Best Eastern Ring Premier Htl Yaroslavl

... poker...mongolian barbeque...fancy train...cute Mongolian children...another border crossing...wlking around with our Mongolian friend...cold weather at Lake Baikal...boat excurrsion...lunch at the market...Nikolai's banya...nerpa seals...Decembrists museum...slow lunch service in Irkutsk...trans-siberian railway...platform food...art nouveau dining car...instant noodles...stolen bag...conversations with police...nice local couple sharing their food...sketchy drunk ...

... up helping us lug our bags to Andrew's car, for which Dad tried to tip him (groan!), but of course, he refused the tip--threw up his hands and backed away shaking his head, muttering in German... Right as we left, he made a little bow, kissed my hand and waved farewell--all very gallant. Oddly, the 5 hour drive didn't seem quite so long this time, even though we didn't have anything exciting to look forward to, except for more traveling.

... a footpath. As we pulled up, two little girls were playing on the playground equipment outside and Dad turned to Mom and said "I've never seen a red-headed Russian before, have you?!" Sure enough, one of the girls had seriously, can't mistake-it-for-anything-else red hair. They were both really polite and said that yes, we were in the right spot, and led us inside. This was my first experience with seriously rural ...

... I think that I may have been the entertainment. Unfortunately I was constantly half asleep and not really in the mood for it.

The food - I had kind of Chicken Kiev's but I think they were chicken Moscow's as they were slightly different. In fact pork so they must have been "Pork Moscow's". Other foods I had on the trip A lot of meat and onion rissoles, a coleslaw salad-y thing for starters, a spicy soup called Pelami (Which I think hailed from ...

Up early today as we arrive in Yaroslav 8am and city bus tour starts then. We had a very good and knowledgeable guide who showed us through the Monastery, Cathedral and main park area. They still have Lenin's statue standing her and the street names stay the same as they are a pragmatic bunch here. Also an hour for looking around but no room in bags for anything. Back on Ship which had been moved in our ...

Day 117. A City on Wheels, Yaroslavl 9/8/08 Returning to the bus station in the morning I was not expecting a hug from the ticket officier. But a ticket would have been nice. Nope, waved to one side. Deciding that it was a long distance bus ride where a ticket was purchased from the driver I left her alone. So when it came to catching the bus I held out 200Rup (~10USD) to the driver. No ...

We have been sailing for several days and it is very difficult to tell if we are sailing on a river, canal or reservoir as it seems to be a continuous mass of water connected by locks. Sometimes it is very narrow and seems like a river or a canal and then other times there is water to the horizon with no land in sight, so must be a lake or a reservoir. During the night we have sailed through the Rybinsk reservoir into the Volga River to go to ...

... park there is a statue of the trinity. The sculptor had a friend in the city government and they put in this statue by stealth. Just one morning it was there. Everyone hates it. There are so many reasons for hating it. First, it is a religious statue not in a church. Second, there is no tradition of sculpture in the Russian church. Third, the statue is in the Moscow style, and everyone hates Moscow. And, Yaroslavl is a world ...

Some photos of the most insane trainride so far... Nat and I went in different directions from Yekaterinburg. So, I had a cabin full of drunk Russian men all to myself...YAY!!?????... Endless remarks about how beautiful I am (ehhh...gag...), about why I'm not married, and how come I won't marry one of them.... But, all in all, an experience...

... Golden Ring city. More onion-domed churches with green, red, or blue colors. I started to feel I won't know how to distinguish them after all my pictures are developed...... Our final stop is Transfiguration Monastery, the largest and most important one in Yaroslavl. It is in fact a 'Kremlin' itself, with several churches and a tall bell tower. One of its 'tourist attractions' is a Russian brown bear called "Marsha." This ...