Troika Rides in Sergiev Posad

This past Tuesday I went with a group of girls from the AWO out to Sergiev Posad, a town about an hour and a half outside of Moscow. It is famous for the monastery, however, we will have to return to visit that as we were busy the whole day with only a quick 10 minutes left for the monastery.

We started out with tea and blini's (think thin pancakes) at Sveta's. She runs a bed and breakfast out there and helped me to organize our trip for the day. Then we headed out to the forest where the troikas met us to carry us deeper into the forest. It is amazing how beautiful the snow is out there - the pollution of the city hasn't gotten to it and it just glowed! It was also a beautiful sunny day albeit a bit chilly (10-20 degrees F). We rode the troikas into the forest where our friends had a campfire set up for us complete with hot dogs to roast and champanski and vodka to toast!

We took turns riding the troikas and just sat around the fire trying to keep warm and chatting.

After the rides, we headed back to Sveta's, where she has a full traditional Russian meal for us. We started with cold appetizers of cheese, blinis, and fish. Then the borsh (which I did try, but unfortunately I still didn't like it! Although everyone else raved about it!), and some sort of stew.

It was a fun traditional Russian afternoon and I'm so glad I've got the opportunity to experience things like this now that I'm not working!

View into the woods - an amazingly clear day

Our two Troika's (traditionally they are sleighs pulled by 3 horses - we forgot to ask why we only had one horse pulling each sleigh)

The girls around the campfire

In the Troika