Day two- Tour of Sergiev Passad Monastery

Pribet!  We are finally accustomed to our new sleeping schedule, hotel location and have accumulated a few important Russian phrases and can now fully enjoy trekking around Moscow’s crowded streets to see the sights.  Even Sergei, our knowledgeable guide, has mentioned how much more lively and inquisitiveness we have become.

Our first venture of the day was to Sergiev Posad, which is the home to a beautiful 14^th century monastery as well as the famous matryoshka dolls.  We spent the majority of our time there exploring the monastery, admiring the blue and gold onion domes, and learning about Orthodox traditions.  One of the more interesting facts we learned about the Orthodox faith is that there are two different kinds of priests: black and white.  The white priest is able to marry once and become a parish priest.  On the other hand, the black priest is not allowed to get married and can become a more prestigious member of the Orthodox Church, such as a monk or archbishop.  We spent the last hour of our tour at the monastery attempting to differentiate the black priests from the white priests.

For lunch we enjoyed traditional Russian bread and desserts at the monastery and tried to add a few slang words to Sergei’s English lexicon (you know, the usual…dork, nerd, fo shizzle).  He was a good sport J

 We finished the day by perusing the streets of Moscow looking for souvenirs and being entertained by the intricate and face-paced dance moves from Russian high school students.      

Interesting Thought of the Day: Why aren’t there any other tourists?  Tourism does not seem to be a big industry in Russia.  When we visited some of the big sites, there were only a few tourists taking pictures.  There are also not as many vendors selling souvenirs and hassling tourists as there are in other popular sites around the world.  Russia is a beautiful country that is rich in history, art and culture – I wish more people could be here to learn and appreciate it.

Interesting fact of the day: Russian Orthodox priests must be able to sing well and are required to take several music theory courses.  All 300 monks at the Sergiev Posad monastery participate in the “United Choir” (the largest choir in Russia) along with 600 seminary students and many parishioners.    

Meghan R.