July 11, 2007 – Leaving Vladimir!

Housing in Morum.

Ilya the Warrior greeting the Americans at the University in Morum.

My host family in Morum.

I was able to sleep in a bit this morning.  We didn’t have to arrive at the American Home until 10:00 AM.  I packed most of my stuff the night before.  My host family loaned me a duffle bag to carry my belongings to Murom since it made no sense for me to lug my HUGE suitcase to Murom for a four day visit.  The American teachers were allowed to keep our suitcases and any other “stuff” we didn’t want to carry to Murom in Vladimir.  We would be coming back to Vladimir for the overnight train to St. Petersburg in a few days so it made sense to keep our stuff there.  My host family helped me carry all my stuff to car.  Oh, I had an interesting breakfast: cooked fish and rice?  🙂

We had our last language lesson with Tatiana – the topic was things that are surprising for foreigners.  Afterwards, there was a two-way press conference with local mass media representatives.  It was sorta cool because we could ask them questions too.

Ate lunch at the Traktir.  We went back to the American Home and Alexei prepared a nice slideshow with music of all the pictures that were taken during our stay in Vladimir.  Very nice! 🙂

Alexei and the rest of the American Home staff then did the traditional Russian good-bye – a toast with a shot of vodka! 🙂

And then we were off to Murom (see photo above)!  After a two hour bus ride – we arrived at the Morum Institute of Vladimir State University to be greeted by our host families (see photo above).  We also had a presentation of Ilya the Warrior (See photo above). Ilya Murometz is the most famous of the mighty warriors, said to have lived in the twelfth century. Ilya of Murom, a peasant’s son, has sat motionless for 33 years. One day two travelling pilgrims stir him and exclaim “Arise! Go forth! Thou shalt become a mighty warrior”. From that moment on he becomes a warrior of extraordinary powers and the defender of the Holy Russia. He procures a horse which flies through the air ‘above the motionless forest and a little below the clouds scudding across the sky’. Ilya follows the pilgrims’ advice and sets out to find the mightiest warrior of them all – Svatogor. 

First impressions of Murom:  much different than Vladimir – smaller.  More industrialized and run down.  Murom reminded me of the mill towns here in New England like Lowell and Lawrence.  Murom is trying to encourage tourism to boast the economy here. Hence, the legend of Ilya Murometz! 🙂

I met my new host family.  Elena is the mother – she is an English instructor at the University.  Liliya is the daughter and is studying at the University.  Juriy is the father – he owns the only car rental company in Murom.  They were very nice.  We went back to the their flat for dinner.  I unpacked a bit and organized myself.  My room is beautiful – I have a balcony that overlooks the Oka River and countryside.  I presented them with my gifts.  I think the baseball hat was popular!  After dinner, they took me to the local amusement park.  It seems that this amusement park was the HOT spot – there were other Americans there with their host families too.  The park is located on the Oka River – the  largest right tributary of the Volga River.

After a nice walk, we headed back to the flat for a good nights rest.  It’s so peaceful here.  As soon as my head hit the pillow, I was asleep!

Paka (informal “Bye” in Russian) 🙂