Moscow Orientation - Day 6 – Wasted Opportunities

We met at the Center and headed out to Sergiev Posad and the Trinity-St.Sergius Monastery. I had been there only a month or so before with Mom and Dad and Chaz and Claire, but decided to go again. Mainly for the group activity, and a little bit because it’s such an amazing place to visit.

On the whole, it was a bit of a disappointment. We had a tour guide again. When she asked if we wanted to her speak Russian or English, we answered that we preferred that she speak Russian. She, instead, thought that English was easier and then spoke English the entire rest of the day. When we got to the monastery, we were handed off to a local guide who looked as though she couldn’t really tell that we were in front of her. She paid nearly no attention to us, and was looking off into the distance in one direction while describing something in a completely different direction.

So this monastery has a nearly uninterrupted history since the 14th century. It’s one of the holiest places in Russia. Also, its historically significant – it resisted a Polish siege for 16 months in the 17th century. It enjoyed royal patronage, and as such was incredibly wealthy. There’s a fantastic museum of religious paraphernalia encrusted with gems, and the most significant collection of church tapestry work certainly in all of Russia, and probably the world.

Instead, our tour guide told us how high the ceilings were in each church we entered – and lots of other trivial crap. We skipped the museum entirely, and instead endured a very long lunch at a restaurant across the street from the monastery.

Of course, I had already been to the museum. And I had fun despite the low-quality tour guides.