affair with Nicholas II, who later became Tsar. It was later taken over by the Bolsheviks, and you can see Lenin's office, and the balcony where he gave his address when he returned to Russia!
We had a 'church day' last week as well - we visited the Cathedral of our Lady of Kazan, St Nicholas' Cathedral, and (finally!) went inside the Church on Spilled Blood. They were all really beautiful, and so different - inside the Church on Spilled Blood is INCREDIBLE! It's pretty much all covered in these detailed, colourful mosaics, depicting Russian icons and Alexander II. It's really overwhelming, but beautiful, in a very different way. Kazansky Cathedral is really beautiful, but MASSIVE! I found it really imposing as well, although amazingly beautiful. St Nicholas' was really pretty, but we could only explore a small part of it, as the rest was sectioned off with a sign saying 'No Tourists!'. What we saw was lovely, though....
Well, back to school on Thursday - and tomorrow, Zoe's parents will arrive! We're pretty excited, and we have a couple of plans up our sleeve......we'll let you know more later! The weather finally became cold, and the last couple of days ranged from -6 to -15 degrees! So we're now painfully aware of the inadequacies of our winter attire, and on the hunt for silly padded jackets! Hooray! AND it snowed last night.....really, who could ask for more? We were out for a drink with friends, and we ended up walking around in the snow for a couple of hours, which was really nice. I know we've said it before (possibly more than once.....) but the snow makes everything SO beautiful! I hope it continues....
Well, that's about it from us for now! We'll write again soon...
Love, Meg and Zoe
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ASEES 21
Written by linda nilovna 13 months ago
Dear Meg and Zoe, I am so impressed by your adventurousness and enterprise! You are definitely the first UQ students in living memory to have visited the Artillery Museum. I agree about the Political History Museum, it is very interesting and the little old ladies were very helpful when I was there. The interior of the Spilled Blood church made a great impression on me too. Ithe church itself was under scaffolding for so many years that it was a shock when it eventually was opened to the public again. The mosaics were really something. I have been keeping a watch on the temp in Moscow and guessed that you might be feeling it a bit. Are you looking to buy pukhoviks? Hope you are taking lots of photos. Yesterday John and I sent over volume 21 of the Australian Stavonic and East European Studies journal (of which we are the editors) to the Printery. The relief was profound as we had been labouring on it long and hard. Tomorrow we set out by car for Melbourne where I am going to watch the tennis and John is going to amuse himself as best he can doing touristy things. We are going to be out of contact till the end of January. Will be thinking of you both and wondering what you are getting up to. Obnimayu, Lyndall