Our time in Russia is coming to an end and so the race is on to finish off our bucket list of things to see and do. Therefore a couple of weeks back we decided to complete our tour of the Golden Ring. Getting in the car we drove for a couple of hours stopping in Pereslavl-Zalessky (subject of Golden Ring part 2) for lunch. We finally arrived at our hotel in Kostroma at about 3.30pm.
We stayed at the Azimut hotel which is someway from the centre of town but had two things that we wanted. Firstly we have grown a liking for the Azimut brand which takes Soviet-era hotels and modernises them whilst keeping the ‘mid-century’ vibe. And secondly this one had a locally very well regarded banya complex. The hotel consisted of a main building housing a German Bar and a Russian Kitchen, and a series of brick built bungalows in rows. We opted for a bungalow – one bedroom, one bathroom and one sitting room.
The hotel’s banya consists of two log houses containing a sauna, an indoor ice plunge pool, (actually more like a plunge barrel!) and outside pool (pond!), a massage bed, a couple of bedrooms, small kitchen and dinning room. Having made a booking ahead of time we grabbed our (un-required but we’re British) costumes and flip flops and made our way over to Banya no.1. There we were met by Zhenya who showed us around, explained how to get more steam and heat, and how to beat each other with birch leaves! And so passed a couple of alternatingly hot and icy hours. We came out thoroughly cleansed by which time we were hungry and thirsty and so got a taxi into town for a meal. After eating we went for a romantic moonlit wander along the Volga.
The next morning we explored the town centre. Founded by our old friend Yuri Dolgoruky in 1152 it sits on the confluence of the Volga and Kostroma rivers and was an important trading post.
In spite of the fact that all of the towns on the Golden Ring have Kremlins and/or beautiful monasteries they all have their own very distinct characters. And Kostroma is no exception. The centre of town is dominated by the 18C stone trading arches which used to house hundreds of shops selling goods shipped along the Volga in its heyday. Today many of the arches contain modern shops and in the centre is a large open air market.
However the town’s most famous sight is the monastery of St Ipaty. Founded in the 1330s it was rebuilt in stone by Tsar Boris Godunov. Ironically 17 year old Mikhail Romanov, a political rival to Godunov, was living in the Monastery when he learnt in 1613 that he was to become the next Tsar, the first of the Romanov tsarist dynasty. All successive Romanov tsars thus came here to visit the monastery, including the last Tsar and his family in 1913.
After all the history and culture what I felt we needed was a hug with a moose. Climbing into the car we drove 25km through some of the most gorgeous pastoral countryside to the Sumarokovskaya Elk Farm.
An experimental Soviet era attempt to farm elk for their meat and their milk it never took off as a commercial farm. Today it continues to breed elk to release back to the wild in areas where they are becoming extinct. It also supplies milk to a nearby sanatorium which uses it in medical treatment for ulcers and other gastrointestinal diseases. It is open to the public every day, and while much of the time the moose are free to wander in the woods at will there are always some in the enclosures that you can visit and if you go at the right time of year, as we did, you can see lots of baby moose too! Oh and can I just say that moose milk is very rich and creamy and rather delicious but should not be confused with that equally creamy and delicious alcoholic Canadian drink of the same name!
And with that it was off to our next stop – Plyos. Now Plyos is a little different from all the other Golden Ring towns. It does not have a Kremlin and nor does it have a monastery. No, the reason to visit Plyos is for its landscapes made famous by the late 19th century Russian painter Isaac Levitan and his friends. A picturesque tiny town of less than 3 sq km with wooden houses and hilly lanes leading down to the Volga it has attracted more attention lately as former Prime Minister Dimitry Medvedev has his multimillion-rouble, 80-hectre, country estate here.
This is one of Levitan’s most famous paintings of Plyos so we were very surprised to find, on a tour of his house museum, that this view doesn’t exist! The church does exist – just not in that position! And this wasn’t the only ‘made up vista’ that he painted! We could see why artists gravitated here it really was lovely. As well as Levitan’s house museum we visited the Landscape museum, walked up the hill to see the church in the painting, went on a short cruise along the Volga (and saw Medvedev’s estate), got told by a mad monk that the only Christians that were going to get to heaven were Russian Orthodox ones, walked to the top of the hill to see the remains of an old fortress, ate delicious fish rolls with 6 different type of nastoki (see an earlier post) whilst chatting with a delightful group of young Russians who were fascinated by the fact that we are still here and wanted to know where we had been and what we thought of Russia (we did not discuss politics or the war). We stayed in a lovely airbnb in an old house overlooking the river.
The next morning we were off again to Palekh. This is a bit of a side trip and not really part of the ring. It is home to one of the four places famous for the painted lacquer boxes. We had hoped to get a tour of a ‘factory’ and the opportunity to buy a box to add to our collection. However it turns out that it is not centralised and the craftsmen all have their own little workshops scattered around. We did visit a couple but didn’t see anything that grabbed us – except some vintage ones for £4000! So a slightly disappointing side trip.
Rather than driving the 6 hours back to Moscow we stopped for the night in pretty Suzdal (see GR part 1) had a wander and took some beautiful sunset photos.
And that, my friends, concludes our journey around the Golden Ring, the circle is complete. Each of the towns have their own distinct characters, some are large cities and some are small towns that time seems to have forgotten. Do I have a favourite? I have enjoyed them all for different reasons but I think the small ones like Rostov and Suzdal are the ones that I like most.
Russian Reflections 