Vladimir is a city with an ancient history, founded well before Moscow (three quarters of a century or longer, the precise year is debated), that was the most prominent city in Medieval Rus after the decline of Kiev and before the Mongol invasion. Raised by the Grand Prince Andrey Bogolyubsky to great prominence as the capital during the 12th century and containing churches and cathedrals that have survived since then, Vladimir now fulfills the role of a grand tourist attraction. I imagined surely something else must happen there, but nobody talks about it; all anyone cares about is how Alexander Nevsky’s remains were buried here until 1704 and that Bogolyubsky was murdered on a stairway in this cathedral. Which, I mean is understandable. Why would visitor care about the fact that the area is the seat of its principality, contains a university, and is known for producing electrical machinery? Masha Nordbye mentions this in passing in our reading (1) , but when I first perused it, I cared more about the Cathedral of St. Demetrius, built in 1193, than this.
The issue is that by reading all of this history and more or less ignoring the present situation, somehow in my mind I created the expectation that I was traveling to a 12th century city, in contrast to the modernization of Moscow. Suffice to say, I was not surprised when I left the hostel the first morning and the first thing I found was this:
What is it? That’s not entirely clear from the picture, but it clearly is ancient. In fact, it is made out of concrete. It leads to some sort of old industrial area under one of the most popular 12th century modes of transportation: the train. All right, I’m being silly now, but you get the idea: my first impression of Vladimir was not of some historic city of princes, but rather of a very modern, and frankly, rather run-down place. This is, in fact, a road, and I saw several cars pass it, but it has numerous cracks and was covered with water. Several nearby roads were dirt and not even the nicest dirt roads I’ve ever seen; a bit rocky.
This was a complete departure from Moscow where the roads are constantly being washed and the benches always being repainted, and the roads are in excellent condition. I imagined we must be staying in the outskirts of town; however, another 5 minutes of walking took me to the main street. At 8 in the morning on a Saturday, it was totally deserted. Here, the conditions were better (i.e., there roads were not covered with water-filled indentations), but the architecture still did not amaze; it looked like pretty standard rows of flats and shop fronts. The whole effect was not helped by the fact all of the trees had been, well, recently trimmed (see photo), and for some reason had the bases of their trunks painted white. Disillusioned, I returned to the hostel an hour earlier than expected, not entirely sure what to think.
The rest of this day was spent in the even more ancient town of Suzdal, which feels much more like an ancient town, probably because there are 40 churches and a population of only about 10,000. Of course, some Eleventh-century peasant would be totally alarmed seing a car rolling past one of his churches, but the architecture was much more as expected. After a long day of walking around Suzdal, we returned to Vladimir and appropriately ate pizza for dinner.
Suzdal
The next day, we toured the sites of Vladimir and I finally got to see the promised historic churches and cathedrals, from the legendary Uspensky Cathedral where princes were crowned to the white marble of the Cathedral of Saint Demetrius. Looking through these places, I began to get a feeling of the centuries of history imbued into their walls, but with the acute realization that this time had long passed. And while in the end I got some grasp of the history, I felt that the current Vladimir, which melds medieval history with contemporary industry, I barely understood at all. I could see, though, that Vladimir is a completely different city than Moscow. Where Moscow is always rushed, bursting everywhere with color and noise, Vladimir is more spread out, with fewer tall buildings and a more rural feeling. But one thing is the same: among the historical sites, contemporary Russia also abounds. From the industrial concrete in Vladimir to American fast food joints along the Arbat in Moscow, the present is just around the corner. Actually, though, there’s plenty of concrete and run down neighborhoods in Moscow, and Vladimir has a McDonald’s. There are some modern things in every city, it seems.
1 Nordbye, Masha. “Vladimir.” In Moscow, St. Petersburg and the Golden Ring. Hong Kong: Odyssey Books. 2015.
