Driving out of Kazan after one of the best breakfasts for many a day, we travelled west (after driving north and getting lost) to the Raifa Bogoroditskii (Virgin) Monastery. It was built in 1613 by the monk Filaret during the reign of the first Romanov after the “Time of Troubles” and dedicated to Egyptian Holy Fathers who were tortured to death in Sinai at St Catherine’s Monastery. That’s where we were practically tortured to death in 2023 at the Morgenland Hotel where we paid a fortune to stay, had to pay £2 for a bottle of water and couldn’t get into the monastery because it was closed. Of course it was, Christians don’t open churches and monasteries on a Sunday. Still, Raifa made up for it. There were two major churches, a museum of the history of the Russian Orthodox Church and a display of the local wildlife. Although a tourist honey trap, it had monks wandering about in their long black habits. They live there, growing vegetables and flowers and produce pizzas and other staple meals for the tourists.
At Svyazhskoye, an island in the middle of the Volga since a dam and hydro station were built on the river, a number of buildings were erected by Ivan the Terrible including a fort as Christian Russia pressed eastwards into Moslem Tatarstan. The most significant (and beautiful) building is the Cathedral of the Icon of the Mother of all who Sorrow. We got there in the evening when the town seemed practically deserted so we slept in the car park and had a delicious supper of hard boiled eggs, bread and cheese.
Burger King in Kazan
A bear at Raifa
Raifa monastery
Karl Marx at Raifa Monastery
Boat house for the lake
Books from the 16th century
Painting of the execution of Pugachev who lead a peasant’s rebellion in the region.