Welcome to Vladimir

Welcome to Vladimir! Добро пожаловать!

A view of two of Vladimir's most famous landmarks: Dmitrievsky Cathedral (left) and Dormition Cathedral (right)

I've been in Vladimir for about 10 days now. Over the next couple days, I'll be preparing some posts about some of the things I've done since I arrived. It would be a really long post if I tried to describe the whole first week and a half here. Needless to say, it's been a whirlwind of a ride, but amazing so far!

I had a long flight here. I'm not sure how many hours it was with all the flights and the drive from Moscow to Vladimir, and I was definitely too tired to try to do the math because I only slept maybe two hours total on the journey. Despite that, it really wasn't a bad journal, just long. I started getting excited again as we descended toward Moscow. The view from the sky is so pretty: pine trees, snow, and cute houses.

First view of Russia

In Moscow I was met by one of my teachers and we traveled by car to Vladimir. Vladimir's only about 200 kilometers from Moscow, so maybe a 2 or 3 hour journey, but it took us 5 hours because of the Friday afternoon Moscow traffic. 

We finally got to Vladimir and to my host mom's apartment. My host mom's name is Lubov Nikolaevna. She's a retired teacher and is very sweet. It's just her and me living in the apartment, but she often has students who come by to practice reading or English with her. We live in a small apartment building on the first floor. It only has two floors, which is unusual for apartment buildings in Russia.

Наш красный дом / Our red house

I'll end with just a little information about Vladimir. Vladimir is the administrative center of the Vladimir Oblast, and is located about 200 km (120 mi) to the North-East of Moscow. It was probably founded in the early 12th century, was one of the medieval capitals of Russia, and is a historical center of Russian Orthodoxy. Both cathedrals from the first photograph, Dmitrievsky Cathedral and Dormition Cathedral were built during the 12th century. 

Vladimir has about the same population size (about 350,000) as my hometown, Lexington, KY, but is only about a quarter of the size. Many buildings in the center of the city have stores on the ground floor and many floors of apartments above the stores. Additionally, Vladimir has a good public transit system which uses buses, trolleybuses (electric buses), and marshrutki (a cross between a taxi and a small bus). This makes Vladimir very easy to navigate. I take the bus to school every day and so far it's been easy and I've had no problem (I'll have a more detailed post about public transit later). 

Anyway, so far everything's been great. Since I didn't sleep much on the plane, I really had no trouble adjusting to the time change. I'm pretty sure the water made me sick the first few days but I'm doing better now and can drink the water (yay!). My host mom took me to school the first day of classes and since then I've been going on my own. I'm enjoying my classes, the food, the city, pretty much everything! 

I apologize that this post has been a bit long and all over the place, but check back soon for more posts and pictures about classes, food, a trip to the Golden Gate museum, a walk around the city, and more! And feel free to let me know in the comments what you'd like to hear more about!