So I crossed the border into Russia at about 2 AM on August 27th. I arrived into St Petersburg an hour early and waited for my friend, Sasha. Last year, I went on the Rhodes Maymester program to St Petersburg, and I met Sasha (he was my host for a weekend). We’re essentially best friends, and have kept in contact ever since via email. So I met up with him and his sister, and we just walked around St Petersburg for the day. We also saw “The Proposal” in Russian… So glad Sandra Bullock was in the film, because I know how she acts, so I could tell which lines were supposed to be funny. Hahaha. Really helps when you can’t possibly keep up with the dubbing. Hahaha.
But then Sasha and I went to Nizhny Novgorod, the fourth largest city in Russia. It’s east of Moscow and was a merchant capital of Russia for centuries. There is a folk saying that St Petersburg has the nobles, Moscow has the heart, and Nizhny has the money. Hahaha. That’s changed a little bit now, obviously, but I was still excited to go. And HOLY CRAP. It was amazing. I am soooo glad I went there.
Nizhny Novgorod looks a lot different in person than on GoogleEarth. That’s because has HUGE terrain changes! Hahaha. Basically, imagine the city as a capital “T”, because it is split by two rivers (one flows into the other). And on either side of the stem, but beneath the “roof”, is Nizhny Novgorod (the north bank is a city called Bor). But the eastern half of Nizhny is the old section of the city, and the western bank received the majority of the Soviet-era growth. But the “old city” is up on a practical mountain (by Estonian standards). So it just looms up above the river. It’s beautiful. And when you see it, you understand perfectly well why it was chosen as a place to put a huge fortress. Kind of good location: rivers and only high point in a quite a while. Hahaha.
But the kremlin (a kremlin is a fortress, so many cities in Russia have a kremlin, but The Kremlin in Moscow is by far the most grandiose) in Nizhny Novgorod is beautiful. Absolutely lovely. And the old section of the city is pretty much closed for car traffic, so there’s people walking everywhere. It’s wonderful. And Sasha and I walked all OVER that city. Everywhere. It was awesome.
My favorite part, however, was based on where we lived. We stayed at the Hotel Oka, a fantastic hotel which is undergoing MASSIVE renovations and will soon be one of the nicest facilities in central or eastern Russia. Seriously the most accommodating place I’ve stayed at in a long time. But it’s a little ways south of the “old city” and just so happens to sit next to a MASSIVE PARK. I literally drool at the thought of this park. It was wonderful – I didn’t know such beautiful natural park things existed in Russia (Soviets didn’t like nature trails very much at all). But it was beautiful and huge. So the running was AMAZING in Nizhny Novgorod.
But now I’m in Veliky Novgorod, which is in between St Petersburg and Moscow. It’s a city of about 250,000 and it is one of the oldest cities in Russia. In September it’s going to celebrate its 1,150th anniversary… not bad. This is where Sasha lives and where I came last year. But it is now where I am working at a day center for at-risk children. It’s awesome.
I am currently living in a host family scenario, and it’s certainly interesting. Hahaha. My host mother is Nina, and her son (also named Sasha) and her sister Linda live in this apartment. It’s rather spacious, and I have my own room, so I am not complaining about that at all. And Nina is a FANTASTIC cook, so I am eating some of the best Russian food I’ve ever tasted. And that makes me so happy, because I LOVE Russian food. SOOO GOOOD.
But my internship is actually wonderful. I work with about 17 children through a government-funded day camp, essentially. We go on multiple excursions throughout the day to museums, parks, movies, just around the city. It’s great for the kids, and it’s great for me too, who is practically a child and wants to do things all the time. Hahaha. But the children belong to families that are considered “at-risk”, meaning that they may likely become orphans. So it’s a situation where you have no idea what kind of scenario the kid is in, but you know that it’s on the verge of breaking down. So it’s a harder job emotionally than the orphanage outright, I think, but the kids are great. I really enjoy them and my work. It’s so nice.
And I LOVE Veliky Novgorod. I liked it last year, when I visited, but I LOVE it. I mean, inside the kremlin (which is gorgeous) there is a monument to the first millennium of Russian history… awesome. And before Ivan the Terrible, Novgorod was actually the most powerful Russian city and maintained its own republic (of sorts). Then Ivan kind of ruined things and essentially killed everyone, and Moscow was asserted as the strongest city in Russia, and history went forward. But Novgorodians are extremely proud of their city, as it was a HUGE city for Russian culture and survived great tragedies during WWII. So it’s just a fascinating city, and I really do love it. And I love it even more since I discovered a running “trail” recently, so I don’t have to run around the kremlin so much. Yaaay! Hahaha.
But I’ll update you on my time here in Russia later. I promise I will do it this time. Hahaha.
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