Small towns in Russia. They're great!

3585 This is the Goritsky women's monastery.  I can't help it, they don't call them convents here.

3630 The Church of the Transfiguration at the Kirillo-Belozeersky Monastery.

3838 These are the Royal Doors of the Assumption Cathedral, Yaroslavl

 

June 4 – Kuzino, Russia-Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery.  Since we've been to this monastery before we were looking for something different to do on this trip.  I looked at their web site and discovered that they have another museum on the grounds called The Treasury.  It's just across the courtyard from the museum in the Abbot's residence.

 

We're not getting to Kuzino until noon so the morning was spent enjoying the scenery and the towns we passed through.  In Goritsky they have a large monastery that was one of the first for women in the country.  It's active again since the USSR broke up and once again it's for women.

 

Of course we started off with the Viking show at the port.  It was just as good the second time around.  The man who plays does the show looks, sounds and acts the part of a member of the ancient Rus. 

 

This time we visited the school first and our student escort conducted the whole tour of the building in English.  Her goal is to become an economist.  When I was in the 8^th grade I didn't know there was such a job.

 

The Treasury was open and so we opted to visit there instead of the same one we saw before.  Like before there were no pictures allowed.  They had some beautiful icons and artifacts from the various churches in the monastery.  We were also able to get inside two of the churches, St. Cyril's and the Church of Michael the Archangel.  Both fairly small.  All the valuable icons from the church's past are in museums in Moscow or the two on the property.

 

I'm really enjoying seeing these sites twice.  The second visit has more of a personal tour feel to it and we're able to go on our own a bit. 

 

June 5 – Yaroslav, Russia.  Nothing much different on our second time here.  It's a great city and we did get inside the Assumption Cathedral this time.  It's a bit unusual because the iconostasis is in three parts separated by the huge pillars at the front of the church.  Each segment has its own door the ones in the center section are still the Holy Doors.  These doors are quite colorful with red, blue, light blue, gold and silver making up the dominant colors.  Each door has three small frames at the center of a panel.  The frames have onion dome church roofs as their top edge.  Each holds a small icon.  The effect is very beautiful.  The walls and pillars are as yet undecorated.  The white walls really make the icons and the iconostasis pop. 

 

The church bell tower has not yet been built but they do have the bells.  They're hung in a low framework on the site where the tower will be.  They have the clapper of each bell but the largest one connected to a chord that all meet in front of the smaller bells.  I wondered about that last time we were here and today I got my answer.  A priest came from the church and unlocked the fence around the bells, took his position were all the cords come together and proceeded to play the bells using his feet and hands to move the cords to produce the tune.  He had his songs down pat and I could have watched him much longer but the bus was leaving and I had to walk across the park to get to it.  Another nice day in a small Russian city.