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16 August 2004

The Kingsmill's Trans-Russia-Mongolian Overland Trip, Part 6: North Cape

Geoff Kingsmill
2006-04-26 09:43:29

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After having travelled over 17,000km we have finally exited Russia and are now in Norway. What an adventure it has been. Our last newsletter was from Kazan, 1000km east of Moscow.

From Kazan we drove on the M7 highway to Nizhny Novgorod. This is a sprawling city of over 2 million people, the third largest city in Russia. We drove into the city and stayed at the Voltsky Ohsk Hotel which overlooks the Volga River, the longest river in Europe with a length of 3,700km. This is a busy river with barges, ships and passenger ferries plying up and down the river. In the past this was a closed city due to the presence of many industries related to the Soviet Military. In fact this city builds many of the Russian submarines. The Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin is today a tourist attraction with beautiful parks, a collection of military hardware on display and a lovely cathedral. There is also a concert hall but unfortunately there were no performances on the nights we were in town. We really enjoyed strolling through the pedestrian mall which is over 1km in length. The buildings have all been restored and the shops are all up market. We had a lovely Georgian meal at the Café Bochka.

Our next destination was Suzdal. This city itself is a museum piece. This small historic town has well preserved monasteries, convents and churches dotted throughout the town. There are many wooden cottages with intricately carved designs. We visited the Monastery of Saint Euthymius which housed a number of different museums. It was interesting to see old art works being restored. While we were there the monks played a concert of bells from the bell tower. There was also an exhibition of 12th to 20th century Russian art work.

On our way to Moscow we stopped at Arkhangelskoe, an estate just west of Moscow, labelled as one of the grandest in the region. This estate was developed by Prince Nikolai Yusupov who filled the palace with his private art collection. The grounds and ...