Bison Hopping Around the Moscow Region

During the long cold winter months, I would often have conversations with people that would follow this basic outline: 

Russian-x: "Have you been to Place-y?" [Russian-x is defined as any person of Russian heritage with whom I routinely communicate, Place-y is defined as any touristy place within a 2-3 hours drive]
Me: "No"
Russian-x: "Oh, you need to go. We'll take you there. But it's better to go in spring."

And so spring came, and my touristy to-do list had gone through the roof.  Here are some of the places I've gone closer to home:

Polenovo.  Polenovo is the estate of the Russian painter Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov.  Polenov lived around the turn of the last century, and made all of the money needed to build this beautiful estate off of one painting.  Yes, one painting.  He created a giant painting titled "The Christ and the Sinner" of the biblical story described in John 8:1-11, where Jesus forgives the adulterous woman who has been brought before him to be stoned, and the tsar at the time liked it, payed a ton of money for it, and it now hangs in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.

Vasily Dmitrievich's (the Russian version of Mr. Polenov's) family was from St. Petersburg, but he wanted to build a home and a studio further South.  There were many contributing factors, but in short, he was traveling along the Oka river, saw this forested bend in the river, and envisioned an estate on it. He then set about building his estate.  Let me emphasize that this seems to be a big deal here, that there was nothing before he build this, and so he did all of this himself (indicated by vocal stress and the repetition of this point several times to make sure I understood it).  The idea of virgin forest at least in this area of the country is pretty foreign.  Now, the estate is kept as a museum.  The grounds are free to walk around in, but you need to purchase tickets for tours of each of the houses.  The white house is the main one where Polenov lived with his wife and many children.  There were many other buildings of course though, guest houses, painting studios etc.
There was a children's craft fair going on, which meant there were lots of kids running around in traditional costume, most of them trying to peddle their wares.
We also got to visit the next door church, which I'm fairly sure was designed by Polenov himself.  His grave is right outside along with a large portion of his family members.  Down the hill was a lovely beach area to end our day with a relaxed picnic (I don't think I'll ever get tired of these) and a swim in the river.

American Bison (no good pictures of the European ones, sorry)

Prioksko-Terrasny Nature Reserve (Приокско-Террасный заповедник).  Beware, here there be bison.  The European Bison (Bison bonasus) is related to it's American cousin (Bison bison) however it uses it's hands more to talk, showers less often and lives in a more socialized society.  But in actuality, unlike the American species, the European species has long been an endangered species.  Our tour guide told us that there were many different subspecies, particularly one in the Caucuses which lived there happily quote "until they were all eaten."  Bison in other areas of Europe weren't fairing much better.

This zapovednik (nature reserve) was founded in 1945 right after the war.  The urge to do something about the declining bison population had been there for a while, however certain happenings in Europe around that time served to decimate the already minuscule population.  The Soviet government was actually incredibly active about creating Nature Reserves, some of the efforts predating Teddy Roosevelt's national parks (I mean that these efforts were actually relics of tsarist rule as Teddy came before the Soviet Union, but these projects were continued and expanded especially under Lenin).  Now though, the reserve is funded mostly by European governments who use the Russian reserve to support or reintroduce bison back into countries like Germany and Poland.

Left American, Right European

The park is open for tours every hour, but other than that like every other Russian zapovednik, people are strictly forbidden from entering the premise.  (See "Fire Feelings" for why I think this is probably a good idea).  Local lore also has it that the management recently has gone downhill fast...various directors are being blamed for a slew of bison deaths last winter due to feeding them rotton tomatoes.  There are two different "official sites" (one and two) and though the tour guide tried to breeze quickly by the point, it seems the staff has shrunk significantly recently.  So unfortunately the bison are caught up in local politics, however there are still several healthy groups and though we couldn't see him, another baby born just 2 weeks ago.

Podmoklovo.  I've become increasingly convinced of the fact that adventures breed more adventures.  And so, on the way home from the bison, since we had the car and driver captive, we would take a side trip on the way home "not that far past the bridge."  We all know what "not that far" means.  But anyway we finally got to the suggested destination: an orthodox church significant for it's unusual shape.  It was round.  It was also under renovation, however it was still a pleasant side trip, mainly given the pleasantness of the carful of people.  The Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary was built in the early 1700s.  It is notable (within a local radius) for it's European baroque architecture though the actual architect is unknown.  The church was closed in 1937 and was reopened in 1993, though with the restorations I think it is now closed again.
Next to the church were some ruins we wandered around.  You can't look down though, because in the pit that was once the cellar is about 5 feet of trash.  I did some googling while writing this post, and it seems the estate belonged to the family Dolgorukov, until Sergei Grigoriovich Dolgorukov was found to have forged a will of Peter the Great, was exiled and executed.  The land was returned to his son who built the house that now stands in ruins.  (Thank you Wikipedia)   







Pushchino.  One of my friends recently told me that she now envisions my life in a castle.  Well, it is a castle of sorts...it has walls and a roof and gets cold and drafty.  Also, for 2 weeks the hot water is shut off for repairs.  Thankfully there is a law that if it is shut off for more than 14 days the water company must charge less for the month which means of course that we didn't have water for exactly 14 days, not a day more.  The cold water here is pretty cold (+4 C) so taking a cold shower isn't a terribly appealing option, but people manage by either taking showers out of buckets of water heated on the stove, or by seeking out friends who have their own boilers.  And when the water came back, it looked like this. Fortunately it looked a lot better the next day.

The last adventure I'm going to add was my birthday.  Birthday custom here is to blow the bank and cook a huge feast yourself to share with all of your friends.  I sort of did this, but also had some help making the food thankfully.  It is also customary to have a little celebration at work too, so between classes we had an "American cultural experience" and ate brownies.  One of my students played Happy Birthday on his trumpet mouthpiece, and several people asked me for the brownie recipe.  Which I gave with the disclaimer that yes, 600 g of sugar is a lot, don't think about it.  Back home after class, we ate yet more unhealthy food, and I was baked into a cake.  After this experience I have a faint memory of our Russian teacher telling us freshman or sophomore year about this Russian birthday song, but I had forgotten all about it.  You can watch some adorably cute kids singing it here, and I can promise you we weren't that cute.  The quick summary is basically the birthday girl went in the middle, her friends walked around her, sang [loosely translated] "On Cathy's birthday, we baked a loaf of bread, this tall, this low, this wide, this edible [dinner-able]!  Loaf of bread, loaf of bread, who do you love, choose!"  At this point said birthday girl spins around with her eye's closed, lands infront of one of her friends and says: "I love of course everyone, but love Z------ most of all" and switches places with that person.  Then they launched into several more birthday songs, one of which I actually knew (go me!)  And in the picture you can see the beautiful scarf they gave me as a present.