The Day of National Unity in Vyborg

The Russian version of fall break begins tomorrow -- yay!! Unfortunately, just like at Penn, we only have two extra days off. But this vacation is actually in honor of something. November 4th is the Day of National Unity. I'll give you a second to think that one over... Yeah, what holiday?? I thought this was a completely made up holiday, as did Ludmilla Petrovna, my grammar teacher. But according to Wikipedia it was celebrated in the Russian Empire to commemorate the end of the Time of Troubles in the 17th century. It was revived by Putin a few years ago to replace the previous October holidays, the Soviet one celebrating the October Revolution and Yeltsin's Day of Accord and Conciliation.It seems to be pretty devoid of any meaning, though, like most of our governmental holidays. (Although this one does seem to be a little more ridiculous because of its pure ridiculousness. But who's going to complain about getting a day off work?)

Sitting in the very back of the bus,
next to 3 people and 2 dogs.

Today I went with my Russian friend Alisa to the town of Vyborg, a two hour bus ride north of Saint Petersburg. This was my first real trip outside of the immediate vicinity of Saint Petersburg and its various suburbs. The highway began as a 3 lane, well-paved road, but eventually turned into a 1 lane, not-so-well-paved road. Everyone was going at least 70 miles an hour, and our bus was being passed on both sides by cars. Luckily I was distracted by the scene outside the bus windows. The road was surrounded on both sides by seemingly endless forests of white birch trees. Every once in a while there'd be a gap in the trees for a clustered group of slightly run-down looking houses. But they seemed to be only an aberration in the vast expanse of white birches.

Castle of Vyborg

Upon arriving, we naturally stopped to ask for directions to the castle, which was built by the Swedes in 1293. The woman we asked gave us rather vague directions, mainly "See that building? Well, go over there!" with a vague wave of the arm to the right. Of course that was not the right way at all and we had a rather interesting journey through fields and sketchy back roads. Then again, since Swedes, Finns, and Russians have been invading and stealing this area back from each other for at least 900 years, I suppose getting lost in the rain for a while is perfectly normal.

From the top of the tower

Since it was raining, we didn't walk around the grounds of the castle so much (plus we were already pretty wet from our adventure finding the castle in the first place). However we did go up to the top of the tower adjacent to the castle. It's at least 4 stories tall, and it was quite a hike up to the top. But once we got up there the view was beautiful. You can see the entire town of Vyborg, as well as the surrounding undeveloped areas and the Gulf of Finland.

All in all, it was really nice day spent with a good friend while seeing a different side of Russia.