Moscow - St Petersburg

Yaroslavl

Yaroslavl is a large city with a population of over 600,000, and is the administrative centre of the Russian Oblast (district) also called Yaroslavl. It is built on the confluence of the Rivers Volga and Kotorosl, and celebrates the one-thousandth anniversary of its founding in 2010.

Yaroslavl centre

Our guided tour of Yaroslavl included a visit to the 17th century Church of the Epiphany (sometimes called a cathedral, though like many Russian "cathedrals", it wasn't large).

This was fascinating in that we were allowed to witness Russian Orthodox worship which is quite different from western services. Whilst the heavily bearded priest chanted repetitively, the largely female and mostly elderly congregation swayed and walked from place to place. There are no seats in these churches.

Photography was not permitted, unless we paid a punitive charge of $100. The priest broke off from his ministrations to mutter "a hundred dollars" to one of our party who missed the prohibition notice.

During a visit to another of the 17th century churches in Yaroslavl - the Church Of Saint Elijah the Prophet - we saw walls full of painted images and gold icons as we had seen elsewhere, and were treated to a short and quite beautiful recital by the choir.

The green onion domes and tower of the Church of St Elijah the Prophet	The walls are covered with decoration
A park at the junction of the Volga and Kotorosl Rivers celebrates the nearly 1000 years since the founding of the city	Statues of the old communist heroes still adorn the streets of Russia. This is unmistakably Lenin.

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