The 72 CIEE students, along with two staff members, met in front of the Kazan Cathedral just before 8am on Saturday morning and boarded a double decker coach bus for the 3-4 hour drive. A movie was shown, though unfortunately I do not remember the name. At any rate, I slept through most of the film, and the few parts I did see reminded me of "Moulin Rouge." But I digress.
Some history: Nobody is entirely sure how old Novgorod is, but most estimates place it's age at about 1,200 years. Novgorod straddles the Volkhov River and due to this location, it was an important trading post for nearly a thousand years, relinquishing it's title as Russia's main port when Saint Petersburg was founded on the Gulf of Finland in 1703. During the first several hundred years of its life, Novgorod was ruled by princes, the most famous of which is probably Yaroslave the Wise, who is credited with creating Russia's (then known as Rus) first legal code (roughly akin to Hammurabi's Code or Justinian's Code). In the 1100s, the council of elders and nobles in Novogorod dismissed the ruling prince, and it is at this time that the Novgorod Republic was born. From this point on, Novgorod was ruled in a manner similar to the ancient Greek city-states, but the office of the prince was never dismissed. During the 1200s, Alexander Nevsky was Prince of Novgorod, and is revered by Russians for defeating the Catholic invaders (mainly Germans) attempting to convert Russia to Catholicism as well as staving off the Golden Horde, preserving Novgorod's future. Nevsky is credited with saving the Eastern Orthodox Church, and has since been canonized by the institution that he saved.
Novgorod was one of the few places in Eastern Europe that did not fall to the Mongols, and it ensured it's survival by collaborating with them. Novgorod collected tribute for the Khans, and eventually usurped much of the Mongol territory, solidifying it's position as a true power player in Europe. Novgorod continued to prosper to the point where it ranked alongside London and Paris in the 17th century as one of the wealthiest and most cosmopolitan cities in Europe. After the founding of Saint Petersburg, Novgorod began to fade from relevance.
Sadly, much of the original city was destroyed by the Nazis during the Second World War, with the postwar authorities electing to restore the historical sites, but build a new city around them. As such, Novgorod is an intriguing mix of a modern, grid-like city with ancient churches and monuments scattered throughout.
And Novgorod is indeed a city of churches: there are onion domes visible from any vantage point within the city, and there are often multiple churches within a small plot of land. Most of these churches are quite small, and served very specific congregations. The largest of the churches (Saint Sophia) is within the Novgorod Kremlin, and has the same whitewashed exterior and golden onion domes as the others, but the interior is far more impressive. Unfortunately, photography is forbidden inside the structure, so the incredible imagery of my writing will have to suffice.
The interior is dark, lit by the muted light coming through the small windows and the soft glow of candles. It is a somewhat claustrophobic space, the arrangement of the pillars giving the church an almost maze-like quality. The walls glisten with mosaics and frescoes of religious icons. Scarcely an inch is left uncovered by artwork, but the artwork almost seems to blend into the masonry of the building. It is ornate, but not extravagant, elegant without being flashy. It is not particularly overwhelming like the Baroque churches so common in the rest of Europe, but rather quietly impressing. Saint Sophia reminds of the quiet, unassuming kid on the practice field who prefers to let others do the trash talking, yet when push comes to shove, he carries his team. It is a truly beautiful place, humbling its visitors with its age and simple elegance.
On our second day and final day in Novgorod, we visited an open air museum of wooden architecture. The museum consists of about twenty buildings arranged in an approximation of what an ancient Russian town would have looked like. The woodwork on these buildings is astonishing, with the shingles on the trademark onion domes particularly striking.
I took over 200 pictures in Novgorod, and invite you to look at them at the link below. It was an excellent trip, and I only wish that the weather had been more cooperative (it rained all day Saturday). The next major excursions are to Tallinn and Moscow, and I can't wait for either one.
Novgorod's famine was arguably the first photographed humanitarian crisis. Sophia/Leo Tolstoi got heavily invovled, too.
ReplyDeleteI love your posts/pictures! Keep posting!