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Our trip to Suzdal, one of the oldest Russian cities and the greatest tourist magnets

Suzdal is a very special town. It is very small, only about 11,000 people live there. There are no factories, no big buildings. Nowhere else you will see so many horses. Nowhere else you will see so many churches in one place. It has a very special atmosphere which is hard to explain, yet you will definitely feel it if you visit Suzdal.

That's why I was so happy when I learned that Delia's class was going there! I couldn't miss another chance to see the town, so I went there to help the teacher. And I made some cool pictures to share them with you.

If you've been reading my blog long enough, you certainly remember this post about Vladimir and its World Heritage sites. Well, Suzdal's white stone churches and monasteries are also included in the same UNESCO list. And of course, Suzdal also belongs to the Golden Ring of Russian cities. This is a panoramic view of the town.

As you see, there are no multi-storeyed buildings, because people want to preserve the ancient look of the town. So churches are naturally the tallest buildings there.

Our first stop was in Pokrov nunnery. The nuns were very friendly, they invited the kids inside the church and briefly told the the history of their nunnery and explained what some of the icons mean. That part of the trip was not planned as we just wanted to show them the beautiful territory of the nunnery with bright flowers and trees, but we were very thankful to the nuns for such a warm welcome. The kids loved it there.

These pictures were taken before the nuns saw us, so you can only see the kids and the guide who gave us the tour.

Then we went to the Kremlin grounds.

 As the children were hungry, we decided to make a picnick there. Everybody enjoyed it so much that kids didn't want to see anything else, just wanted to sit, relax and talk to one another.

But since it was the day when all museums were free, we really wanted the children to see as much as possible. So after the picnick we resumed the tour.

So, we went inside. We saw 3 expositions with some breath-taking icons, Bibles and other old pieces of art. And then the children were told... that they were going back to school! What? School on Saturday? Yes, but it was a very special school. I didn't see that exposition before, not sure if they've been showing it for a long time or not. It was a classroom from the times of Peter the Great. And the children had a chance to have a spelling lesson according to the rules that existed in the language in those times. They did a great job in spelling.


The excursion took quite a bit of time, but it was still a little early to drive back to Vladimir, so we made a stop in the famous Museum of wooden architecture. The museum has a large territory, so we let the children run anywhere they want, watch different exhibitions and have fun.
Here are some pictures of the museum:


There were also a couple people showing how to make different things from clay and birchbark:

So we had quite an exciting day. All children say they want to come back. Good thing Suzdal is only about 20 minute drive from Vladimir, so we can really come back as much as we want :)
Hope you like the pictures. So if you ever come to Russia, try to visit Suzdal. It is well worth your attention. It is a very small town, but it has so many expositions that one day definitely won't be enough to see them all. The tour guides say you need no less than a week!

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