May 21 – Uglich, Russia. Today we are in our first port of call, Uglich, Russia. Founded in 1148 it grew and became the favorite city of Ivan the Terrible by the 16th century. He used it as a base for his military campaigns. When Ivan died his son Dimitry joined his mother here only to be killed, probably by Boris Godunov as part of his plan to get the throne. But I'm getting ahead of myself again
After sailing sedately on the Moscow Canal and through locks yesterday we did a few more today and entered the Volga River. We sailed by the village of Kaliazin where the Bell Tower of St Nicholas' Cathedral standing alone in the river is a stark reminder of the price some villages paid for the installation of the canal locks. Here most of the village was saved but the church was lost. Some villages were submerged completely and Stalin only gave the residents a 24 hour notice before the flooding began.
Shortly thereafter we docked in Uglich. While it became an official city in 1148 there was a settlement here since 973. It was a fairly prosperous town until the unfortunate events of 1591 we'll talk about later.
Our first order of business here was to visit the home of a local Russian. We got on a very old and small bus and headed to the edge of town. The condition of the roads led be to reevaluate my estimate of the busses age. Taking the beating it was the bus did not have to be that old to be this rickety.
We were accompanied on the bus ride by Misha, the man of the house. He speaks very little English but Tatiana was along to translate. We didn't talk much on the ride as the bus was pretty noisy. When we arrived at his house it was a two story wooden home with a window in the attic. It has a small front yard nicely planted with tulips and some blooming shrubs. He as a detached garage with a car in the driveway. It's of Russian manufacture so it's hard to tell how old it is, they rarely change the styling.
His wife Elena met us at the door and greeted us as we entered. She speaks very little English as well. We were invited into the dining room where the table had been set for the 14 of us. It was a bit tight but very cozy. The table was set with pickles, some small buns, an apricot cake and sliced cheese. Through Tatiana, Misha explained that he and his father-in-law had built the entire house by themselves, he used to work at the local watch factory but after Perestroika the factory closed. Now he works as a security guard at one of the local businesses. Elena told us that she owns a small shop but didn't go into any detail about what kind. They met while she was also working at the now closed watch factory. They have two grown children and some grandchildren. He told us how times had been hard for them after the collapse of the Communist system because of the economic uncertainty but that they were both happy under the new system and were doing ok.
Misha makes his own vodka as many country families do. He described the process he uses and when he brought out a bottle of his vodka I was a little surprised to find that it was amber colored. Winds up that most people make their vodka at home like the British make gin, they put herbs and spices and secret ingredients in the vodka while it ages and then filter them out when they bottle it. He had two bottles, one fairly clear and the other pretty amber. He said he ages the amber one 5 years. The religious beliefs of many Russians emphasize the Holy Trinity. They exhibit this by doing things in threes. If you are going out with the boys for a drink there have to be at least three of you. One of the other traditions is that you never drink one vodka. To be properly social you have to drink three. Our first shot of the day was from the clear bottle. You don't sip it, Russian style is to take it as a shot. The clear vodka proved to be pretty smooth, with the typical vodka taste, that it very little taste at all other than alcohol. But it was not harsh at all. His wife had made the sliced pickles they served and they were very good. They weren't pickled in any of the traditional US ways, that is, they were not dill, sweet or kosher dill. They were very pleasant and Elena told us that if we ate several slices with the vodka we wouldn't be affected by it. Sounded silly to me but I like to check out the local customs so I had some, besides, like I said, they were very good.
She invited us to try the little buns and we discovered that they were stuffed with onions, eggs and potatoes. Again they were homemade and delicious. At that provoked Misha to pour our second shot, this time from the amber bottle. This was the five-year-old, gin style version of vodka and proved to very smooth indeed with a great taste. I could not tell you what he added to the vodka while it aged but the color and flavor it produced was very nice. Of course another round of pickles was also served. This time we also had some cheese which I found out was not homemade but was made here in Uglich.
Slight interruption. We're getting pretty far north now and it's 11:30PM and still quite light. It's very easy to see outside.
Next it was time for a serving of the apricot cake, also homemade, also excellent, followed inevitably by the last round of vodka. I guess we showed proper appreciation for the good stuff because the last round was poured from the amber bottle as well. A couple more pickles and we were off to see his garden. I have to admit that three vodkas in a little over an hour and I didn't really feel much of anything. I'm not a drinker of the hard stuff, pretty much just wine occasionally and sometimes a beer so I was surprised by the lack of effect.
He plants a garden every year and grows vegetables of all kinds but no lettuce. Lots of cabbage but no lettuce. He also has several apple trees and two bee hives for honey and to keep his garden and trees pollinated. He has chickens and ducks for eggs plus a pair of pigs. We didn't get to see the pigs as he has them sequestered in a small building in the back of the garden 'on a honeymoon' as he described it. He wants a few more piglets. All too soon it was time to go. A very nice visit.
We reboarded the rustic bus for the trip downtown to the main square, again accompanied by Misha. Our guide, a pretty 20-something local girl, gave us the general lay of the land around the square and the way back to the ship. We'll be walking back apparently down a small lane with local vendors, a trip of about 20 minutes if you don't shop. She also reminded us of the time we have to be back on board.
On the far side of the square is a traditional style Russian wooden building. They are very ornately decorated but in simple colors. The eaves, window frames, door jambs and columns are often carved in what would be called gingerbread style in the USA, but are generally painted only in one color and usually white. So they have the three color system of home painting but in their system the colors are one each on the roof, siding and decorations. This building has a green roof, yellow siding and white decorations. Very attractive.
We are headed out to the bank of the Volga River to an area where there are four churches and we will be visiting three of them, the fourth is not open. Our first stop was a building that was previously a church but is now a performance hall. We are going to have a concert by a 5-man a capella choir. They were fantastic. Everyone was truly great and the bass singer was absolutely exceptional. When called for, his voice could produce a vibrato you could feel. It was absolutely brilliant. The first tenor and baritone were also standouts, but all five were the at the top of the list. I had to buy their CD. They had two, popular and religious. I chose the religious because the songs are usually more complex and classical in their harmonies and rhythms.
Then it was on to the Church of St. Dimitry on the Blood, built in 1690 on the spot where Dimitry was killed. I introduced this story at the beginning and it's so interesting that a little expansion is needed.
Here's the official version. "After Ivan's death, his youngest son Dimitry Ivanovich was banished to Uglich in 1584. The most famous event in the town's history took place on May 15, 1591 when the 10-year old boy was found dead with his throat cut in the palace courtyard. Suspicion immediately fell on the tsar's chief advisor, Boris Godunov. Official investigators concluded however that Dimitriy's death was an accident. They banished his mother to a convent in Siberia and cut a "tongue" from the cathedral bell that rung the news of Dimitriy's death and "exiled" it to Siberia as well."
Here's the story according to the local Uglich cultural memory. In order to get the throne for himself, Boris Godunov had a group of his supporters kill Dimitry. In order to have been an accident the poor child would have had to 'accidentally' cut his own throat 7 times. Not very likely. In fact, the local populace was so enraged they apprehended the miscreants, including several local officials were summarily executed. The local folks had no question in their mind about what had happened. The evidence they had included the fact that this same group of people was on the site of the murder and detained the priest who saw the boy and was attempting to go to the church to ring the alarm bell. They saw the condition of the boy's body and could judge themselves the probability that it was an accident. The opinion that it was an accident came much later and was made by associates of Godunov who were not in the local area. The people who executed the perpetrators were not prosecuted, probably because the powers didn't want to focus any more attention on the situation.
This ended the ancient Rurik Dynasty of Czars and plunged the country into a time they called "The Time of Troubles". Again the general public was gullible enough to believe that Dimitry was not dead and three false Dimitrys tried to grab the throne. Poland sensed the weakness and attacked Russia. They burned down two monasteries and killed all the local populace who had sought refuge there.
In response the Romanovs praised Dimitry, the martyred Tsesarevich and turned Uglich into a place of pilgrimage resulting in the building of Dimitry's church. It's right on the Volga River and the red walls and blue domes are a wonderful sight. The murals inside are also very nice. They have many of the usual Orthodox subjects. The one truly unique one is very old and shows the story of Dimitry's death from the local point of view. It starts with the young man's murder and ends with the stoning of the perpetrators. It also shows the crowd gathered around the dying heir to the throne, the priest being prevented from going to the church and the suspects being apprehended while trying to flee the city on horseback.
Other mural subjects that I recognized were Adam and Eve with the serpent at the apple tree (a totally extra biblical thing, that apple tree), Jesus carrying His cross, the robe being given to Mary at the crucifixion and of course many saints and many stories of the Eastern or maybe the Russian Orthodox tradition that I don't recognize.
The iconostasis was very pretty. The woodwork was carved and gilded. The icons were in good repair and must have been restored at some point because they were not darkened with age as many are. Directly over the Beautiful Gates at the center was a large golden sunburst with the dove of the Holy Spirit at the center and directly above that a relatively small icon of the Last Supper. Of course the gate is the center of the first row of Icons. The center of the second row is a large icon of Jesus, the center of the third row an icon of Mary as the Queen of Heaven and above that, in a row all to itself, an icon of the Crucifixion. A fairly classical iconostasis, very nicely done.
As we left St. Dimitri's we passed a two story brick building that was the home where he lived with his mother from when he was banished from Moscow until his death. It's an impressive structure suitable for the real heir to the throne.
Our next stop was the Transfiguration Cathedral. It's a large yellow and white structure with 5 green domes and a bit of an odd rust red stripe around the building just under the eaves.
Inside it has a spectacular 6 row iconostasis, it's a large church. The central column of icons is, from bottom to top. In the first row has the Beautiful Gates. In the second row is the almost obligatory icon of the Last Supper. The third row appears to have Jesus being presented at the temple but I'm not certain. The fourth row has John the Baptist holding Jesus. The fifth row has Jesus seated at the right hand of the Father with the Holy Spirit represented by a dove hovering over a globe that's between them. And atop them all in the sixth row is the icon of the Crucifixion. In fact the sixth row's 7 tells the story of Easter, from Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane on the left to the angel appearing to the women at the tomb early in the morning telling them that Jesus isn't there, He's risen. I'm sure it's no accident that the story is told using 7 icons, the biblical number of completion and perfection. Ya really gotta love the layers of meaning and symbolism in religious architecture and art. I'm sure I only get about half of it when I see these things.
The church also has some beautiful murals. Mary Magdalene washing Jesus feet with nard was lit pretty well for a decent picture. The cathedral's namesake mural, The Transfiguration was also well enough lit for a photo. Unfortunately because there was a structure in the sanctuary it had to be taken from an angle. All the synoptic gospels have the story, it's in Matt. 17. Jesus and 3 disciples go to a 'high mountain'. Jesus begins to glow and the prophets Moses and Elijah appear with him and they talk. It's a pivotal point in the story of the Gospel. Just below the Transfiguration is a mural of a healing (could be the resurrection of Lazarus) and just above it is a mural of two of the gospel writers, Mark and John. They are easily identified because each has the traditional symbol of his gospel beside him, the ox and eagle respectively.
The cathedral also has a very nice bell tower, also painted yellow and white with a green roof, golden spire and cross high atop. It also has 4 golden faced clocks, keeping good time.
It was time to walk back to the ship down the street of vendors. It's actually a pleasure to talk to the vendors here. No high pressure, no hawking calls, they just ask if they can show you anything special. Very friendly.
The sail away was scenic, we went right past the church area we visited. A great day on the Volga River.
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