Sleepy Suzdal-Ad

So our first trans-siberian train proper was as bit of a false start as it was only 3hours to Vladimir (lunch provided!!) and then a hair raising transfer in a fast car complete with duff duff music and no seatbelts to Sleepy Suzdal.

Suzdal used to be a bustling town with each family building its own wooden church at the end of their wooden-house streets. The town prospered and these churches gradually were replaced by elaborate stone versions. The old keeping up with the Joneses trick. Two quirks of history meant that time passed this town by from the 1800s on:
1. an innovative new town plan limited 'high rise' buildings which meant the town grew outwards rather than upwards and many of the old central wooden houses were kept intact
2. the railway was built 30km south of here thus bypassing the town and leaving it to slowly deteriorate

Now of course, it's a 'major' tourist attraction and many of the old wooden houses and stone churches have been restored to their former glory so it has the double pleasure of being a sleepy traditional style town which also has beautiful buildings every where you look. Trying to take a photo of a church? Sun in the wrong place? Simply turn around and take the church behind you instead.

Suzdal also seems to be wedding photo central. Clearly love is in the air around here; yesterday while pottering around the old kremlin we saw no less than 6 different wedding parties. I tell you, wedding dresses, Russian style are a mixed bunch. The hightlight, most certainly, was the ever-so-slighty-past-her-prime bride climbing (ungracefully) up on to the rentable horse (for tourists) and doing a lap of honour up and down the cobbled street. I have a photo. Priceless. For everything else there's mastercard.*


* Although not around here, it's cash or clean dishes.