Earlene's Adventures: Uglich

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Tuesday 9/25/12

entrance to town of Uglich

This is a small town of about 35,000 people whose claim to fame is St. Dimitry Dimitriy, tzarivitch was one of Ivan’s heirs who died as a young boy. His cause of death is thought to be either stabbing, to keep him off the throne, or an accident as he was playing outside with a pen knife. He was sent away from Moscow when Tsar Ivan died because of the political upheaval in the capital city.

His death was commemorated in several churches – one particularly interesting one with dark blue cupolas with gold stars--and 15 years after he died he was canonized as a royal martyr.

The visit to Uglich was rather short – 2 hours, which was more than enough time to walk to visit 2 churches,(where every inch of wall and ceiling are covered with frescoes)

We heard Dimitri’s story and also heard a short but lovely men’s chorus perform.

The 6 men sang 2 songs—first, a prayer and second, The Volga Boatman. Their voices filled the church and their harmony was truly beautiful.

After the visit to the historical areas of Uglich, we ran the “gauntlet” of souvenir shops. N’s ears had been getting cold out on deck, so we looked for a warm stocking cap for him. I found an ear covering also, of chinchilla. It feels really good and I’m sure it will be useful in winter in Texas (HA!) Furs of every sort (mink, chinchilla) were found in hats, vests, gloves, scarves. Also available were embroidered table linens, aprons, shirts and kitchen goods. Nesting dolls were in most kiosks along with variations on that idea.

Not sure what others bought, guess we’ll find out when we compare notes back on the ship.

Uglich is a weekend retreat for folks from Moscow, so there are several good hotels.

This is the last weekend for foreign tourists to visit Uglich—they told us that the Volga river will freeze over soon limiting their tourism business until spring.

It was very cold on deck this morning, but had warmed up a little for our walking tour.