Pereslavl Zalessky and the journey back to Moscow

An idle one-street town on the outskirts of Moscow, Pereslavl Zalesskiy was the last orthodox religious center I visited…. by then I was stuck with church fatigue.

I had seen so many Russian churches, that I grew tired of them… they all start appearing the same after a while, don’t they? You get the same fatigue after spending a week visiting Bhutan’s Buddhist monasteries or Peru’s colonial churches.

Purification church of Alexander Nevsky.

Pereslavl Zalesky town and a sign of faded communism.

‘AZS’ fuel station and a convent in background.

More churches… I was so bored that I didn’t bother to go inside any of them.

Small town Russia

Fishing in the still river.

“Здравствуйте!” (Zdravstvuyte झ्द्राव्सत्वुअीच, meaning “hello”). People greeted me, you know how it is in small towns, they wave and smile at you. It seemed that they don’t get many visitors, especially since it was a quaint settlement along the river. I was simply walking along the bank because I found it interesting. I was inviting curious stares too.

Quite quiet.

I want to go home

I waited for what seemed like ages at the bus terminal, waiting for my bus back to Moscow. The scheduled bus at 19:30 was cancelled and the next one was at 21:00. It was cold and dark outside. I was kinda worried to be stranded at that place at such a time – there was nobody to keep me company except a drunk man and a babushka who sat behind the ticket window. She looked grumpy on first look (like most Russians) but as soon as she heard my Russian, she got delighted and asked me to come inside her office. Her office had heating, tea and cookie, wonderful!

Look. If you are learning a foreign language, don’t learn it all the way. You get more points if you are seen to fumble with words yet attempting to talk.

Waiting for the bus… only 2 hours. The floor is clean only because it was cleaned 5 minutes ago.
Ticket and information window.

I reached Moscow at 23:30 – not a good time for an outsider to be on the streets. By the time I changed subways and went to the place I was staying at (other end of the city), it was past 00:30. I will be honest: I was shit scared. Every man looked like a criminal or a skinhead.

While I never had a problem myself, Moscow’s streets are not known for safety at night, especially when it concerns foreigners. There are shady characters, often drunk, and women are seldom seen. My safety index at night is directly proportional to the number of women on streets – I think its one of the most visible indicators of how safe a place is.

Factual information

Peresavl Zalessky is about 2.5 hours from Moscow and buses run few times a day from Shchyolkovsky (श्चयोल्कोव्स्की) terminal. Once you get to the town, you could walk to the interesting places, or take the only Marshrutka that runs down the road from city center to the bus terminal.

Not a highly recommended place unless you want you have a relaxed day walking through a sleepy town and visiting a church or two on the way.

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¶ Blogged by Priyank Thatte | Tags: Religion, Rural, Russia