Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car

So we spent this past weekend in Pskov, which is located 4.5-5 hours outside of Petersburg on the Estonian border. Saturday morning we met outside the metro station MOSKOVSKAYA right in front of the giant Lenin statue at 7:30 am. From there we hopped on a bus and began our long journey. I had taken a Dramamine before we boarded the bus, but after 20 minutes for some strange reason I started to feel incredibly sick. Five hours is a long, miserable time to be car sick, so I took another Dramamine. The next four and a half hours were a complete blur; one of those, I-feel-like-I’m-awake-but-considering-4.5-hours-felt-like-30-seconds, occasions. I “woke up” right as we were entering Pskov. 

Before I describe what the city is like, I want to underline the fact that I am well aware of how, umm, spoiled (?) I sound beforehand? I don’t know, I’m going to call the city poor and depict it as being, well, quite scary and dreary, but I want to publicly acknowledge the fact that I know that doesn’t sound good. I don’t like how I’m about to make things sound because I'm going to come off like I've been lucky enough to spend most of my life so far surrounded by wealthy people in relatively sheltered, cozy environments... which is true. I would like to emphasize about a million times how LUCKY I am to be living my life as it is currently, but I guess there's no use in apologizing for my first-world bias any longer. I hope this has made sense? 

In any sense, now that I’ve given that disclosure, I want to write that the city of Pskov, which doesn’t appear that big, comes off as an extremely run down, neglected city. The roads on the way to and throughout the city are not all paved, and even if they are, they are filled with cracks, holes and other dangerous hazards. The houses look like rotten shacks, and when we drove by them I constantly wondered if people actually lived in them. Paint is chipping everywhere, fences are rusted and twisted, and there are piles of junk everywhere. The trash throughout the city is terrible. The apartment buildings are grey and depressing. Buses look like they need serious repairs as well as the people. The contrast between Petersburg and Pskov is striking, and it makes me really uneasy to think of all the other cities, towns and villages throughout the Russian Federation that are similar to or worse off than Pskov. 

But we can come back to this. 

Once we arrived, the first thing on our agenda was lunch. Our bus dropped us off in front of a restaurant where we were met by our guide for the weekend - a lovely middle aged woman who enunciated all of her words clearly and slowly for us, and whose name is currently escaping me. For lunch we had a typical salad (which means no lettuce or any form of leafage), the best borsht I’ve had yet, chicken Kiev with potatoes, and then some raspberry cheese cake tart. We were full at the end of it all, and I still had drugs flowing through my veins, but we proceeded to our hotel. After we unpacked all our stuff, we met up and went on a walking tour of the city. Unfortunately, the skies were grey and it rained periodically, which only made the city seem more grim and gloomy. At one point we walked through a street where I thought literally ALL the houses could be the perfect setting for a horror movie. The end of that street, however, opened up onto one of the main rivers in Pskov, and directly across the city was the Trinity Cathedral, constructed in 1699. We continued to walk towards the Trinity Cathedral and we eventually entered the fortress surrounding it. There were ruins and a sword whose height must have equaled that of a one story house. Our guide was describing away, but I was too busy with my camera to stay in one place to listen, nor was my attention span at its best. Consequentially, I didn’t get much details. But I don’t think I would have really understood anything really even if I was paying attention. 

The inside of the church is filled with gold and icons. The ceiling is extremely tall, but the main room is quite small, so it could have been an illusion trick that made the tower appear that high and narrow. The church definitely appeared to be much older than those in St. Petersburg. Women had to cover their heads to go inside, and there were a bunch of older women lighting candles. Some Russian students from Smolny joined us this weekend, and there were a few that crossed themselves avidly. For someone who didn’t grow up religiously and who knows nothing about other religions, it’s very peculiar for me to witness it all. Sometimes I feel the need to follow everybody else’s conduct when I’m in these type of religious situations, but I usually end up reminding myself that I’m happily nonreligious, and that to not do anything just because other people are doing it won’t send me to hell because I just don’t believe in it (I had a little bit of an existential crisis one day after history class my freshman year in high school when Bob Johnson made it clear that some religions believe that people who are not baptized are going to hell; I distinctly remember Meghan shouting “Liv, don't worry. We’ll be worm food! We’ll be worm food together!” in the student center after I freaked out to her, and I haven’t thought about not being baptized since). 

After the church we continued out of the fortress and then we broke apart. A few of us wandered the souvenir stands, and I bought a red-painted wooden bracelet with pictures of slavic icons on them, which then ended up bleeding all over my left wrist for the next two days (it was only 50 rubles). For the next few hours a bunch of us just wandered the city, stopping occasionally in front of a Lenin monument or plaque on a building to read what happened there. We ended up in a little park where me and a few others whipped out the frisbee disc to toss for a bit. I cannot tell you how GOOD that felt, oh my god. I don’t think I had thrown a disc since November, but it felt so nice to get back into the groove of it. Now that the snow is gone and spring is struggling to break free over here in Russia I’m hoping that some friends would be more willing to come out to a park and play with me. No intense frisbee skills are required; just as long as someone can get it in my general direction will make me giddy with joy. 

After dinner at the restaurant “Beer House,” we all went back to the hotel. We congregated in one room and drank whatever people found in the nearest диски. Adam and I split a bottle of Argentinian wine, but we didn’t have a cork screw, so we spent a good 15 minutes nervously slicing through and chipping the cork with the knife I had bought Forest earlier that day (So worth it. Thanks, Chaka!). People went out later, but because we had to get up earlier that morning, it sounded like everybody got back fairly early for the most part (except for Dylan and Bill, who apparently ran into a bachelor party and got invited along to partake in their shenanigans for the rest of the night...). 

Sunday was a pretty jam-packed day. We first drove about half an hour to Pechori, where we took a tour of the Pskov-Pschorski Monastery. Sunday was a holiday, and there was a special service going on in one of the churches, so we all went in to check it out. Women wore head scarves and long skirts, and as we were walking up the stairs to the church, with almost perfect timing, a chorus started singing (except, as embarrassing as this is to admit, the only thing that I could think of as I entered the church with the music in the background was the “Duel of the Fates” song that played during, yes, the epic final fight scene in Star Wars: the Phantom Menace). 

The church inside was packed full of Russians of every generation. People were lighting candles and kissing icons. I couldn’t really see what was going on in the front of the church, but there were priests with long black cloaks and full beards. I felt like I had just walked into a National Geographic article. We only stayed inside the church for about 15 minutes before we walked out. We took more pictures, went to another part of the fortress, listened to a bell show/performance, went into another church, and then left the fortress. 

After lunch (the restaurant we went to was located down a residential road - exponentially sketchy) we drove to Izborsk where there is a famous fortress and some lake/big river nearby. There are also springs there that apparently contain holy water, so we all collected some in our water bottles. The views were pretty incredible. Lots of roaming hills (the grass has still yet to turn green though, so everything was a bit dead looking) and open fields (frisbee!). When we got off the bus we were greeted by a stray dog who had broken one of his paws (I was too afraid to look). The poor thing. I pet him and explained to him in English that someone needed to take him to the vet, and that I would if I could. Oh, my heart! 

When everyone finished getting their water and taking pictures with the white swans floating in the lake in the background, we walked further past the springs and towards the Izborsk fortress. We all had to pee like crazy though, so we weren’t there for that long. The fortress has a few castle towers and crumbling walls. Can’t really get more descriptive than that. 

On the way back to St. Petersburg, we dropped our guide off at the main train station there, which worked out splendidly for me because Nicholas signed the abdication at this train station in March 1917, and I really wanted to see it. We only stopped there briefly; everybody who didn’t have to use the bathroom stayed on the bus, but I got off anyway and searched for the plaque which marks the spot where it happened. Unfortuantely, I couldn’t find it. It was on the other side of the station, and I didn’t see that I could go around the back way until I had gotten back on the bus. Oh well, but at least I got to see the train station! 

Overall, it was very cool to go from St. Petersburg, where all it’s history begins roughly from 1703 on, to a city like Pskov where all it’s history comes from centuries before that. I also just appreciated the opportunity to see other parts of Russia. However, I would rather not spend any longer than a weekend in a place like Pskov again. In all honesty, small cities like that make me feel claustrophobic, and the rampant poverty there made me incredibly uncomfortable. Therefore, I was happy to return to Petersburg (which, oddly enough, really felt like coming home). Our next big trip is to Moscow (whoop whoop!) at the end of April into the beginning of May. I’m really curious to see how all these places differ from each other, although I’ve heard from most people here in Petersburg that they’re not fans of Moscow (my host mom included). We’ll just have to wait and see in a few weeks!