On Sunday the 15th of September some of us international students decided to go to Kizhi, an island in lake Onega which is the home of some amazing wooden churches and buildings from the late 17th century/early 18th century (one even from the 14th centry!!). Be cause we're students and students generally are of a more 'economic' nature we went on the cheaper trip, which also happened to be 3 hours longer (one way).

 

After having endured 4 hours on a ferry, we arrived at the island and soon noticed that we were fortunate enough to catch one of the last days of summer (which had already left Petrozavodsk). Once there we were given a guide (funnily enough the Russian word for guide is gid) who took us round the island telling us about the different buildings. Although it was hard to understand everything he said, we could still gather a lot of interesting facts about the churches and the lives of the peasants that used to inhabit the island. For instance the churches were built completely in wood - including the nails!

 

The Kizhi island is on UNESCO's list of World Heritage sites and a pride of northwestern Russia and Karelia. If you're interested you can read more about it here.
        

One of the more interesting this that happened on the trip was a very drunk Russian man started bothering our company on the trip back to Petrozavodsk. He asked us where we were from and what we were doing there. This, he exclaimed, was his country and his Karelia and his Petrozavodsk. Even though the man was quite harmless (although threatening at some points) it was quite a disturbing experience. In a way I'm glad to have seen racism close at hand - something very rare for a white european man. It was great, though, to see how the rest of the people on the ferry were very helpful and protective of us foreigners! The best was when the man was mumbling to himself, of which I thought I recogniced some obcenities, and a woman in her late 40s told him off saying something like: "Man! Don't speak like that!"

 

Over and out.