Travel Week Part III
I thought I'd already posted this - however, I guess it didn't actually publish or something. Sorry for the confusing, and thanks to Mom for alerting me to the fact that 4 does not immediately follow 2. :-)
Travel Week Part III
Monday in some ways ended up being a bit of a bust for us. Many of the Museums have Monday as their one day of the week that they are closed therefore, while we walked to the locations of many of them, we couldn’t actually go inside.
Still we did manage to have a few cool things happen.
One -- getting out of the Metro we saw protestors gather to walk together towards the main square for the Anti-NATO/ Anti-Bush demonstrations.
We found Marinsky Park which was large enough to wander around, and had many interesting statues and fountains. (Fountains that don’t work until summer though.)
At the far end of the park is some sort of Government building. Which exactly I don’t know, but I overheard two of the guards outside talking about Bush’s upcoming visit.
We also spotted what looks like castle out of a dream or fair-tale. After lunch we ended up back in the same district and went to explore. This entire afternoon was a high of the trip as far as I am concerned.
Good points:
1) Friendship arch and panoramic view number 6? 7?
2) Bumper cars! There was an amusement park (very tiny) by the arch that had bumper cars for cheap. We played a rounds worth or slamming into each other. It is amazing how much fun it was. Everyone also realized it was the first time that any of us had driven a bumper car since actually learning how to drive. In my case the first time since I’ve been long enough to both reach the petal and see over the steering wheel.
3) We then climbed further up the hill to the water-works museum, which an old man explain to us was once a watch tower.
4) The castle we’d seen from below was now right below us. It turns out it is a children’s theatre. We look to see what was playing but nothing was scheduled for the time when we would be in Kyiv and could watch it.
5) On the bus ride back to our place, the bus conductor* carried on a conversation with Rauliegh and I about the demonstrators which we could see walking along the street out the window.
Oh, and I didn’t mention it already but we went to Ukrainian grocery stores (Produkti and gastronom) for food. A gastronom is sort of like a deli in the U.S. and so we were able to buy sliced meats and cheeses. The other way in that they are like a deli is that you must go to the counter to order what you want – meaning lots of good Russian practice for us. Just down the street from the Gastronom was a bakery. Ukrainian bread is EXCELLENT, very cheap to buy and some of the best bread I’ve ever eaten. I now understand why it is that Ukrainians I’ve met in Seattle are willing to drive to Tacoma for the one Ukrainian/Russian bakery in the Seattle region.
Tuesday was moving day for us, as we moved from our first hostel into a second hostel closer to the train station. The reason for the move was because we could not reserve either hostel for the full period of time for 6 people.
Our new hostel was in an ideal location, close to the train station, and to the metro line. In terms of place, and upkeep it was wonderful, what was not so wonderful as the hostel owner. He was a Norwegian immigrant who’d been living in Ukraine for a couple of years. He was quite warm and friendly to us until we mentioned that we’d been living in Russia for the last two months. He was very anti-Russian, and anti-Ukrainian, and the fact we wouldn’t help him bash Russia to other visitors staying there and instead moved to defend the country put us on tough terms with one another.
We spent as much time away from the hostel as we could during the following days, trying to keep ourselves to polite conversation only and making sure not to mention Russia in front of him again. Good thing Kyiv has lots of museums and is a great place to just wander around on foot.
The good news about hostelling is that you meet cool people. We spent a couple of days with a guy from Banf, Canada who has been back-packing eastern Europe for the past few months. We also met another American girl, on her way to Krygystan, and another guy from Finland, and another girl from Latvia.
Later in the week we made it out of the city center to the Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra. For those who don’t know a Lavra is a very large, very important monastery, there are only 5 of them in Russian Orthodoxy. Keivo-Pecherskaya, known in English as the Monastery of the Caves is the oldest and most important of these Lavras.
The grounds cover an entire hill side, and the underground caverns in which the monastery first started are extensive as well. About half of the monastery still functions as a monastery. As such when entering the older section of the monastery, us girls had to don head-scarves, thankfully we all had long coats, or else we would have had to wear tie on skirts as well.
An amusing bit about the Lavra was that upon buying our entrance tickets to the grounds there were two Babushki. The first one we approach in Russian to ask about ticket prices and what not, she was willing to accept our SPSU ID cards to give us student rates. When the second Babushka came up she started scolding the first because she could tell that we weren’t native Russian speakers, asking us what country we were from, what language would we prefer for a guide, and then fretting when they didn’t have an English language guide available. The first Babushka just kept explaing the lay-out of the Lavra to us, and even gave us a ticket to visit the caves at a very discounted rate. I think she was just utterly thrilled that we spoke Russian and kept exclaiming to the other Babushka “They understand! See look at them they understand Russian well! They understand everything I say to them!”
She also gave us the advice that we would need to buy a “light” to enter the caves because they are very dark. We understood “light” in the American sense of needing to buy a flashlight or a torch to guide us through the caves. Not so.
Upon reaching the lower monastery we went to purchase a flashlight only to find out that we should have taken to word “light” in a more literal sense. One walks the caves in the same manner pilgrims have done for hundreds of years, modestly dressed and carrying a beeswax candle.
Our guide for the caves monastery was a very devout Babushka. (The tour was entirely in Russian). She explained the history of the monastery, it was founded by hermits in the 10th (?) century. We paused at the entrance of the caves to light our candles from the candelabrum, and then made our way down the steps into the caves.
The caves were nothing like what I was expecting. I had for some reason assumed that they would be roughhewn caverns. Instead they were plastered and white washed, making smooth narrow tunnels through the earth. On either side of the passage way are nooks that hold the bodies of monks from the early years of the Lavra and of saints. Many of the walls also hold indentations, behind these indentations lie the remains of eve more monks, the hermits who lived alone in the caves they dug off the main passage way. Every few days other monks would leave food and holy water outside their cave entrance, if the hermit left the food untouched it would be a sign that he had died and his cave would be closed leaving his body entombed inside.
I am glad that I saw these caverns but I also felt a bit odd at times, for most of the other people wandering these caves it was a holy place of utmost importance. Our Babushka-guide would come up to the body of a saint entombed in a glass coffin or an ikon, and would cross herself, offer up a prayer and kiss the glass. Though I wore the garb of an orthodox believer and carried a pilgrim’s candle I felt apart, as I think the rest of our tour group did, because for me these saints held little personal meaning, only interesting history to learn from.
Upon leaving the Lavra behind us the day became even heavier as we walked to the neighboring hill top where the largest WWII memorial in the world is located.
Upon first entering the park it seems more or less like any war memorial, with collections of artillery and tanks. However one cannot ignore the statue that looms over the hillside and the city below. As you move closer to her you walk through a covered passageway, which is lined with statues of soldiers and peasants. Soviet Era patriotic music is piped in. It is a slightly creepy experience and very moving.
Under the statue’s base is a museum dedicated to the soldiers of WWII. Every room in the lower two floors is filled with letters home, uniforms, pictures, badges, pictures, weapons and stories from both sides of the eastern front. The last room is very long and along both sides from floor to ceiling are pictures of the men who lost their lives in battler. Each picture is just barely larger than wallet size and they run floor to ceiling along the entire length of the room.
Down the center is a singular long wood table. When you look closely you realized the supporting legs are bombshells. Standing on the table, down one side are the broken and battered flasks of soldiers, and down the other opposite each flask is a shot glass.
When you come out of this room, you step into a huge contrast. The bottom two floors of the museum are of dark brown marble, and show the horrors of war. The last room of the museum is in the base of the statue. It is all white marble, on each of the 6 supporting pillars is listed the names of Ukraine’s war heroes in gold lettering. Between each pillar is a large glass window. It is like standing in the copula of a Byzantine style church with light pouring in and guiding your eye upwards. In the center is a seal of the Soviet Union, and around the ring is a mosaic mural. It , to me, contributed to the feeling of having stepped into a temple of light and wonder as the style is reminiscent of the mosaic works in Orthodox churches.
For a museum and memorial built by the soviet regime it was perfectly styled to plunge a person into a vision of hell before raising them up in a temple of peace. Few churches I have been in have managed to create such a spiritual impact on me from architecture alone.
Travel Week Part III
Monday in some ways ended up being a bit of a bust for us. Many of the Museums have Monday as their one day of the week that they are closed therefore, while we walked to the locations of many of them, we couldn’t actually go inside.
Still we did manage to have a few cool things happen.
One -- getting out of the Metro we saw protestors gather to walk together towards the main square for the Anti-NATO/ Anti-Bush demonstrations.
We found Marinsky Park which was large enough to wander around, and had many interesting statues and fountains. (Fountains that don’t work until summer though.)
At the far end of the park is some sort of Government building. Which exactly I don’t know, but I overheard two of the guards outside talking about Bush’s upcoming visit.
We also spotted what looks like castle out of a dream or fair-tale. After lunch we ended up back in the same district and went to explore. This entire afternoon was a high of the trip as far as I am concerned.
Good points:
1) Friendship arch and panoramic view number 6? 7?
2) Bumper cars! There was an amusement park (very tiny) by the arch that had bumper cars for cheap. We played a rounds worth or slamming into each other. It is amazing how much fun it was. Everyone also realized it was the first time that any of us had driven a bumper car since actually learning how to drive. In my case the first time since I’ve been long enough to both reach the petal and see over the steering wheel.
3) We then climbed further up the hill to the water-works museum, which an old man explain to us was once a watch tower.
4) The castle we’d seen from below was now right below us. It turns out it is a children’s theatre. We look to see what was playing but nothing was scheduled for the time when we would be in Kyiv and could watch it.
5) On the bus ride back to our place, the bus conductor* carried on a conversation with Rauliegh and I about the demonstrators which we could see walking along the street out the window.
Oh, and I didn’t mention it already but we went to Ukrainian grocery stores (Produkti and gastronom) for food. A gastronom is sort of like a deli in the U.S. and so we were able to buy sliced meats and cheeses. The other way in that they are like a deli is that you must go to the counter to order what you want – meaning lots of good Russian practice for us. Just down the street from the Gastronom was a bakery. Ukrainian bread is EXCELLENT, very cheap to buy and some of the best bread I’ve ever eaten. I now understand why it is that Ukrainians I’ve met in Seattle are willing to drive to Tacoma for the one Ukrainian/Russian bakery in the Seattle region.
Tuesday was moving day for us, as we moved from our first hostel into a second hostel closer to the train station. The reason for the move was because we could not reserve either hostel for the full period of time for 6 people.
Our new hostel was in an ideal location, close to the train station, and to the metro line. In terms of place, and upkeep it was wonderful, what was not so wonderful as the hostel owner. He was a Norwegian immigrant who’d been living in Ukraine for a couple of years. He was quite warm and friendly to us until we mentioned that we’d been living in Russia for the last two months. He was very anti-Russian, and anti-Ukrainian, and the fact we wouldn’t help him bash Russia to other visitors staying there and instead moved to defend the country put us on tough terms with one another.
We spent as much time away from the hostel as we could during the following days, trying to keep ourselves to polite conversation only and making sure not to mention Russia in front of him again. Good thing Kyiv has lots of museums and is a great place to just wander around on foot.
The good news about hostelling is that you meet cool people. We spent a couple of days with a guy from Banf, Canada who has been back-packing eastern Europe for the past few months. We also met another American girl, on her way to Krygystan, and another guy from Finland, and another girl from Latvia.
Later in the week we made it out of the city center to the Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra. For those who don’t know a Lavra is a very large, very important monastery, there are only 5 of them in Russian Orthodoxy. Keivo-Pecherskaya, known in English as the Monastery of the Caves is the oldest and most important of these Lavras.
The grounds cover an entire hill side, and the underground caverns in which the monastery first started are extensive as well. About half of the monastery still functions as a monastery. As such when entering the older section of the monastery, us girls had to don head-scarves, thankfully we all had long coats, or else we would have had to wear tie on skirts as well.
An amusing bit about the Lavra was that upon buying our entrance tickets to the grounds there were two Babushki. The first one we approach in Russian to ask about ticket prices and what not, she was willing to accept our SPSU ID cards to give us student rates. When the second Babushka came up she started scolding the first because she could tell that we weren’t native Russian speakers, asking us what country we were from, what language would we prefer for a guide, and then fretting when they didn’t have an English language guide available. The first Babushka just kept explaing the lay-out of the Lavra to us, and even gave us a ticket to visit the caves at a very discounted rate. I think she was just utterly thrilled that we spoke Russian and kept exclaiming to the other Babushka “They understand! See look at them they understand Russian well! They understand everything I say to them!”
She also gave us the advice that we would need to buy a “light” to enter the caves because they are very dark. We understood “light” in the American sense of needing to buy a flashlight or a torch to guide us through the caves. Not so.
Upon reaching the lower monastery we went to purchase a flashlight only to find out that we should have taken to word “light” in a more literal sense. One walks the caves in the same manner pilgrims have done for hundreds of years, modestly dressed and carrying a beeswax candle.
Our guide for the caves monastery was a very devout Babushka. (The tour was entirely in Russian). She explained the history of the monastery, it was founded by hermits in the 10th (?) century. We paused at the entrance of the caves to light our candles from the candelabrum, and then made our way down the steps into the caves.
The caves were nothing like what I was expecting. I had for some reason assumed that they would be roughhewn caverns. Instead they were plastered and white washed, making smooth narrow tunnels through the earth. On either side of the passage way are nooks that hold the bodies of monks from the early years of the Lavra and of saints. Many of the walls also hold indentations, behind these indentations lie the remains of eve more monks, the hermits who lived alone in the caves they dug off the main passage way. Every few days other monks would leave food and holy water outside their cave entrance, if the hermit left the food untouched it would be a sign that he had died and his cave would be closed leaving his body entombed inside.
I am glad that I saw these caverns but I also felt a bit odd at times, for most of the other people wandering these caves it was a holy place of utmost importance. Our Babushka-guide would come up to the body of a saint entombed in a glass coffin or an ikon, and would cross herself, offer up a prayer and kiss the glass. Though I wore the garb of an orthodox believer and carried a pilgrim’s candle I felt apart, as I think the rest of our tour group did, because for me these saints held little personal meaning, only interesting history to learn from.
Upon leaving the Lavra behind us the day became even heavier as we walked to the neighboring hill top where the largest WWII memorial in the world is located.
Upon first entering the park it seems more or less like any war memorial, with collections of artillery and tanks. However one cannot ignore the statue that looms over the hillside and the city below. As you move closer to her you walk through a covered passageway, which is lined with statues of soldiers and peasants. Soviet Era patriotic music is piped in. It is a slightly creepy experience and very moving.
Under the statue’s base is a museum dedicated to the soldiers of WWII. Every room in the lower two floors is filled with letters home, uniforms, pictures, badges, pictures, weapons and stories from both sides of the eastern front. The last room is very long and along both sides from floor to ceiling are pictures of the men who lost their lives in battler. Each picture is just barely larger than wallet size and they run floor to ceiling along the entire length of the room.
Down the center is a singular long wood table. When you look closely you realized the supporting legs are bombshells. Standing on the table, down one side are the broken and battered flasks of soldiers, and down the other opposite each flask is a shot glass.
When you come out of this room, you step into a huge contrast. The bottom two floors of the museum are of dark brown marble, and show the horrors of war. The last room of the museum is in the base of the statue. It is all white marble, on each of the 6 supporting pillars is listed the names of Ukraine’s war heroes in gold lettering. Between each pillar is a large glass window. It is like standing in the copula of a Byzantine style church with light pouring in and guiding your eye upwards. In the center is a seal of the Soviet Union, and around the ring is a mosaic mural. It , to me, contributed to the feeling of having stepped into a temple of light and wonder as the style is reminiscent of the mosaic works in Orthodox churches.
For a museum and memorial built by the soviet regime it was perfectly styled to plunge a person into a vision of hell before raising them up in a temple of peace. Few churches I have been in have managed to create such a spiritual impact on me from architecture alone.
posted by gewreinn at 1:30 PM (St Petersburg time)
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