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Articles Tagged ‘Golden Ring’

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Where Anthony Makes An Appearance

Saturday, October 3rd, 2009

It is quite easy to spot other backpackers on the trans-Siberian.  Even as out of practise as we have been through lack of opportunity these past few weeks.  So while waiting for 11:15pm to roll around it is a nice surprise to see a young guy come into the waiting hall and stand beside his green pack.  The ability to differentiate is possible because locals travel in one of three ways.  No luggage at all or maybe an overnight bag.  Even if the journey is nearly two days long.  Otherwise they will be lugging one of those ungainly square rice bags, the largest size only.  Or else it may be a collection of string tied boxes.  Rarely a suitcase and never a backpack.  So Anthony, for this was his name, really stood out.  A Scot who lives in Northern Ireland as we found out in the preliminary conversation.  Then our train was finally announced but we would see him again soon enough as he was booked into the same Irkutsk hostel.  Yes a hostel, and we know where it is.  This time was going to be easy. [read on]

Church overload in the Golden Ring.

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

Today we leave Moscow for the Golden Ring towns.  Even though many of the stops along the way are going to be major cities it still feels as though this is the end of the easy part.  The further east we push the less chance that anyone other than my two travel partners will speak English, building language skills with a few words of the day does not really begin to encompass the myriad of situations necessary to function on a daily basis.  There are a number of planned stops that have only been open to outsiders for fifteen years and while sure to be interesting that fact alone is quite intimidating.  Similar to Helsinki the feeling was one of going from the known and manageable into the unknown maybe heightened because the past two weeks had been such a fulfilling time. [read on]

Monastic wanderings.

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009
Fully admitting that any knowledge of the intricacies of Orthodoxy is a subject beyond any of us, a day trip out to Russia's religious capital seemed like a good way to form an acquaintance.  Nearly 700 years old the monastery ... [Continue reading this entry]