The End of an Era -- Every Six Weeks

As you will read below, we had a very busy weekend, and we didn't take a computer, so the blog is being written about three days late. That's OK--we are busy and happy.

Elder C.R. Olsen, Elder M.R. Larson, Elder A.L.H. Coleman

This week, three of our best Elders (Aren't they all the best?) finished their service, and on Thursday morning they headed home to America, one to Pocatello, Idaho, the second to South Jordan, Utah, via Italy with his family, the third to Atlanta, Georgia. And a senior couple, the Roberts, went home Saturday to Park City. They are not being replaced. That is, no one came in this week, so our mission shrunk by over ten percent. But these folks are just irreplaceable. They all three have been hard-working and spiritual leaders. They love Russia and its people and have been glad to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with many.


On Tuesday we "lost" our mission president and his wife. They disappeared in Helsinki, Finland, where they had traveled by train in order to renew their Russian visas. The hotel claimed they had never checked into the hotel!  And they weren't answering their phones. But Sister Allen was able to contact them via email, learning that they had in fact checked into the hotel and were sight-seeing in Helsinki, with only spotty telecom coverage. All were relieved.

We are dealing with a bit of chaos as we work to clear out a couple of closed apartments and move volunteers to new accomodations. We moved Elders out of one apartment in Gatchina last Saturday and planned to come back to pick up furniture before the lease expired on Thursday. When the team arrived and opened the apartment door with our key, voila! Someone had already moved in! They were as surprised as our team. Despite a few glitches, things worked out.

We continue our work and our studies. Besides office work and figuring out ways to keep the funds coming in and properly distributed, Elder Allen has been concentrating on the early chapters in the Book of Mormon.

Here is his latest commentary. (1 Nephi 5 and 6)

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After our Wednesdsay shift as volunteers taking tickets at the entrance gates of The Hermitage, we visited the Model of 18th Century St. Petersburg in Miniature in the Admiralty Station Mall. Peter The Great founded the fortress city of St. Petersburg from which he built Russia into a world naval power in the early Eighteenth Century. He brought in Italian artisans to design and build his palaces and churches--and even his military barracks. These photos depict the city as it emerged in that first century.

Peter & Paul Fortress Island

Peterhof lower garden

KFC Duet dinner after The Hermitage duty and the Model Museum visit:

Smile: It's a real chocolate milkshake.  Most 'milkshakes' in Russia
are just milk stirred up with some flavoring -- not cold and thick.

Thursday night President and Sister Rawson brought the three American Senior Couples together for a farewell dinner for Elder Tom Roberts and Sister Sheryl Roberts who have completed their mission and are leaving their post in far distant Petrozavodsk to return home to Park City, Utah.

Front: Rawsons, Roberts, Back: Allens, Archibalds

Friday Game Night at the Church for members, missionaries and friends featured games with M&Ms, Oreos, balloons, pingpong balls and spagetti noodles and refreshments of homemade root beer, sweet corn bread and Sister Allen's chocolate chip cookies. Think "Minute to Win It."

Get the spaghetti in your mouth to spear through a hollow penne pasta.
Drop it in the bowl. One with the most in the bowl after 1 minute wins.

Move the ping-pong balls from one bowl to another. First one done wins.

Can you move an Oreo from your forehead to your mouth without using your hands?
Ken tried twice but did not succeed.  

Neighborhood News

There is always something interesting going on around us. Sue walked to the Office Supply store one day this week and noticed this truck. She is a true ice cream addict so had to take the photo. Except for the spelling, it looks just like home! If you read the words on the bowls out loud, it sounds almost like "Baskin Robbins."

We've also had repairs happening. This is a picture of our street. It is not one-way! And there were a bunch of pot holes. They came through this week, and without banning parking on both sides of the street, managed to dig out the broken asphalt and come in with front loader and steam roller to fix the holes.  It looks pretty good now. The street is very narrow, and so before a car turns onto the street it looks to see if someone is coming towards it. If so, sit and wait until that car passes, then take your turn to drive a block or so. Luckily there isn't much traffic. But when a truck needs to unload, it just parks in the middle as long as it needs to--as in this photo. Then people will go the other way on the street and go around the block.

A couple of months ago they started knocking loose plaster off the outside of our building.  he plasterers came back this week to smooth on the new surface. This photo is of the man hanging onto the "roof" of our balcony with his toes while he scoops plaster out of the buckets and smooths it on the outside of the balcony above ours. Ken didn't like all the bits of plaster dropped on our balcony and into his tomato plants, so he tried to scrape it all off.

And at the bottom of the picture you can see the tractor that was digging out the potholes--and a car coming straight at him. Not sure who won.

Our Weekend Away

Two dachas on the way to Novgorod.  The left one is in great shape.
The one on the right looks like it will fall over any minute

President and Sister Rawson were going to Novgorod over the weekend, and we asked if we could ride along. It's about a three-hour drive southeast of St. Petersburg through beautiful Russian countryside. We saw lots of dacha (rhymes with cha-cha) houses along the way. Some are big and beautiful, some are small but well-maintained, and some look like they'd fall over in a stiff breeze. The drive is three hours going down to Novgorod on Saturday morning, but 4.5 hours driving home on Sunday evening. All the people who have gone out of the city to spend the weekend on their dachas are also going back home for the work week. Dachas are not just for the wealthy. Many, many families who live in tiny apartments in the city will still go out to their dacha. During later Soviet times the government gave the land to people so they could grow their own food in the summer and preserve the fruits and vegetables to eat over the winter. It helped with the general food shortages. Here is an article that explains dachas.





Before we stopped in Novgorod in the morning we made a couple of stops. The first was to the Yuriev Monastery. It is the oldest still-active monastery in Russia. The church was built in 1119, and is called St. George's Church.

St. George Church, Yuriev Monastery, Novgorod - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

Our traveling group for the weekend was Ken & Sue, and (clockwise) the Serebrennikovs, the Gavrilovs, and President &Sister Rawson. Brother Gavrilov is First Counselor to President Rawson in the Mission Presidency.  Brother Serebrennikov is Second Counselor and also one of the Mission Drivers.








The second stop was the "Wooden Village" near Novgorod.  This is an historical place where they are gathering traditional wooden buildings from the 1700-1800's and restoring them. This is the church, with a bell tower.  Someone came while we were there and played the bells.  It sounded like a modern carillon, but he was pulling on all the cables!  All the wooden buildings are natural wood, with no paint.  But the trim and windows and railings are beautifully carved.  In the homes the animals lived on the first floor and the family upstairs.

Watch and listen here to a short sample of the bell ringer.

After the village, we drove into Novgorod, had lunch, and checked into our hotel. The Mission 'dignitaries' had meetings and interviews that afternoon and evening. Ken and Sue got to go sight-seeing. Velikiy Novgorod (Great New City) is one of the oldest in Russia. It was founded in 892 and was a capital of the Rus' people way back in the 9th century, and then the capital of the Novgorod Republic from 1136 - 1478. It really was a Republic, with a largely democratic government--quite unusual for that time

The Kremlin, or Fortress, is the old city center. The wall is about 1.4 km all the way around. It has a river on one side and used to have a moat on the other three sides, but it is now just parkland.

The walls around the Kremlin are tall and thick with a walkway and many guard towers.

Saint Sophia's Cathedral was built in 1045-1050. It has been mostly restored, and it is the oldest Church in Russia still in use. The history of the cathedral is fascinating. Look it up in Wikipedia if you are interested. It was not named for a particular saint but rather after the Greek concept of Knowledge=Sophos.

The Creation Room - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

We loved the paintings just inside the historic west main entrance doors. We call it the "Creation Room." On the ceiling are six paintings for the six "days" of Creation. Then more below of Adam and Eve, with their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, and Adam working hard while Eve looks sad.





The Kremlin wall includes a large bell tower.  During World War II the Germans removed many of the bells to be melted down and turned into war materials. But the largest ones were too big to move, and so were found after the war and returned to Novgorod. Some of them are over 1,000 years old!

All around it is hard to imagine how all this was built with no power tools--mammoth brickworks and huge bells, etc.

Behind St. Sophia's is a replica of the first church, built before 1045, seen here  on the left.

Velikiy Novgorod Kremlin - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

We walked over the footbridge across the Volkhov River and then along the river for about a mile back to our hotel. The day was cloudy, but not too cold, so it was a pleasant walk.

Dinner in Novgorod at Archibald's - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

We enjoyed our LDS Church services with the Latter-day Saints in Novgorod on Sunday. The congregation is small, but there is a good spirit, and the people work well together. After church Elder and Sister Archibald hosted us at their home for dinner, and also invited the young Sisters--Sister Bettinger and Sister Baker. The young Elders had to catch a train to St. Petersburg so they could take visa trip on Monday morning, so they missed our dinner.  We felt badly, because if we hadn't hitched a ride, there would have been room for them to ride back that evening in the mission van. It was a good time to see Novgorod before the Archibalds are gone. They are being transferred to Kaliningrad in November. So now we will hope to go visit them there!  

As mentioned earlier, it was a very long drive home in stop/go traffic on the expressway. People were driving on the shoulder, and some even went off the road and drove along the edge of the forest! But we enjoyed the beautiful sunset and thunderhead clouds.