Day 23 ~ Icons!

25. July
Today started out very rainy and gray. On top of that it was a Saturday and we had to go to school! Yuck. No one was very happy with that. I was really tired and almost fell asleep in class during the first hour. A three our class can really be difficult to get through at times.

Luckily in history class we went back to the Archeological Museum in the Kremlin and looked at many icons! They were collected from all around Novgorod, and I think the oldest ones dated back to the 13th century. I don’t know what to say about them, the best option for you is to look at the pictures.

Many of the icons are of St. Nicholas. Each city has its own saint. St. Nicholas and St. George are very popular saints in the Orthodox Church. I don’t remember who the saint of Novgorod is.

The icons were really pretty and I am surprised that they are in such good condition considering how old they are! Some of the oldest icons had to be in special temperature and pressure controlled cases so that their condition would not deteriorate. As the pictures go on the icons become more recent in age and you can see differences in style and such of the icons. There was one icon of brothers Boris and Gleb who were the first saints in the Orthodox Church. Apparently they became saints because they were martyrs.

Some of the icons had a main picture and then smaller pictures around them, and these usually depicted the life of a certain person. Many were depicting scenes from the life of Jesus, or a certain saint.

One icon was of St. Barlaam of Khutyn and scenes of his life. In the center is the main scene of St. Barlaam himself. In his one hand is a church, in his other a piece of writing. This means that he is a founder of a church, or monastery, and he was also was a great teacher of the people. So, icons can say a lot about the person depicted.

There were many icons that depicted “The Old Testament Trinity”. I don’t know if this is referring to something other than the trinity as I’ve always known it, I found it very interesting.

Another thing, in the Orthodox Church emphasis is places the life of Jesus and the many miracles that he performed. It does not place such large emphasis on the crucifixion of Jesus as the Catholic Church does, so it would be very odd to see a large icon of the crucifixion. There were a couple, but Stas said they are not popular.

So, overall the icons were very neat to see. I would never see anything like this in the United States or many other places so it was just really cool.
The museum had a nice gift shop so I bought a couple things, and then Steve, Magda, and I went on the search for internet. That brought us to a nice Italian restaurant right down the street from school, Napoli.

Steve and I felt we had to order something since we were using their internet services. They are expensive, Steve and I both ordered minestrone soup. I got a bottle of water and it cost 3 dollars! I don’t even remember how much the soup was, but much more than other places. It was very good, so it didn’t seem that bad. The bathroom in the restaurant is the nicest bathroom in Novgorod I think. There were terrycloth hand towels that you could use and then dispose of in this bin to be washed.

Overall it was a nice place to sit and upload pictures and check email! I don’t know if I would go there again only because it cost a lot. Steve and I joked we looked like typical Americans with our big laptops sitting in a restaurant for three hours borrowing internet.

While walking to my house I saw a cat in a tree. It’s a cat that I see almost every day around my building. She was just laying in the tree watching people go by.
When I got home I had dinner waiting for me. I assume Olga’s mom came and put it out for me. Masha came over and then we headed over to Greensleves, an Irish pub near the Kremlin. On our way out we saw a cat in a tree. It’s a cat that I see almost every day around my building. She was just lying in the tree watching people go by. Pretty cute.

We met Don, Matt, Magda, and Jim. Steve was supposed to join us but as we thought he got lost and couldn’t find his way so he apparently went back home and slept. It was a nice little pub that had a flat screen plasma television that was playing Eric Clapton in concert. A nice atmosphere for a pub really, I would prefer it over a bar and nightclub, it was a lot nicer. I had water, a sip of Michelle’s New England Ice tea or whatever it was. Basically it really isn’t ice tea, but tastes just like it. We sat and talked about random things for a while. Masha wanted to see what the pub was like; a bunch of the group had been there before and said good things about it. I figured I would go check it out too for something to do.

After the pub, Masha was coming back to stay the night and I invited Magda and Jim and Matt over too. We got out of the pub at 11:30 and walked to the nearest bus stop that would take us home. We waited for almost an hour and the bus never showed up. It was odd thought because there were other people waiting too, so it seemed like a bus would have shown up, oh well it didn’t. Matt went home and the rest of us decided to call a taxi. The taxi driver was playing really old Britney Spears on the radio. It’s always interesting hearing really old American Pop music in the taxi or the store.

Anyways, we were all up in the kitchen until 3am talking and eating and just hanging out really. Olga has prepared a lot of food for me for the weekend and I couldn’t have eaten it all myself so I figured I would share my space and food! It was a nice time. We ended up discussing religion, traveling, differences between Russia and the US, our families, and a bunch of other stuff. Late night discussion is always fun!
Tomorrow is more fun, American Barbecue!

Love,
Sasha

Photo Link: Icons Anyone!? Days 22 and 23