Russia: Day Three, Part One

View of Plyos and the Volga from Cathedral Hill

Our rooms at the Motel are very nice and each of us has his or her own.  There’s plenty of hot water in the bathroom for showers, and the soap is lily-of-the-valley scented, which is always a plus to me. There’s also a fan to turn on in the heat of the day (it is June, after all) and - oh miracle! - screens on the windows to keep out the fierce hordes of blood-hungry Cossack mosquitoes.  The television gets six channels, all in Russian...  which offers me the strange experience of watching Sponge Bob in Russian. And there are thick curtains on the windows, because at this time of year, sunrise is around 4 a.m.!
  Our breakfast menu serves up spam (a nod to Monty Python) and crêpes, which are delicious (the crêpes, that is).   Then our two groups - Motelers and Annamites (those staying at Anna's) - meet up by a church being repaired (one of many across the countryside) and it’s off to discover Plyos.

As we’re staying put today, a bit of information on our base camp town should be wedged in here.
  Plyos is called the Pearl of the Volga, and I’d have a hard time arguing with that.  It’s of manageable size for visitors - population 3,200 - quiet enough for those seeking a restful break, and in one of the most striking settings possible, with the Volga, Russia’s longest river, flowing by.  Back in the 12th century, the city was ransacked by both the Mongols and the Tatars but was rebuilt each time.  Now, as is the case in areas of Paris, any new construction must respect the historical character of the town. This has protected its rural aspect... and probably is why it’s a destination for many of Russia’s rich-and-rising in search of country homes.
  Local folklore has it that Plyos merchants bribed the authorities so they wouldn’t run the railroad through their town, fearing the commercial competition would bankrupt them.  And so when the railroad opened between the nearby regional cities in 1871, it didn’t pass through Plyos.  That reminds me of the bourgeois French city of Auxerre that similarly refused right of passage to the French railroad, deeming it too demeaning.
  In the late 19th century, Plyos became an artist’s retreat, and is still viewed as “Russia’s Switzerland” because of the beauty of the countryside.  Isaak Levitan, Russia’s most celebrated landscape artist, found inspiration here in the summers of 1888 to 1890.  Playwright Anton Chekhov commented that Plyos “put a smile in Levitan’s paintings”.  But Chekhov also angered the married artist by depicting Levitan’s love life in Plyos with his mistress in his short story “The Grasshopper”.

Church of the Resurrection

On the way down the hill into town I buy some beaded jewelry from an elderly lady selling her handicrafts in the park that Ursula and I discovered - before any others - last night.   We pass many art students painting the landscape below.  And then in the final curve, a magnificent golden-domed church appears, silhouetted against the trees.  We’re told that, although not a rich town, Plyos is beloved of ex-President Medvedev and he has seen to the restoration of this particular church, which now deserves its name: the Church of the Resurrection.
  We’re headed down the street along the river to the Levitan Museum, past shops and cafés and stands, one of which sells freshly smoked fish of all sorts and sizes.  We also pass a funeral, which is quite different from funerals I’ve known in France or the States.  The coffin is in the street, still open, and the dearly departed wrapped in a white sheet.  There’s none of the asepticizing I’m used to; it’s much closer to nature.
  The museum is in the home Isaak Levitan rented during his painting forays here.  We are shown around the downstairs rooms, where his paintings are hung on all the walls.  And we get an explanation in Russian and in French.  Very thorough.  I preferred seeing the artist’s furnished rooms upstairs, complete down to hair brushes and towels.  As if Levitan had just stepped out to paint by the Volga.

Afterwards we walk through the backstreets - each house with its garden - to a restaurant with what appears to me to be a Tyrolean air about it.  And it is indeed a biergarten.  We sit for a while on the terrace over a beer, juice or apéritif, then go upstairs to eat.  The stair railing is decorated with fish just like the smoked ones we saw earlier at the woman’s stand, but these are made out of wrought iron.  As are the coat hangers.
  And then we turn the corner into the dining room to discover... a tree growing out of the floor and right up to the rafters, which are themselves huge!  The bar has been built around it and decorations added to the tree trunk and main branches to make it seem as if it has leaves.  Quite amazing.