Russia Day 8 (Yaroslavl, Russia): Walking around town, A Couple of Churches and Shopping

Today we’re docked on one of the most significant ports on the Volga River. We went to another church and a street market and wondered around for a bit.

Yaroslavl is not a very well-known city but it’s a unique city that has made the UNESCO World Heritage list and has 140 monuments.  We took a walking excursion through the oldest part of Yaroslavl, Stelka.

We started out at The Church of Elijah the Prophet which has never been refurbished or had to be rebuilt and has the most vibrant, perfectly preserved interiors in all of Russia. The frescoes in the interior were painted by Skripin’s widow and a team of 15 people. Not only do the paintings depict the life of Elijah the Prophet but they also show what domestic, everyday life was like. It was revolutionary to depict the lives of peasants on temple walls.

The next stop of our walking tour was a farmer’s market, street market and shopping area. My mom loves places like this!  A lot of the booths here have World Cup merchandise. We spent a long time looking around the street market. The booths were arranged like a maze, they weren’t very consistent and some isles and vendors spaces were larger or smaller than others. The shopping area around the street market had more traditional souvenirs and your normal shops and cafés.

We passed by another church on our way back to the ship. I don’t remember the name of this church but it was a practicing church so men had to take their hats off and women had to cover their heads. There was a service in session when we got there. This was the newest in Yaroslavl donated by a patron in Moscow. Modern churches like this one have domes made of titanium instead of gold because gold is too expensive.

There were also vendors at the port when we returned to our ship but we didn’t have much time to stop and shop. We had dinner shortly after we boarded and lounged around until bedtime.

We walked a lot today!