March 8th

Today is Women's Day! We are off work tomorrow (but I think I will work in the afternoon). Here are some of the gifts I received in the office Friday.

Today we made our journey to Abramtsevo. It was me, Katie and a lovely girl from Azerbaijan, which was really good because she speaks Russian.

Of course, our planning was not detailed. We knew which train line to take, and that was about it. The first train car we got on, we decided to move - it seemed most of the men were still drunk at like 9am.

The trains are quite interesting. It is like a moving variety show/flea market. People go from car to car selling whatever it is they have to sell. They come into the car and start making a really loud announcement about what they are selling. Today, we saw the following things being sold on the train:

• super glue
• flowers
• perfume
• wallets
• newspapers
• cd's
• ice cream
• chocolate
  
  For our entertainment - we had an accordion player with a small child who sang, and some sort of religious guy with a bell.... They are quite creative!

Ok, back to Abramtsevo. It is a old artists village. Here is a link to a page with much more information.http://www.russiajournal.com/node/12508

Notice the article says you step off the train platform into a "dark forest." That really was the case. The train station there is quite small, and we could not find anyone working there... We peeked in a half open door, but thought it best if we kept on.

We found a path in the snow, and decided this was the way to go. It was really nice being out of Moscow. The forest was so quiet, and no one was around. Part of the path seemed a bit shady at first - sort of like an Indiana Jones movie - bridges with parts broken out....

We saw a sign that said "museum" in Russian, so we were pretty sure we were going the right way. The other girl said the sign also said something about animals.... Now, I've always wanted to see a bear, but I am glad we did not see any today!

We finally came up to the settlement. We paid our entry fee, and were told that our guided tour of the house would start at 12. We could go in the rest of the buildings until then. There were several buildings with drawings and paintings. Russian art is quite good. It is a shame we don't learn much about it in the US (at least I didn't).

One of the things I enjoyed the most was the church. It was very small, but the Icons were incredible (of course you can't take pictures inside any of these buildings), but here it is from the outside!

We had a picinic of hummus, pita bread, cheese and fruit outside of the church. It was freezing! We did not eat too much because you had to take off your gloves and our hands were too cold! It was fun though.

After lunch, it was time for our tour.

Here is the main house - the tour was all in Russian, so I really missed most of it.

The wooden houses are very common outside of Moscow. The woodworking is quite intricate.

This is an example of a "Russian Heater" Very beautiful tile work. I was not supposed to take this picture....I got yelled at for it.

We also went to Sergey Posad. I'll post that tomorrow.