‘Golden Ring’ Towns

Yes, you have to bribe traffic cops. And no, you cannot find toilet paper. The museum guards scowl. The hotel sheets scratch. The food is sure to Spackle your arteries.

But somehow, it’s hard to be grumpy when you’re touring Russia’s Golden Ring.

The nine ancient towns of the Golden Ring circle the countryside northeast of Moscow, strung out at distances that could be covered in a hard day’s horseback ride. Once a prime trade route--dominating commercial, cultural and religious life from the 11th through the 17th centuries--the Golden Ring seems stuck in time.

Imposing fortresses guard fairy-tale spires more enchanting than anything Disney could dream up. Open-air markets offer produce fresh from the field, sold by wrinkled women in vright scarfs. Wooden houses, painted turquoise or yellow, border rolling plains that sweep up to majestic churches. And picturesque vistas tumble past each jag in the road. It’s “The Wizard of Oz” meets “Dr. Zhivago,” with Sleeping Beauty’s castle as a backdrop.

My fiance, John, and I set out on a three-day tour of this wonderland in part to check out the new Russia’s attitude toward tourism. In Moscow itself, plush hotels provide every amenity, and then some, to business people on expense accounts. There’s even a Starlite Diner, with an all-American decor and menu, set up near the Kremlin to placate tourists hankering for meatloaf. But we wanted to see whether the concept of customer service had reached rural Russia--specifically, the tourist-enticing Golden Ring.

The answer, we found, was “sort of.”

Waitresses showed little willingness to adapt their menus for vegetarian tastes. A hotel manager refused to track down an extra blanket for our frigid room. And even near the most spectacular tourist attractions, it was often impossible to find camera film. That particular failing seemed refreshing at first (no photo op signs obscuring the view), but soon turned into a frustrating nuisance.

Yet the Golden Ring offers such delights that in the end, we could forgive even the reeking hole-in-the-ground toilets that sometimes passed for public bathrooms.

A trip through the Golden Ring offers a rare glimpse into life in the small towns of pre-Communist Russia. Dictator Josef Stalin may have ripped down the grand cathedrals of the big cities, but he didn’t get around to razing the countryside. So the towns still look pretty much as they did 400 years ago, built around fortresses, churches and marketplaces. Admittedly, it’s easy to get churched out. But whenever we felt our eyes glaze over at the sight of yet another onion dome, we would stumble across a tiny treasure that revived both our spirits and our curiosity.

In Rostov, we grinned at the dainty iron angels guarding sturdy fortress towers; in Suzdal (pronounced SOOZ dal), we grimaced at the nasty spiked shackles used to punish debtors. In Sergeev Posad (known during Communist times as Zagorsk), we caught a Russian Orthodox service in a vast pink and blue church illuminated by quavering candles. Priests in jeweled crowns swung incense and chanted blessings over the bread and cookies that worshipers had brought them.

Taking a break from churches, we trudged up a hill in the lakeside town of Pereslavl-Zalessky to marvel at the wooden boat Peter the Great commissioned in 1688 as he founded the Russian Navy. The next day, in the town of Kostroma (pronounced kas tra MA), we spent hours pouring over relics from the Romanov dynasty.

Everywhere, we saw more icons than we could hope to appreciate. But we also saw blue onion domes studded with gold stars, delicate wood carvings, fantastical masks, and an enormous gold Easter candle that took six men to carry.

In short, we were impressed.

Our itinerary crammed six towns’ worth of icons, forts and cathedrals into three days.

We hit the three most popular Golden Ring towns of Sergeev Posad, Suzdal and Vladimir, each a decent day trip from Moscow. We also roamed to the farther reaches of Pereslavl-Zalessky, Rostov and Kostroma, which sits about 130 miles from Moscow. Running out of time, we skipped two minor Golden Ring sites: Palekh (famous for its hand-painted lacquer boxes) and Ivanovo (now an industrial center with few tourist attractions).

We also, reluctantly, passed up the grand glory of Yaroslavl, a 985-year-old commercial center on the Volga River, renowned for the colorful glazed tiles that bedeck its churches and the massive fortress surrounded by walls nine-feet thick.

It’s possible to tour the Golden Ring by train, since rail service runs to all the major towns. Package tours to Moscow sometimes include bus excursions to Suzdal or Sergeev Posad. But if you hope to meander at your own pace, savoring the countryside and lingering over picnics, it’s best to hire a driver.

Driving yourself is probably not the best idea, even for the most adventuresome tourist. Russian roads, which bump along with many more potholes than directional signs, are downright hostile. Many lack center-stripe painting, and Russians feel at liberty to zoom from one side of the road to the other at terrifying speeds. Russian cars can be quite cranky, even if you’re willing to act like a native and pour vodka under the hood (it’s as cheap as windshield wiper fluid and much easier to find). Then, too, gas stations tend to close at the most inconvenient hours. Turned away from one on “lunch break” at 9:45 a.m., our driver had to fill his car from a grubby no-name tanker dispensing gas from a hose on the side of the rutted highway.

Several travel agencies now set up car and driver rentals for foreigners. They will also plan your itinerary, arrange for local translators, and make hotel and meal reservations.

They cannot, however, guarantee a glitch-free weekend--as we found out minutes after leaving our Moscow apartment on this weekend getaway in February.

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Our young driver, Aleksei, had not even reached downtown Moscow when his 7-year-old Lada car quit in the middle of a busy street. Aleksei leaped out of the car and started fiddling under the hood, leaving us to watch, perplexed, from the faux-sheepskin seat covers. He seemed rather ill-equipped for the job: no tools, no manual, no gloves, despite the biting winter wind. And indeed, he had no luck starting the engine--until we produced a Swiss Army knife and helped him clean some cables encrusted with salt.

On our way at long last, we headed for Sergeev Posad, about an hour’s drive (45 miles) from Moscow. There, we hit our second problem.

Our travel agent, Larisa Makhotkina--an endlessly perky woman who runs Charisma Travel from her Moscow home and produces English-language brochures for tourists--had planned for us to spend just 30 minutes exploring this dazzling town. No way. We spent that long meandering through the outdoor flea market, where underwear dangled off tree branches and silent grandmothers held out boots to potential buyers.

We knew we were running late, but no matter what our itinerary said we were not going to skimp on wandering through Sergeev Posad’s magical fortress.

Founded in the 13th century by an obscure monk, Sergius of Radonezh, who would later become St. Sergius (now patron saint of Russia), the fortress contains a gorgeous jumble of the quaint, the baroque, the lavish and the whimsical. One bell tower, painted with plump peaches and grapes, looks as slyly enticing as the witch’s lair from Hansel and Gretel. Tilting gravestones poking out of the ground add a surreal tinge. Outside the walls stands the obligatory statue of Lenin, forlorn as an abandoned child, pigeons perched saucily atop his stone head.

For all its tourist draw, Sergeev Posad remains a hallowed religious site. Russian Orthodox pilgrims still come to fill flasks with holy water from a sacred well. And worshipers still kneel in Trinity Cathedral, which dates from 1422, to kiss the ornate silver coffin bearing the remains of St. Sergius.

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Tourists are welcome to visit the various cathedrals, churches and chapels inside the fortress as long as they bare their heads, keep quiet and refrain from snapping photos. A donation to the church restoration fund never hurts, either. Photography is allowed on the grounds--for a fee. Most Golden Ring towns charge foreigners $3 to $8 for entrance to museums and cathedrals, plus an additional $1 to $5 for permission to use cameras.

Tearing ourselves away from Sergeev Posad’s wonders, we jumped into the car around noon, three hours behind schedule. Aleksei gunned the engine and hurtled down the road to Pereslavl-Zalessky. Zalessky means “beyond the forest” in Russian, and, indeed, we zipped past tranquil birch and pine stands at gut-churning speed. En route, we learned three of Aleksei’s favorite driving tricks: tossing snow at the windshield to wash off the dirt, bribing traffic cops to get past checkpoints and hopping out of the car in the middle of an intersection to ask directions.

We felt safer than if we had been flying Aeroflot--but not much.

The next two towns we visited, Pereslavl and Rostov, both welcomed us with grandiose panoramas full of spires and domes.

Each town boasts a fortress (the Russian word is kreml, as in Kremlin), breathtaking cathedrals and quirky museums worth peeking into. Pereslavl also offers a fascinating museum on the Russian Navy. Although all the placards are in Russian (as they are throughout the Golden Ring), the photos and knickknacks are self-explanatory. There’s even a letter written by Peter the Great, remarkably legible for readers of Russian.

Outside the fortresses, we strolled past dozens of colorful gingerbread houses decorated with fanciful paintings and carved wood shutters. Each one, it seemed, deserved a photo.

Once again, we dawdled long past the time limit on our itinerary in both Pereslavl and Rostov. As a result, we had to skip the town of Yaroslavl altogether, except to gobble a plate of soggy potatoes and brown bread in the only cafe that seemed to be open after 8 p.m. After dinner, we cowed in the back seat while Aleksei barreled down a pitch-black road in swirling snow, in a terrifying rush to hit the hotel our travel agent had booked for us in the town of Kostroma.

That hotel turned out to be the Volga ($60 for a double room, including a one-menu-fits-all breakfast of egg souffle and fat-streaked ham). The Volga’s brochure, designed to reel in foreigners, promised “maximum comfort” and “unforgettable impressions” of the “real Russia.” It delivered on the impressions, at least.

As with most Russian hotels, the Volga set out towels no thicker than two-ply toilet paper. The bathroom was tricked up with what, presumably, was supposed to be fancy decor--plastic soap dishes and wastebaskets in a garish shade of orange, and a fake marble paint job in the shower. But it was reasonably clean and comfy, and a long day of touring made sleep easy.

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In the morning, Kostroma beckoned.

The town’s acknowledged gem is the 14th century Ipatevsky Monastery. The main church was a treat, as the Biblical scenes painted on the ceiling are unusually lively.

And the monastery building contains wonderful exhibits on the Romanov Dynasty, which ruled Russia from 1613 until the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Four years before their downfall, the Romanovs gathered at the Ipatevsky Monastery to celebrate the 300th year of their reign. The museum displays souvenirs and photos from those festivities.

But the most gripping exhibits deal with Russia’s last Czar, Nicholas II, who was shot with his family shortly after the Communists consolidated power. Here, English readers luck out: Nicholas wrote to his wife, Alexandra, in amazingly clear English. Scrawled from the front lines of World War I, the letters contain both historical tidbits and gushy love talk--providing poignant peeks at a fascinating period of Russian history.

Mindful now of sticking with the schedule, we allowed ourselves just half an hour to stroll outside the monastery, past ancient wooden churches, snug cabins and a pair of gleeful young girls building a snowman. We did not have time for the nearby Museum of Wooden Architecture, a renowned outdoor exhibit that includes a wooden windmill, bathhouse and peasant hut.

Our hurry paid off, as we arrived at our next stop, Suzdal, before dark. Wearily, we tracked down our lodgings, an elf-like log cabin inside the Pokrovsky Monastery, which has started renting some of its rooms to tourists ($70 for a double, including breakfast). The monastery also runs a restaurant, and there we enjoyed our first (and only) top-notch meal on the road: juicy chicken Kiev in an austere but gorgeous hall with vaulted ceilings.

After dinner, noting the frost-like conditions in our all-too-rustic cabin, we trudged to the manager’s office to ask for extra blankets. He gawked at us, boggled. It seemed he couldn’t quite fathom the situation: tourists asking for extra blankets? What audacity!

Suspending his disbelief, he rallied to give us a most Russian response. “It’s warm in your cabin,” he assured us. “Really, it is. Much warmer than in most of the other cabins. You’ll be fine.”

And yes, we were fine. No frozen toes. Still, that hardly seemed the point.

The next morning, our travel agent had promised a ride on a traditional Russian troika, or horse-drawn sleigh. But the hotel manager explained that it wasn’t snowy enough for the horses. So we had to settle for a brisk 15-minute walk to the center of town, past skinny onion domes and fat onion domes, down Lenin Street and over a hill to yet another fortress.

By now, we were jaded. (So jaded, in fact, that we zipped through the final town on our itinerary, Vladimir, snapping photos from the car and passing up highly touted museums.)

Still, we couldn’t help but fall for Suzdal. Along with a glittering icon museum, the town enchanted us with a centuries-old clock marked off in Cyrillic letters; a church interior painted a shocking royal blue; enormous gates covered in gold leaf; and a chandelier sporting a dragon spitting out a faded tassel. We forgot our aching feet as we tried to identify saints on the church wall and decipher the biblical scenes crafted onto the gold-plated gates.

And no wonder. Suzdal seduces most visitors. Even V.I. Lenin, the avowed atheist, appreciated it: He declared the entire town a museum and ordered its residents to welcome tourists.

Eight decades later, they’re still working on the welcome. But they are learning.

When we returned to our monastery cabin to collect our bags after our daylong ramble, we noticed the maid had put extra blankets on both beds. Too late for us, but in time for the next guests who ventured onto Russia’s Golden Ring.

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GUIDEBOOK: Russian Ring

Getting there: Kras Air/Krasnoyarsk Airlines flies LAX-Moscow nonstop one day a week for about $1,430 round-trip. Aeroflot flies one weekly nonstop and two weekly direct flights stopping in Seattle; round-trip fares start at about $870. Delta also flies direct with a stop in New York. Connections with plane changes include Delta and Lufthansa through Frankfort, and KLM through Amsterdam; fares start at about $1,380.

To tour the Golden Ring from Moscow, hire a car and driver from a travel agency:

For Charisma Travel’s Larisa Makhotkina, who speaks fluent English, telephone in Moscow 011-7-095-278-6643, or fax 011-7-095-924-0440 or 011-7-095 -292-6511. A three-day trip with car and driver costs about $650, plus a service fee for the travel agent.

In the U.S., Russiatours, based in Tampa, Fla., U.S. tel. (800) 633-1008 or (813) 987-2477, arranges trips from Moscow. Typical four-day tour of the Golden Ring with car and driver costs $1,485 per person, double occupancy. Cultural Tours in Europe and Beyond, based in Washington, D.C., tel. (800) 826-7995 or (202) 333-5747, sets up similar excursions. Finally, Moscow’s Orient Express Service, tel. abroad 011-7-095-262-7393, fax 011-7-095-262-8324, offers rail tours of the Golden Ring.

For day trips, consider Sergeev Posad. A train runs from Moscow’s Yaroslavsky Station. A one-way trip takes about an hour. Trains to Vladimir, 120 miles away, leave from Moscow’s Kursky Station. Suzdal is a half-hour drive from Vladimir, but you need to hire a private car (cost about $10-$15).

Where to stay: Hotel Volga, 1 Yunosheskaya St., Vladimir, tel. 011-7-0942-546-262, fax 011- 7-0942-546-062. Double room, $60 including breakfast. Hotel Yubilinaya, Kotorosl Naberezhnaya 11a, Yaroslavl, tel. 011-7-0852-224- 159. Hotel Pokrovsky Monastery, Suzdal, tel. 011-7-09231-20- 889 or 20-908. Double room, $70 with breakfast.

For more information: Russian National Tourist Office, 800 3rd Ave., Suite 3101, New York, NY 10022; tel. (212) 758-1162; fax (212) 758-0933.

S.S.