In Vologda I would be staying with Vera and her boyfriend Jenya. Vera is an architect, she had just returned from a three week trip to California and New York, and Jenya works at cafe and makes the best coffee I've had since New York. Vera is trying to apply to study in the United States, she explained that Russia is not the easiest place to be an architect because there are very strict regulations about style and not many opportunities for creativity. I had no trouble believing this – I haven't seen a unique or attractive modern building yet in Russia, fortunately some remnants of Russia's past survive to break up the monotony. Either way Vera and Jenya were amazing hosts and fascinating people. Last year the two of them rafted Lake Ladoga in the north of Russia and this year they will raft 500km down the Don River towards the Black Sea. They build the rafts by hand from trees using instructions from an old book Jenya found about 19th century rafting in Russia, Jenya even hand stitched the sail:
As I was unloading the bike a neighbor of Vera's called her 12 year old daughter over and commanded her to start speaking English with me! The girl was very shy, but she already knew more English than most Russians! Another neighbor of Vera's helped us to find secure parking for the bike, once again I got lucky - he knew some motocross riders in Vologda who he thought could help with repairing the bike. A jazz orchestra from Moscow was visiting Vologda and giving a concert in the kremlin so Vera and I went to meet up with some friends of hers and check it out:
Vologda is a very nice city, with many beautiful churches:
In the morning we called Andrei, the motocross rider. He offered to help and gave me his address. I rode around for two hours trying to find it, eventually ending up in a hardware store where a worker called Andrei and explained where I was. Andrei would come find me. Andrei took a look at the bike and said he would be able to weld a new bracket and do a better job attaching the exhaust on Saturday.
Vera and I took a bus across the river to the 14th century Spaso-Prilutsky monastery where we met up with two friends of Vera's, Sveta and Nadia, and had a picnic along the river. The monastery is built in several different architectural styles and the towers are painted in circus-tent stripes. I really love the architecture of the different churches I've seen so far:
Friday I went with Misha, a friend of Vera's from architecture school, and we took a bus to Semyonovka , a Russian model 19th century village outside of Vologda. The wooden buildings are original structures from different villages that they recently moved to create an open air museum. Misha is working as web developer, from my conversations with my hosts and other people I've met along the way it seems that many well educated people in Russia struggle to find a decent job in their field. Russia is a strange place – some people are obviously very wealthy, but most people struggle to get by and a lot of the infrastructure and housing doesn't seem to have changed too much since Soviet times. The build quality of some of the apartments I've seen is pretty appalling – exposed pipes, wiring. Vera's apartment complex doesn't have hot water for over a month for some reason, apparently this happens every year and is very common throughout Russia. To take a shower you first have to heat water on the stove and pour it into buckets in the bath tub.
Friday afternoon Vera had to leave for a monastery north of Vologda where she would spend a few days doing restoration work. I was invited, but was anxious to get the bike fixed and back on the road so I stayed in Vologda with Jenya. Jenya only speaks a few words of English, but he is a great guy and we share a lot of the same interests so the language barrier was easily overcome (sometimes with the help of Google translator!).
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