Fam trip Borodino - Smolensk - Talashkino

We wanted with our colleagues to go to these places for a long time and finally our wishes came true. And in late April we started our trip in a quite a bit team – 18 participants in 6 cars.

Borodino

Our first stop was the place that is known to everybody in Russia – Borodino field where the great battle with Napoleon took place in 1812. The field seemed endless and we were impressed by the its vastness and variety of memorials in different parts of it. The battle in which 120 000 soldiers took place from each side played an important role in the Patriotic war in 1812. We were lucky with the guide – Vladimir was so enthusiastic, emotional and passionate about the subject that we completely sank into the atmosphere of the early 19th century during this absolutely record in time tour – 5,5 hours!

Borodino
Borodino
Borodino
Borodino
Borodino
Borodino

Smolensk

We continued our trip further to the West and reached in the evening the old town of Smolensk. We were very much surprised to see very few people in the streets As we learned the following morning from our guide the city has only 330,000 citizens. The city is pretty old – originated in 863. Located 378 km to the west of Moscow it is known to be a “city-shield” in all wars in the 17th-20th centuries protecting the way to Moscow. Smolensk impressed us with fantastic churches dated back to the 12th century well preserved. As every significant city it has Kremlin – the red brick walls stretch through the historic centre. The gem of it – Assumption cathedral that has mixture of Russian orthodox church and western catholic cathedral decorative elements in interior which is very unusual. The reason for that – the city moved from Russia and Poland and back in its history. Many of the prominent Russia people coming from it had Polish roots and surnames. The city has a number of interesting museums – we visited Fine art museum that has a collection of Russian art as well as Western European Art. We also visited the museum of famous Russian sculptor Sergey Konenkov.

Smolensk
Smolensk
Smolensk
Smolensk
Smolensk
Smolensk

Talashkino

On the way to Moscow the following day we visited a very interesting place – estate Talashkino – fairy tale estate! The history of the estate is connected with the name of duchess Tenisheva who made it a centre of the cultural and music life of the region in late 19th-early 20th century. Many famous people visited it – Sergey Dyyagilev, Nikolay Rerikh who decorated the local church and a very talented artist Sergey Malyutin who lived here and designed the “Terem house” that has become the visit card of the place. The estate is surrounded by beautiful pine tree forest and we enjoyed a walk there.

Talashkino
Talashkino
Talashkino
Talashkino
Talashkino
Talashkino

As advised by our guide after Talashkino we made a stop in small town of Vyazma to see Ivan the Prophen convent with its gem – Odigitria cathedrals of the early 17th century – very rare one/ three-tent roofed - there are only 3 churches of this type in Russia including this one – also in Uglich and suburbs of Moscow.


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