Dead Souls

December 3rd, 2016

Wow, I have gotten lazy this last November. Really, only 2 trips?  And then just Thanksgiving and an election day rant. Woowee, I need to be more active this December. But guess what? I was.

This time, I decided to take a pilgrimage to go see the Alexander Nevsky. Yes, that one Grand Prince of all the Russia's, who was later canonized. He is buried in Saint-Petersburg at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. So, in such cases, you can't go by yourself, since it is just a major spiritual journey. I invited my friend Leif to tag along.

His grave, along with many greats such as Dostoevsky, Tschaikovsky, and Pushkin's wife, among others, are located here at the Tikhvin Cemetery, which is right along the path to the monastery. That is where we decided to head first.

The Cemetary is split into two. The smaller of the two is the Necropolis of the 18th Century, which contains Pushkin's widow, Natalia Lanskaya (She remarried), and Karl Rossi, the principle architect of the 18th Century for Petersburg. It also contains the Saint Lazarus Burial Vault, which contains members of the Sheremetev, Tolstoy, and Pushkin's friends.

The larger of the two, is the Cemetery of the Art Masters, which contains Tschaikovsky, Dostoevsky, Glinka, Mussorgsky, and countless others.

I can't really say that I enjoyed seeing the cemetery, because what is there to enjoy? It's just a bunch of dead souls, most of them forgotten, and a select few enjoying their status as greats in the Russian culture.

We then embarked into the Monastery. Sadly, the location where Suvorov is buried was closed for Technical Reasons, so I had to miss out on seeing that for the day. Other than that church location, the other location to go to is into the cathedral, where Alexander Nevsky is buried. Since it is a working Cathedral, no pictures were allowed inside.

Upon leaving, we went to get the oh so delicious bread that the monks make in their bakery. It seems as if it's already buttered, and to tell the truth, I ate the whole block in a day. I feel fat. Oh, I also had a very hard fall, and injured my back. Hopefully the pain goes away and is not worth a trip to the doctors office, because something feels out of place when I lay down.

Later that night, I went to a play called Зори Здесь Тихие (The Dawns Here Are Quiet). It's a play set during World War 2, with a sergeant who is placed in a village of only women, and the Germans arrive, and he, with 5 women, set out to stop them.

Surprisingly, I understood more than I thought I would, but at the same time, was kinda weirded out with the play, mainly for my disdain of the same person playing more than one role, since I prefer that the one actor stay the same.