ABOUT DR. SONKINA  |  ITINERARIES | RUSSIAN JOURNEY: THE HIGHLIGHTS  |  UPCOMING TOURS

Of the three literary museums we visited, the most interesting, perhaps, was «Mikhailovskoye», the State museum-reserve of Alexander Pushkin. Located around 300 km north-west of St. Petersburg, it is a vast estate, with gardens and buildings of a farmstead scatted in the woodlands. As our bus was leaving the city, we immersed ourselves into the gentle landscape of Northern Russia: flat lands, interspersed with bogs and groves of white-trunk birches, small villages of wooden, some well-kept, some forlorn-looking houses, untouched by time. (1034, 1084). The subdued colours of the North, the lyricism and the implicit sadness of the northern nature fills the soul with peace and contentment.

In different years
Have I come here to seek your shade and shelter,
Mikhailovskoye woods…

The place, including Pushkin’s grave, was badly destroyed in the WWII and then lovingly restored. Apart from viewing the copies of Pushkin’s heavily inked drafts, we saw “Onegin’s Bench” where, the poet confessed, he used to have long conversations with the figment of his own imagination, Onegin himself.

To get to Mikhailovskoye, we stayed overnight in Pskov, a small town going back to the 10th century, with an ancient fortress and churches.

Close to Pskov, is a quant little town of Pechery, famous for its still active monastery, one of the few that has survived the Communist regime, perhaps, because of its proximity to the Estonian border. Coloruful, toy-like domes, look at lovingly tended flower beds. One of the Fathers Superiors, an artist and a master embroiderer, has turned the place into small paradise. (1036) Traditionally women are not allowed into churches with their heads uncovered or wearing pants. Aprons meant to replace the skirts were handed out by the monastery’s office at the entrance to the monastery. These aprons account for our eccentric looks to call it mildly.

When the monks (perhaps, the apprentices?) began to toll the bells, pulling the strings of the smaller set and (pushing lever with their feet? –for the larger) our local guide urged us to “stand under the sound,” for good luck and purification of the soul, as she put it. To see the ringing bells as such close range! And to hear their magnificent voice–well, we really lucked out!

Instead of projected three hours and a half, it took us almost seven hours to get back to St. Petersburg. Definitely cleansed and fortified by the sound of the bells, we took the road jams in stride and didn’t grumble. Petersburgeions go to the their summer cottages over the week-ends, foreboding September skies notwithstanding. Stuck in traffic, we watched such road acrobatics the likes of which we’d never seen. Totally ignoring the lanes, the cars flocked together like a herd of cows, then sped ahead along roadside overtaking each other. Fortunately, our wonderful driver Valera was immune to this kind of ‘lawless ugliness,’ as he put it.