Yasnaya Polyana and Tula

Hi everybody! Sorry I haven't posted in a while... I spent most of Saturday in bed, recovering from the rather unpleasant head cold I came down with last week (and I'm still popping Sudafed and carting about Kleenexes, dammit). On Sunday B, K, Y, M and I went with B's host mother Ira (well, she's 31 so it sounds really weird calling her a host mother, but you get the point) to Yasnaya Polyana (Tolstoy's estate, click for more info) and the nearby city of Tula (more info).

We left Vladimir on the 7:30am train to Moscow. Upon arrival, we took the metro to the Ulitsa Akademika Yangelya station. We stood in a small parking lot next to the station and waited for the next available marshrutka (mini-bus taxi) to come and take us to the city of Tula. The trip from Moscow to Tula took a little less than two hours. We arrived in Tula and immediately caught a different marshrutka out to Yasnaya Polyana, which is located about 25 minutes or so out of town. We spent the entire afternoon at Yasnaya Polyana. We got there too late to sign up for an excursion into the houses on the estate, but we were easily able to fill our afternoon exploring the vast and beautiful estate. Photographs from Yasnaya Polyana are as follows:

Tolstoy's home


Tolstoy's tomb


A birch and an oak intertwined - a symbol of love


The big pond on the estate


Birch trees


Geese


me and B


The vast fields of the estate


K helping B and Y do handstands


Back: M and Ira
Front: Y, me, Ki
This bench is located in what was supposedly Tolstoy's favorite spot to sit, think and write. Perhaps it will give me some inpsiration.


me, Y, K, B, M


Me :-)


Me, Ira, B, Y
Tired after a long day

At around 6:00pm, one of Ira's friends (along with her husband and son) met us at Yasnaya Polyana and took us back into Tula. We had planned to stay in the Hotel Tula, and we had been told that it is almost always empty, so we didn't need to worry about reservations or anything. Well, it turned out that last weekend Tula was hosting some sort of massive sporting event. Not only were all of the rooms in the Hotel Tula booked, but nearly all of the rooms in the city were occupied. Ira and her friends drove around the city (while we waited in a park) looking for an empty hotel room for us. I think we might have found the last remaining hotel room in the city: the people who had reserved it weren't scheduled to arrive until around 10:00am on Monday. Of course when we got to the hotel and the staff found out that we were foreigners. I guess there's a lot of extra paperwork that hotels have to do if they allow foreigners to stay there, and they seriosuly considered kicking us out. However, the people were very nice and let us stay on the down-low. That evening we found a delicious German beerhouse/restaurant. The food was excellent, the service was good, and the prices were cheap. The place was called Frau Marta, if you're ever there - it's defintiely worth checking out.

The next morning we had to be out of the hotel by 9:00am, which got us up and out into Tula bright and early. We walked around for a while looking for a cafe that was open that early (most of the places we found opened at 10:00am or at noon... this is definitely not the land of IHOP and Denny's) and eventually we found a wonderful coffee house near the Kremlin with (again) excellent food, good service and cheap prices. After breakfast we explored the city of Tula. Sadly, the Kremlin and the city's museums were closed (some are always closed on Mondays, others were closed because Monday was a holiday), but we were able to walk around the city and take lots of pictures. Tula is a beautiful city, very clean, with many tree-lined streets, and I wish that I could have spent more time there.

Domes of the Kremlin's Assumption cathedral as
seen from the outside of the Kremlin


Downtown Tula


Two old churches, formerly property of the Uspensky
women's monastery, located in the center of Tula


The Tula Kremlin


Cupolas of the Assumption Cathedral


Again - Assumption Cathedral as seen over
the walls of the Kremlin


The Tula Kremlin is closed on Mondays.
Luckily, we could peer in through the gates.


A shot of the Assumption Cathedral as seen
through the Kremlin gate


Cupolas of the Uspenskaya Church of the Uspenskaya Monastery

Uspenskaya Church of the Uspenskaya Monastery in full.
It was used as an archive during Soviet times, and is currently
undergoing restoration.


This church was also formerly part of the Uspensky Monastery. We were able to go into the basement (er, catacombs)
of this church. The basement currently serves as an
active church, while the rest of the church is restored.
It was used as a storage building during Soviet times.


Directly across from the Kremlin and the beautiful
cathedrals... a lovely monument to Soviet architecture.


Another shot of the Kremlin and the Assumption Cathedral
from a distance. The grey building is the Tula Samovar
Museum (also closed on Monday)


This is the belltower of the Vsekhsvyatsky Cathedral

Cupolas of the Vsekhsvyatsky Cathedral


Sadly there was a starving little kitten next to the above church.
We didn't have any food, but we were able to give it a lot of water.
I wish I could've taken him home. He looked like
precious little Echo's long lost brother.