Ancient Rus

My next destination would be Novgorod, an ancient economic and cultural center of Russia and a city over 300 years older than Moscow. Rather than listen to Jill (the voice of my GPS) I decided I would take a smaller road to and link up with the main route later on. This proved interesting as it soon turned into gravel and quickly devolved into a pothole strewn sandy road passing through many small villages and pretty countryside:

I managed to meet up with the main road and continue on to Novgorod without any mishap. In Novgorod I met up with my host Anastasia. Anastasia lived in Chicago for a year and later spent time in Brazil working for a fair trade fashion company, now she is trying to start a business selling boots made with traditional Russian handicraft techniques. She explained to me that it is difficult to find workers with the knowledge to perform this type of work. Eventually she managed to find a small center in the countryside that was still using the traditional methods, but the owners passed away and there have since been problems with the workers drinking, fighting, missing work, and production has basically stopped. After devouring the lunch of pancakes, potatoes, and sausage that Anastasia had waiting for me we explored the ancient, massive kremlin and the beautiful St. Sophia cathedral from the 11^th century, one of the oldest buildings in Russia.

Anastasia then took me to a cafeteria that has been around since Soviet times, locals say the babushka who runs it is a million years old because the joint has been around forever. Unfortunately they were out of most food, so at Anastasia's urging I tried shuba, a traditional Russian salad made of herring, beets, and some other vegetables:

I must say this was not for me and I only managed a forkful or two! The epic tour of Novgorod continued until the wee hours of the morning and we took a terrifying taxi ride back in a Lada. These are not the most well built cars, in an accident you'd be better off jumping out the window! Most Russians look down on these cars and vastly prefer foreign owned brands, for good reason I think:

The next day Anastasia, her sister Dasha, and Dasha's boyfriend took me to visit the 12^th century Yurev monastery outside of Novgorod. It still functions as a working Orthodox monastery and I picked up a icon of Saint Nikolai, patron saint of travelers.