Uglich is one of the old Russian cities Barbara and Sam visited during the summer of 2006.
On the 25th of July they and their host families got up early, met near the big Dubna sign and left for Uglich. While driving they were listening to music. Sam's host father suggested visiting Kalyazin first, where they saw a beautiful flooded bell tower and also visited the Lubok museum. They learnt that lubok is a cheap popular printed picture, used for newspapers in ancient Russia.

When they got to Uglich first they visited a memorial complex including several churches and the Dmitrie's palace, (Dmitrie was Ivan the Terrible's son). Then Barbara and Lena dressed costumes like those Russian tsarinas wore, and posed for pictures. It was fun though the costumes were quite heavy and warm! After that their host families took them for lunch and to the Vodka museum, where they were told about the history of this Russian drink and learnt that ancient Russians had a special punishment for hard drinking: it was a heavy iron medal of about 13 pounds.

It's well-known that one of the things many girls like most is shopping. So, in the end Sam, Barbara, Masha and Lena went to the local souvenir market, where they did a little shopping and took some pictures. Everybody got home full of impressions.

Lena Krylova.


Dmitrov, the 19th of July .
We visited Dmitrov on our back way from Alexandrov. We were in downtown and watched on ancient buildings, cathedrals etc. We got pictures with Yuri Dolgorukii monument and other monuments in downtown. Our American guests were especially excited with a view from the wall around the Dmitrov Kremlin.

Pasha Pankratov.


Alexandrov.
On the 19th of July, we went to Alexandrov as a group. We spent about 3 hours driving there on a bus, which was fun since we could all hang out together. Once we got there, we went to the Kremlin for a tour. At first we went into a building that was originally used as a general store. There we had some hot tea and spice cookies, which were really nice since it was cold and rainy outside.

We were also allowed to look around the general store and see some Russian items that don’t exist in America, such as samovars and Russian cloths. Then we went to a cathedral, which contained a few things from the time of Ivan the Terrible. We learned a little about how Ivan the Terrible used Alexandrov as a hideout and how Alexandrov had briefly been the most important city in Russia from our tour-guide and the displays. The cathedral was interesting because only the floors have been restored since the time of Ivan the Terrible so you could really see what the cathedral looked like and not just an imitation.

Afterwards, we went to a peasant house where we had different people participating in a matchmaking ceremony. The participants were Lena’s mother (Sveta) as the matchmaker, Pasha and Masha as the two people getting married and Masha’s mom (Marina) as Masha’s mom who gave consent to the marriage. We all enjoyed the ceremony because we had never seen anything like and it was entertaining watching our two friends get engaged.

Then we went to the basement of a building where we had some kvass, which is a traditional Russian drink. The Alexandrov Kremlin was a very interesting and fun place to visit. It offered a lot of enjoyable activities, which helped the American students see some of the older Russian traditions.

Barbara Jedele.