Novgorod the Great

The other day Leah and I and our roommates went on an excursion via Smolny to the ancient Russian city of Novgorod (called Novgorod the Great by many in Russians). As it was organized by the school we did not have to worry about transportation or food, and we even had our own English speaking tour guide to explain to us the significance of the sights that we were seeing. We rolled out of bed around 7:20am (6:20pm BC time) and quickly phoned our friend Jeana as it was her birthday! We got ready and then managed to get downstairs on time to leave for Novgorod, as the bus was going to be leaving around 8:00am.
A little bit about Novgorod. It is situated 4 hours south of St. Petersburg by car and is one of the oldest Russian cities. When we arrived in Novgorod our guide mentioned to us that this year Novgorod was celebrating it's 1150th birthday and just to put some contrast to that, Canada's oldest city, Quebec City, just recently celebrated it's 400th birthday, and Canada has a country is less than 200 years old. Novgorod became famous under the rule of the Viking Rurik, who was later to establish the first of Russia's two dynasty's, which ruled Russia for more than 700 years. By the 12th century Novgorod was Russia's biggest city, and was unique in its politics as it was a quasi democracy, where the inhabitants hired and fired the princes. It was spared from the Mongol invasion of Russia, and was independent until Ivan the Third attacked and annexed it to Moscow. Today Novgorod only has about 300,000 people, whereas Moscow has around 14 million. Novgord is also unique in its architecture. Whereas St. Petersburg was built to resemble most other European cities with mostly French and Italian designs, Novgorod retains traditional Slavic architecture and looks quite different. Anyway, back to the actual trip...
So we got on the bus around 7:50 or so and there ended up being 8 Canadians (from our group), 1 German girl, 1 Japanese girl, and 5 Finns. Everyone was excited to see what the Russian countryside would look like. Since Russians in cities do not own houses, (they all live in apartments/condos) almost everyone also has a dacha, or countryhouse, outside the city in the countryside somewhere. It is interesting because almost the entire drive to Novgorod, there were all these little houses (some nice and some dilapitated) on both sides of the highway. There were a few breaks here and there, and the scenary is very similar to Alberta (minus the fields), with sort of low grass, and lots of birch and fir trees.
After we arrived in Novgorod (a side note is that our driver got pulled over by the traffic police because he was driving 82 kph, when the speed limit was 80. About 20 minutes later he came back into the van and turned around and said vsyo normalno (everything's fine) and off we went again). we took 10 minutes to look at some souvenir stands and then they took us to see our first sight of the day, the Yurev Monestary. It was built in the 12th century and still is used as a monestary, run by 4 monks and 4 training monks. It's a huge monestary, with multiple buildings and a surrounding wall, so they have a lot of work to do. Novgorod was also one of the major fronts of the Second World War, and was occupied by the Hispanic division of the Nazi armed forces. They used the Yurev Monestary, and the Cathedral of St. George (inside the monestary) as an outpost (after completely demolishing most of the city, save for a few churches). The inside of the cathedral was quite cold, as the whole buildings is constructed of stone, and in fact is not used in the wintertime. Services run from May until late fall as it does not have a heating system. The insides are decorated in similar Russian fashion, with icons painted on the walls and was quite a sight.
Upon completing our tour of the cathedral we drove a short distance to the Museum of Wooden Architecture which was interesting. Although not all the buildings were native to Novgorod, they were shipped here from all over Russia to give the visitor an idea of what a common village would look like during ancient times. Most of the buildings are able to be entered and there was a small souvenir market across the street which we also looked at.
We got back on the bus and drove back into the centre of the city where we walked through a small park and into the Kremlin of the city. A bit of an explanation, in Russia a Kremlin is a fortified area (usually surrounded by a wall and moat) that housed the political and military buildings of the city. The Kremlin in Moscow, which houses the current political institutions of the Russian Federation follows this same principle. We then walked to the Detinets Restaurant, which is actually housed in the top of one of the towers of the Kremlin. The food and ambiance of the restaurant was amazing and we had a delicious traditional Russian meal. Rye bread was waiting at the table as well as cranberry juice and water. The first course was a light, but tasty salad consisting of slices of cucumber and tomato with a small dollop of sour cream and salt and pepper. This was followed with a delicious beef soup (soups are very hearty here and the rule of thumb is that a spoon must be able to stand straight in it or it's not good), with vegetables. The main course were 3 of the best cabbage rolls I have ever eaten, and desert consisted of two blinys (Russian crêpes) with honey and then coffee or tea. It was certainly of the best, if not the best meal that we've had since we've arrived here and it did the trick to warm us up since the weather was quite chilly and damp.
After dinner we finished our tour of the Kremlin, including the Millennium of Russia Monument, which is a massive 300-tonne sculpture made in 1862, depicting over 127 figures of Russia's history (rulers, statsemen, artists, scupltors, writers, musicians.) The monument is 16 metres high and was cut up by the Nazi's who wanted to take it back to Germany, but luckily they fled before they could take it away and it was shortly re-assembled.
A short walk from the monument is the famed Cathedral of St. Sophia, built in Byzantine stye it is one of Russia's oldest buildings and (according to our guide) the first stone Russian building. Ornamentation was reserved for the interior and insude the icons date from around the 14th century. Like all Russian cathedrals the interior is decorated with fresoes and icons painted onto the walls and ceilings and was quite beautiful.
St. Sophia was our last sight in Novgorod and shortly after we got back on the bus and drove to St. Petersburg.