Rostov Veliky, Russia

Under the Domes of the Russian Soul


1001 Russian Nights
Domes of the Rostov Kremlin, considered the most impressive in Russia, after that of Moscow.
Lake expedition
Boatman and passengers just set sail for the middle of Lake Nero.
Holy works I
Fresco painting students dedicated to their works inside the Monastery of Saint Jacob the Savior.
The margin
The Monastery of Saint Jacob the Savior with Lake Nero in between.
flames of faith
Orthodox faithful light candles in the middle of the nave of one of the churches of the Monastery of Saint Jacob the Savior.
The cathedral
Building of the Monastery of Saint Jacob the Savior with Lake Nero behind.
mass on sight
Two generations of Orthodox faithful with the characteristic scarf, on their way to religious service
medieval russian fashion
Russian visitor from kremlin has fun in an old-time costume...
Beards of Orthodoxy
Father Ignatio at the Spaso-Yakovlevsky Monastery (of Saint Jacob the Savior).
supreme attention
Visitors admire the frescoes on the ceiling of one of the Orthodox churches in the Rostov Kremlin.
vaults of time
Domes of the Rostov Kremlin, high above the walls and the row of adjoining shops.
holy works II
Fresco painting students dedicated to their works inside the Monastery of Saint Jacob the Savior.
Unexpected passengers
Boatman from Lake Nero and cats eager to board.
Beards of Orthodoxy II
Orthodox priest on his way to a late-afternoon church service.
The test
Scene from a matchmaking photo shoot inside the Rostov Kremlin.
Vaults of Time II
More secular domes, those of an old church on the outskirts of Rostov Veliky.
shadows of power
Local cyclist passes in front of the walls of the Rostov Kremlin.
X 2
Reflection in the small lake inside the Rostov Veliky Kremlin.
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It is one of the oldest and most important medieval cities, founded during the still pagan origins of the nation of the tsars. At the end of the XNUMXth century, incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Moscow, it became an imposing center of orthodox religiosity. Today, only the splendor of kremlin Muscovite trumps the citadel of tranquil and picturesque Rostov Veliky.

An Orthodox Coexistence (but not too much)

More than unexpected, Father Ignatio's welcome and guided tour are magical. The priest of the Russian Orthodox Church spoke little or nothing but his native dialect.

Even so, from inside his black cassock, the good-natured face and the full almost red beard from which hung a large golden crucifix – conventional Catholic, not Byzantine – emanated a kind of “feel free, the church is also yours” that stimulated and comforted us.

Father Ignatio at Spaso-Yakovlevsky Monastery, Rostov, Russia

Father Ignatio at the Spaso-Yakovlevsky Monastery (of Saint Jacob the Savior).

Alexei Kravchenko had been with us from the moment we had left the airport in Domodedovo, on the outskirts of Moscow, the night before.

We walked with us through the darkened labyrinth of staircases and corridors inside the Spaso-Yakovlevsky Monastery (St. Jacob the Savior), long revered as the shrine of Saint Demetrius of Rostov, a bishop of the Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox Church who lived during the century XVII.

Alexei translated part of Ignatio's explanations and pleas. Proud to have come so far and to learn about his work there, Ignatio spares no effort. We climb stairs that serve complex structures of wooden scaffolding erected against the temple's enormous walls.

Ignatio had installed an authentic fresco painting school there. Spread over several levels and under a honey-toned light, young students set about painting originals and replicas inspired by prolific Orthodox iconography.

Painting students at the Monastery of Saint Jacob the Savior, Rostov, Russia

Trio of fresco painting students dedicated to their works inside the Monastery of Saint Jacob the Savior.

We salute them and peek and photograph some of the dazzling works in progress. More concerned with the trajectories of sensitive brushes, they reciprocate timidly.

Besides these religious images, Ignatio also knew the richness of the landscape that the monastery could reveal to us. We continue, thus, up stairs until we reach a central balcony that gives us a central view of the vault and cupolas of the largest church in the complex, with Lake Nero behind.

Building of the Monastery of Saint Jacob the Savior and Lake Nero, Rostov, Russia

Building of the Monastery of Saint Jacob the Savior with Lake Nero behind

We return to the brick and glass interior of the vault we were in. A figure that appears out of nowhere and almost frightens us, introduces itself in Portuguese and leaves us even more astonished: “Hello, as you are friends, welcome!”

Aware of our nationality, Ignatio had seen fit to invite a friend to meet us. "Do you know where I live and work?" It starts by questioning us Sergei. "It won't be easy to guess."

Probably still the result of old communist exchanges between the MPLA party and the USSR, a doctor by profession, Sergei had been part of the Maputo Central Hospital team for a long time. He spoke an almost fluent Portuguese that kept us in conversation, at least, until Ignatio asked him again.

Monastery of Saint Jacob the Savior and Lake Nero, Rostov Veliky, Russia

The Monastery of Saint Jacob the Savior with Lake Nero in between

Russian style mass

From that high, dark and hidden corner of the monastery, we move on to its unfolded choir. There, we appreciate the wide, orthodox and multicolored elegance of the surrounding nave. Out of nowhere, a priest “brother” of Ignatio dressed in a glossy yellow chasuble appears and traverses the red and yellow-brown diamond floor, in almost automatic trajectories.

Orthodox faithful inside churches of the Monastery of Saint Jacob the Savior, Rostov, Russia

Orthodox faithful light candles in the middle of the nave of one of the churches of the Monastery of Saint Jacob the Savior.

Approaching the entrance, he blesses a group of believing women, all of them with their hair wrapped in respectful scarves. Meanwhile, others who wear black smocks are placed in a stronghold opposite to the ladies. There they inaugurate a sequence of liturgical chants interspersed with the words of the homily.

On that panoramic summit where we were all supervising, the orthodoxy of the rite resonated twice as much. It entered us through the ears and the brain. With such volume and gravity that it intimidated us.

We had lost track of time. Even if, at that time and at that latitude, the summer days remained long, when we left the monastery, the afternoon, until then sunny and resplendent, pointed towards darkness.

Alexei greatly appreciated the Russia classic and ancient that revealed to us. Thus, he remembered another secular church, hidden in the green countryside of the Yaroslav Oblast (the province of Russian Federation where we were walking), about 20 km.

Orthodox Church, Rostov, Russia

More secular domes, those of an old church on the outskirts of Rostov Veliky

another church, another mass

Orthodox faithful on their way to Mass, Rostov, Russia

Two generations of Orthodox faithful wearing the distinctive scarf on their way to religious service

Enchanted with the prospect of following the sunset there, he urges us to make the journey. When we were confronted with its white-brick building, the local liturgy was about to begin. More women in scarves cross a gate centered on a wooden fence.

Others talk in the shade of the surrounding trees. They only hurried through them when the priest appointed there, owner of a superb walk and bearing and austere and serious features that, under a cassock with long sleeves and a headdress hat, unlike what had happened with Ignatio, inspired us with mystery and awe.

Orthodox priest, Rostov, Russia

Orthodox priest on his way to a late-afternoon service

The faithful gather inside the church. This time, the three of us were left to enjoy the blessing that the surrounding nature granted us, delighted with the gentle breeze that made the trees undulate, with the chopped flights of swallows and the distant croaking of crows.

The sun no longer shines on the silver-domed castro of another old church at the opposite end of the path and the afterglow coincides with the end of the service. Give us the signal we've been waiting for to return to Rostov.

Alexei had driven much of the night before between Saint Petersburg and Moscow, in time to receive us. We, had suffered something similar to take the flight.

Back to Rostov Veliky

No surprises, after a cold soup dinner okroshka and of a kind of gnocchi what the russians call pelmenis, accompanied by mugs of kvass (fermented rye drink) We return to the rooms of Khors Guesthouse & Gallery. Shortly thereafter, we surrendered to the sleep we were indebted to.

Cyclist passes in front of Rostov Kremlin, Russia

Local cyclist passes in front of the walls of the Rostov Kremlin.

We wake up to the inn's chickens and roosters. We left Alexei to his private weariness and set out to discover. The inn was just a short distance from Rostov's Kremlin, a walled citadel from which towered towers and towers, and a battalion of towering domes.

Successive Ladas, Volgas and similar Soviet automobile relics pass through the base of the walls which, along one of the main streets, housed several of the city's convenient commercial establishments. The surreal vision of the huge churches whets our curiosity and anxiety and leads us to an early incursion.

Rostov Kremlin, Russia

Domes of the Rostov Kremlin, high above the walls and the adjoining chain of shops

An incursion into the Kremlin

Inside, we unveil the parallel life hitherto hidden in the Kremlin. A matchmaking photo session takes place, passing through the most photogenic corners of the old fortress.

At the edge of her small lake, successive ladies wear medieval costumes, without much chance of rivaling the premarital elegance and lightness of the bride. Young people given over to small canvases struggle with the challenging perspectives of their paintings.

Inner lake of Rostov Veliky Kremlin, Russia.

Reflection in the small lake inside the Rostov Veliky Kremlin.

And groups organized behind guides, follow the religious symbology and the historical depth of the panoply of frescoes that, full of sages and Orthodox saints, decorated the central nave.

It took many centuries of war and peace for Rostov to aggrandize himself and deserve the visits and reverence that are now devoted to him.

These centuries took it from a mere settlement of the Finnish Merya tribe, to a Viking trading post, and later, Scythian, the capital of one of the many principalities that came under the control of the powerful Tartars. Shortly after, to one of the main cities of the Grand Duchy of Moscow.

During all this time, Rostov has remained an unavoidable seat of the Russian bishopric and archbishopric, of Russian religiosity in general. Built during the XNUMXth century, in the wake of Mongolian and Polish-Lithuanian invasions, the Kremlin we were exploring established the culmination of its aggrandizement.

And yet, shortly thereafter, Rostov found herself surpassed in administrative importance by Yaroslav. The historical hiatus and corresponding civilizational stagnation into which it fell does not mean that it continues to be known as Rostov Veliky (the Great), an equally useful way of distinguishing it from its Russian counterpart Rostov-on-Don, which is a much larger, modern city. , on the banks of the river Don.

In search of domes, by rowboat

During its more than a thousand years, Rostov has maintained the now liquid and now cold company of Nero, a lake supplied by eight rivers, yet shallow (3.6 m maximum depth, 13 by 8 km long). We left the Kremlin.

Boatman and passengers on Lake Nero, Rostov Veliky, Russia

Boatman and passengers just set sail for the middle of Lake Nero.

We walk along the immediate bank, next to the amphibious cane fields that precede its greenish immensity. We pass through several of the docks and walkways that serve the izbas (wooden houses) riverside. One of these structures housed a small fleet of metallic pleasure craft.

When we reach the other, a boat approaches land and your private anchorage. On board, a fifty-year-old helmsman in a naval commander's hat rows for two mothers and their offspring. A mere hundred meters away, a neighbor and rival that has just anchored is greeted by two cats – one black and one brown – waiting for him, eager to board.

Boatman and cats on Lake Nero, Rostov Veliky, Russia

Boatman from Lake Nero and cats eager to board.

Infected by these successive scenes of evasion and leisure, we aspire to our own navigation. We rent a boat. We set off to paddle out into the middle of the lake, aware of the height to which the Kremlin was projecting and intrigued by what the view from there had in store.

A good dozen strokes later, the yearning is confirmed. We see a forest of towers and domes standing out from the verdant bottom of the bank. Some are silver, some lead gray, some dark green, set on a large pale pink turret.

Rostov Veliky Kremlin, Russia

Domes of the Rostov Kremlin, considered the most impressive in Russia, after Moscow.

The further we go, the more domes insinuate themselves against the late-afternoon, summer and continental sky, laden with humidity, blue to match. The more domes we unveil, the more pompous history of Rostov Veliky and the old woman Russia it shines and dazzles us.

TAP flies from Lisbon to Moscow on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 2:3 pm, arriving at 5:6 am.  Fly from Moscow to Lisbon on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at 3:4 am, arrival at 6:07 am.

Novgorod, Russia

Mother Russia's Viking Grandmother

For most of the past century, the USSR authorities have omitted part of the origins of the Russian people. But history leaves no room for doubt. Long before the rise and supremacy of the tsars and the soviets, the first Scandinavian settlers founded their mighty nation in Novgorod.
Saint Petersburg e Mikhaylovkoe, Russia

The Writer Who Succumbed to His Own Plot

Alexander Pushkin is hailed by many as the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. But Pushkin also dictated an almost tragicomic epilogue to his prolific life.
Suzdal, Russia

Centuries of Devotion to a Devoted Monk

Euthymius was a fourteenth-century Russian ascetic who gave himself body and soul to God. His faith inspired Suzdal's religiosity. The city's believers worship him as the saint he has become.
Saint Petersburg, Russia

When the Russian Navy Stations in Saint Petersburg

Russia dedicates the last Sunday of July to its naval forces. On that day, a crowd visits large boats moored on the Neva River as alcohol-drenched sailors seize the city.
Suzdal, Russia

The Suzdal Cucumber Celebrations

With summer and warm weather, the Russian city of Suzdal relaxes from its ancient religious orthodoxy. The old town is also famous for having the best cucumbers in the nation. When July arrives, it turns the newly harvested into a real festival.
Suzdal, Russia

Thousand Years of Old Fashioned Russia

It was a lavish capital when Moscow was just a rural hamlet. Along the way, it lost political relevance but accumulated the largest concentration of churches, monasteries and convents in the country of the tsars. Today, beneath its countless domes, Suzdal is as orthodox as it is monumental.
Solovetsky Islands, Russia

The Mother Island of the Gulag Archipelago

It hosted one of Russia's most powerful Orthodox religious domains, but Lenin and Stalin turned it into a gulag. With the fall of the USSR, Solovestky regains his peace and spirituality.
Saint Petersburg, Russia

On the track of "Crime and Punishment"

In St. Petersburg, we cannot resist investigating the inspiration for the base characters in Fyodor Dostoevsky's most famous novel: his own pities and the miseries of certain fellow citizens.
Serengeti, Great Savannah Migration, Tanzania, wildebeest on river
Safari
Serengeti NP, Tanzania

The Great Migration of the Endless Savanna

In these prairies that the Masai people say syringet (run forever), millions of wildebeests and other herbivores chase the rains. For predators, their arrival and that of the monsoon are the same salvation.
Mount Lamjung Kailas Himal, Nepal, altitude sickness, mountain prevent treat, travel
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna Circuit: 2th - Chame a Upper BananaNepal

(I) Eminent Annapurnas

We woke up in Chame, still below 3000m. There we saw, for the first time, the snowy and highest peaks of the Himalayas. From there, we set off for another walk along the Annapurna Circuit through the foothills and slopes of the great mountain range. towards Upper Banana.
Sculptural Garden, Edward James, Xilitla, Huasteca Potosina, San Luis Potosi, Mexico, Cobra dos Pecados
Architecture & Design
Xilitla, San Luis Potosí, Mexico

Edward James' Mexican Delirium

In the rainforest of Xilitla, the restless mind of poet Edward James has twinned an eccentric home garden. Today, Xilitla is lauded as an Eden of the Surreal.
The small lighthouse at Kallur, highlighted in the capricious northern relief of the island of Kalsoy.
Adventure
Kalsoy, Faroe Islands

A Lighthouse at the End of the Faroese World

Kalsoy is one of the most isolated islands in the Faroe archipelago. Also known as “the flute” due to its long shape and the many tunnels that serve it, a mere 75 inhabitants inhabit it. Much less than the outsiders who visit it every year, attracted by the boreal wonder of its Kallur lighthouse.
Ceremonies and Festivities
Military

Defenders of Their Homelands

Even in times of peace, we detect military personnel everywhere. On duty, in cities, they fulfill routine missions that require rigor and patience.
Colored Nationalism
Cities
Cartagena de Indias, Colombia

The Desired City

Many treasures passed through Cartagena before being handed over to the Spanish Crown - more so than the pirates who tried to plunder them. Today, the walls protect a majestic city always ready to "rumbear".
Meal
Margilan, Uzbekistan

An Uzbekistan's Breadwinner

In one of the many bakeries in Margilan, worn out by the intense heat of the tandyr oven, the baker Maruf'Jon works half-baked like the distinctive traditional breads sold throughout Uzbekistan
Impressions Lijiang Show, Yangshuo, China, Red Enthusiasm
Culture
Lijiang e Yangshuo, China

An Impressive China

One of the most respected Asian filmmakers, Zhang Yimou dedicated himself to large outdoor productions and co-authored the media ceremonies of the Beijing OG. But Yimou is also responsible for “Impressions”, a series of no less controversial stagings with stages in emblematic places.
Reindeer Racing, Kings Cup, Inari, Finland
Sport
Inari, Finland

The Wackiest Race on the Top of the World

Finland's Lapps have been competing in the tow of their reindeer for centuries. In the final of the Kings Cup - Porokuninkuusajot - , they face each other at great speed, well above the Arctic Circle and well below zero.
Alaska, by Homer in Search of Whittier
Traveling
Homer a Whittier, Alaska

In Search of the Stealth Whittier

We leave Homer in search of Whittier, a refuge built in World War II and housing two hundred or so people, almost all in a single building.
Cobá, trip to the Mayan Ruins, Pac Chen, Mayans of now
Ethnic
Cobá to Pac Chen, Mexico

From the Ruins to the Mayan Homes

On the Yucatan Peninsula, the history of the second largest indigenous Mexican people is intertwined with their daily lives and merges with modernity. In Cobá, we went from the top of one of its ancient pyramids to the heart of a village of our times.
Portfolio, Got2Globe, Best Images, Photography, Images, Cleopatra, Dioscorides, Delos, Greece
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio
Got2Globe Portfolio

The Earthly and the Celestial

Bagu, Kingdom of Pegu, Syriao
History
berry, Myanmar

A Journey to Bago. And to the Portuguese Kingdom of Pegu

Determined and opportunistic, two Portuguese adventurers became kings of Pegu's kingdom. His dynasty only lasted from 1600 to 1613. It has gone down in history.
Camiguin, Philippines, Katungan mangrove.
Islands
Camiguin, Philippines

An Island of Fire Surrended to Water

With more than twenty cones above 100 meters, the abrupt and lush, Camiguin has the highest concentration of volcanoes of any other of the 7641 islands in the Philippines or on the planet. But, in recent times, not even the fact that one of these volcanoes is active has disturbed the peace of its rural, fishing and, to the delight of outsiders, heavily bathed life.
Geothermal, Iceland Heat, Ice Land, Geothermal, Blue Lagoon
Winter White
Iceland

The Geothermal Coziness of the Ice Island

Most visitors value Iceland's volcanic scenery for its beauty. Icelanders also draw from them heat and energy crucial to the life they lead to the Arctic gates.
Kukenam reward
Literature
Mount Roraima, Venezuela

Time Travel to the Lost World of Mount Roraima

At the top of Mount Roraima, there are extraterrestrial scenarios that have resisted millions of years of erosion. Conan Doyle created, in "The Lost World", a fiction inspired by the place but never got to step on it.
Tinquilco Lake in PN Huerquehue, Pucón, La Araucania, Chile
Nature
Pucón, Chile

Among the Araucarias of La Araucania

At a certain latitude in longline Chile, we enter La Araucanía. This is a rugged Chile, full of volcanoes, lakes, rivers, waterfalls and the coniferous forests from which the region's name grew. And it is the heart of the pine nuts of the largest indigenous ethnic group in the country: the Mapuche.
Sheki, Autumn in the Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Autumn Homes
Autumn
Sheki, Azerbaijan

autumn in the caucasus

Lost among the snowy mountains that separate Europe from Asia, Sheki is one of Azerbaijan's most iconic towns. Its largely silky history includes periods of great harshness. When we visited it, autumn pastels added color to a peculiar post-Soviet and Muslim life.
El Cofete beach from the top of El Islote, Fuerteventura, Canary Islands, Spain
Natural Parks
Fuerteventura, Canary Islands, Spain (España)

Fuerteventura's Atlantic Ventura

The Romans knew the Canaries as the lucky islands. Fuerteventura, preserves many of the attributes of that time. Its perfect beaches for the windsurf and the kite-surfing or just for bathing, they justify successive “invasions” by the sun-hungry northern peoples. In the volcanic and rugged interior, the bastion of the island's indigenous and colonial cultures remains. We started to unravel it along its long south.
UNESCO World Heritage
glaciers

icy blue planet

They form at high latitudes and/or altitudes. In Alaska or New Zealand, Argentina or Chile, rivers of ice are always stunning visions of an Earth as frigid as it is inhospitable.
Earp brothers look-alikes and friend Doc Holliday in Tombstone, USA
Characters
tombstone, USA

Tombstone: the City Too Hard to Die

Silver veins discovered at the end of the XNUMXth century made Tombstone a prosperous and conflictive mining center on the frontier of the United States to Mexico. Lawrence Kasdan, Kurt Russell, Kevin Costner and other Hollywood directors and actors made famous the Earp brothers and the bloodthirsty duel of “OK Corral”. The Tombstone, which, over time, has claimed so many lives, is about to last.
Vietnamese queue
Beaches

Nha Trang-Doc Let, Vietnam

The Salt of the Vietnamese Land

In search of attractive coastlines in old Indochina, we become disillusioned with the roughness of Nha Trang's bathing area. And it is in the feminine and exotic work of the Hon Khoi salt flats that we find a more pleasant Vietnam.

Kongobuji Temple
Religion
Mount Koya, Japan

Halfway to Nirvana

According to some doctrines of Buddhism, it takes several lifetimes to attain enlightenment. The shingon branch claims that you can do it in one. From Mount Koya, it can be even easier.
white pass yukon train, Skagway, Gold Route, Alaska, USA
On Rails
Skagway, Alaska

A Klondike's Gold Fever Variant

The last great American gold rush is long over. These days, hundreds of cruise ships each summer pour thousands of well-heeled visitors into the shop-lined streets of Skagway.
Women with long hair from Huang Luo, Guangxi, China
Society
Longsheng, China

Huang Luo: the Chinese Village of the Longest Hairs

In a multi-ethnic region covered with terraced rice paddies, the women of Huang Luo have surrendered to the same hairy obsession. They let the longest hair in the world grow, years on end, to an average length of 170 to 200 cm. Oddly enough, to keep them beautiful and shiny, they only use water and rice.
Visitors at Talisay Ruins, Negros Island, Philippines
Daily life
Talisay City, Philippines

Monument to a Luso-Philippine Love

At the end of the 11th century, Mariano Lacson, a Filipino farmer, and Maria Braga, a Portuguese woman from Macau, fell in love and got married. During the pregnancy of what would be her 2th child, Maria succumbed to a fall. Destroyed, Mariano built a mansion in his honor. In the midst of World War II, the mansion was set on fire, but the elegant ruins that endured perpetuate their tragic relationship.
Rottnest Island, Wadjemup, Australia, Quokkas
Wildlife
Wadjemup, Rottnest Island, Australia

Among Quokkas and other Aboriginal Spirits

In the XNUMXth century, a Dutch captain nicknamed this island surrounded by a turquoise Indian Ocean, “Rottnest, a rat's nest”. The quokkas that eluded him were, however, marsupials, considered sacred by the Whadjuk Noongar aborigines of Western Australia. Like the Edenic island on which the British colonists martyred them.
Napali Coast and Waimea Canyon, Kauai, Hawaii Wrinkles
Scenic Flights
napali coast, Hawaii

Hawaii's Dazzling Wrinkles

Kauai is the greenest and rainiest island in the Hawaiian archipelago. It is also the oldest. As we explore its Napalo Coast by land, sea and air, we are amazed to see how the passage of millennia has only favored it.