309 Novgorod Old City- July 2-3rd with Misha Alexi, Anton etc
I wanted to go to Novgorod, cos it seemed quite different for Russia, as it has a tourist office and Youth Hostel. The train was full so I had to take a mainline train to a small town an then the bus. As ever in Russia the small town was very undeveloped it looked like something from 50 years ago ..old wooden buildings etc.

- Sun Novgorod turned out to a smaller city with a well preserved Kremlin (walled old town) with beautiful river beach. Russia's first city Actually 1000 years ago A Viking prince was brought in by the nobles to be in charge and he founded Russia with Novgorod as it's capital.... later the capital moved to other cities .. when Ghengis Khan attacked the rest of the empire all the bishops fled to Novgorod as it was protected by being in the centre of marshland, so the city has many old monasteries. This famous sculpture shows the complete history of Russia

The tourist office was very helpful. I bet that their understanding of tourism comes from being close to Latvia. I checked out the Youth hostel : not so good institutional feel and no sign, so I took the chance to meetup with HCer Misha he picked me up in his old Lada and we had lunch at his place. Then we met up his friend Anton and daughter and went to explore the Kremlin. First we went to try some local mead. Then we met up with some other HCers like Anton a well travelled young computer programmer. (photo: Misha always doing online chat thro' his pocket PC and mobile)

Misha and Me ,Kremlin